The Searchers

A handy WordPress feature allows me to see what search terms bring potential readers to this blog. Special thanks goes to the owner of the phrase “court in act of masterbaiting by my mom.” I performed my own Google search for the term, and yes, this blog pops up in position three. Weird.

Quick Links

Got back last night from two poetry-filled days in Toledo.  Got to meet lovely poet and even lovelier human being Rane Arroyo.  Seriously.  One of the nice people I have ever met.  (Since this is a poetry blog, not an OMG Celebrity! blog, here are some of his recent poems.)

And now, some links stolen from Siliman’s Blog:

Discussions of pro-feminist male poetics

Shakespeare’s sonnets turned into Morse Code

A chapbook contest will decide winner via racquetball tounament

and Slavoj Žižek calls Billy Collins a genius

Zygotes

Two poems in the current issue of Zygote in My Coffee.    Two more coming later in the year, in their annual print edition.

More from Roseanne

Conservatives are really smart people, and like P. T. Barnum, have gotten rich by never overestimating the intelligence of the American people. I think conservatives are basically assholes. Of you watch them closely for a minute or two, you will be able to recognize that they are the same kids in elementary school who ate their boogers, and I bet most of them still do, too. Can’t you just imagine George Bush, Pat Robertson, Reagan, Nixon, et al., hiding behind their respective school buildings sort of removed from the group, chewing on a you know what, enviously eyeing the children who could actually make friends, and then, with their weak chins aquiver, they would screw up their faces and scream, “I’m telling!” as they conjure up all the tight-lipped Protestant rage they are capable of mustering? What we need is a Woman, a mother for President, and I’m going to run someday, and my campaign motto will be “Let’s vote for Rosie, and put some new blood in the White House – every twenty-eight days.”

My Life as a Woman, 1989, pg 117

Last Roseanne Post

Well, maybe not last forever, but for a while anyway.  I am always interested in other artists creative relationship with politics, and here is a little insight into Roseanne’s:

In the middle of all of this, I kept thinking: If I keep playing these coffeehouses, I’m going to be a radical comic, but I want to be a mainstream comic – or do I?  Then I figured out that I could say everything that I wanted to say by being a housewife.  I could say, “Why don’t men clean things up?”  I worked it out with my sister, evolving this character from just six jokes.

We discovered it one day in a restaurant.  I remembered my Mom and all the neighbor ladies reading Fascinating Womanhood when I was young, and how there was a chapter on manipulating your old man by becoming a “Domestic Goddess” . . . Perfect Wife, Homemker, etc. I said, “What if I say “Domestic Goddess” as a term of self-definition, rebellion, truth telling?”

My Life as a Woman, 1989, pg 172-3

West Virginia

I spent this past weekend in Spencer, West Virginia, staying at the Gift of Tears Catholic Worker house, which is not as threatening as its mildly S/M sounding name would imply. Still haven’t processed everything, but saw some of the most amazing landscapes, a house being built by hand, and West Virginia’s tallest elm.

Also, mountaintop removal may be the most revolting thing ever.

re: Cuba

Yesterday I posted excerpts from the Cuban speech at the UN General Assembly.  I think referenced some items that not everyone is familiar with.  Here are two:

• The Cuban Five – The US holds five Cubans is prison, and have for over a decade now, for bogus “terrorism” charges.  The five Cubans came to the US and successfully infiltrated several anti-Cuba groups (groups which are known for illegal terrorist activity) to serve as monitors.   The trials were rigged, and the subsequent appeals process has been just as bad.
• Wet-foot/Dry-foot policy – Any Cuban who lands on US soil can legally enter the country (dry foot), while any picked up on water are sent back (wet foot).  What is less discussed, however, is how the US regularly denies many or most of the applications for Cubans to enter the country legally (and safely).  At the same time, the US grants expedited naturalization to Cubans who are able to land on US soil.  This combination – denial of legal means, added benefit of citizenship – is what leads many Cubans to travel via make-shift rafts to the US.  For the US gov’t, this provides continuous photo opportunities to demonstrate how desperate Cubans are to leave their country, while carelessly endangering their lives.