"Unrecognized Legislators Of The World"

This is a great bit of news. Thanks, Ifeanyi Menkiti, you are doing a wonderful service for all of us.

When he bought the venerable Grolier Poetry Book Shop in April, poet and professor Ifeanyi Menkiti took a leap of faith. It will take a lot of that to make the store succeed in a publishing world where poetry inhabits a tiny corner.

Menkiti is undaunted.

``I have a strong sense of hope and belief that poetry can help our world," he said. ``The sense of a world together has formed a very important part of my own poetry, and I'm hoping the Grolier can organize programs to keep that spirit alive."

For 79 years, the little box on Plympton Street near Harvard Square, where bookshelves share wall space with framed photos of such friends and patrons as Allen Ginsberg, T.S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore, persisted under only two owners -- founder Gordon Cairnie and, since 1974, Louisa Solano. It's one of only two all-poetry stores in America; the other is Seattle's Open Books.

Is The Whitewash Beginning?

It looks like it.

New video footage released yesterday showed the bodies of several Iraqi civilians, including children, who were apparently killed during a US raid on a house in March, but Pentagon officials said an inquiry into the case had found that US forces used appropriate force in the attack on what they called a terrorist hideout.

Iraqi officials condemned the event in March, but it had faded from view until yesterday, when video images of the aftermath of the US operation in the northern town of Ishaqi set off a new round of criticism of American treatment of civilians on the battlefield.

Real Sensitive

Complete morons. American Transmission Co. ought to be truly ashamed of what they are doing to Wisconsin.

Friday Random Ten

Let There Be Love - Peggy Lee
I'm In Trouble - Rick Tobey
Down In Mississippi - North Mississippi Allstars
People You Love - John Carey
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Hell In Harlem - Anders Osborne
I'm Just A Fool To Care - c.c. Adcock
Stompin' My Foot - North Mississippi Allstars (go figure random)
Tell It (Like It Is) - Cyrille Neville
Main Street Blues - The Red Slick Ramblers

Update To Previous Post

Go here for more info, although I'm not sure there are any 8 by 10 color glossy photos with circles & arrows on the back. If you know what I mean. 

Stolen 2004 Election

Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s article in Rolling Stone is now online. Go read it & weep for a country that Bu$hCo is in the process of destroying. Just a bit to get you interested.

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

This Is What We're Up Against

When ideology trumps common sense. Via Atrios.

Up The Chain Of Command

Marilou Johanek has it right in the Toledo Blade. Here's how she ends her column.

But God also help people like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Dick Cheney who put them there on false pretense without adequate troop support or clear strategy essential to cope with the craziness.

And much more than a few rogue soldiers who went off the deep end, hold their commander in chief responsible for sending them to hell in the first place for no good reason.

More Crap

More fog? Maybe more murder. Not good, not good.

It Looks Like

It's roosting time.

Denouncing what they called repeated acts of violence by American forces against innocent civilians, Iraq's top leaders said today that they would demand that American officials turn over their investigative files on the Iraq deaths in Haditha as they vowed to conduct their own inquiry.

The demand represented a unusual declaration for a new government that remains desperately dependent on American forces to keep some form of order in the country as a resilient insurgency and widespread sectarian violence have pushed it to the brink of civil war.

This reporter may find it an "unusual declaration," but I thought Iraq was now a sovereign nation? So why does Richard A. Oppel, Jr., think it's so unusual?

Remember Alito?

I hope John Aravosis is happy. Here's a post from David Sirota's blog.

Big Sky - Big Change

Via MyDD, we get the good news that the anti-Iraq war candidate has endorsed his fellow Democrat, Jon Tester, for Senate. We're going to get a progressive Dem in to replace the absolutely corrupt Conrad Burns.

350,000 Dead In Ohio

With apologies to CSNY, we have this update on the stolen 2004 election. & the guy who helped steal it is running for governor. The ReThug axis of evil is so huge no thinking, awake person could fail to feel it.

I Got My Copy

& it debuted at No. 1 with a bullet. Gets yours here.

A Little Late

For some reason these lyrics are in my brain as I keep considering & raging & thinking about the murders in Haditha.

All the Federales say, they could've had him any day
They only let him go so long, out of kindness I suppose

& today in the WaPo we have this. What the hell were they doing during their training, for christ's sake? Learning how to kill them some Ayerabs, I suppose.

Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, today ordered that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules.

The training, to include slide-shows, would highlight ''the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield,'' said Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Multi-National Corps-Iraq commander in a statement today. "As military professionals," he said, "it is important that we take time to reflect on the values that separate us from our enemies."