Well, last week I lifted my head from the TV set after the conclusion of LOST, only to find the world still in a state of holy-hell.  Drill babies have ruined the Gulf of Mexico.  North & South Korea are blowing smoke and stamping the ground at each other.  And once again, the Dow is sagging lower and lower.  Unemployment: sheesh.

I say its time to rent Season 1 of LOST and try to make sense of something.

Ah, yes. The news.

NPR is in perpetual telethon mode, so we’d thought we’d get everyone up to speed.

The new senator from Massachusetts has his first day today, where senate Republicans and one Democrat will exercise their 41% majority to filibuster federal nominations.

American manufacturers are chanting “USA” celebrating Toyota’s massive brake recall.

Sarah Palin is both lambasting and being lambasted for the practice of preparing speeches with notes. Irony think as molasses on both sides.

Iran is moving forward to further [...]]]> Ah, yes. The news.

NPR is in perpetual telethon mode, so we’d thought we’d get everyone up to speed.

The new senator from Massachusetts has his first day today, where senate Republicans and one Democrat will exercise their 41% majority to filibuster federal nominations.

American manufacturers are chanting “USA” celebrating Toyota’s massive brake recall.

Sarah Palin is both lambasting and being lambasted for the practice of preparing speeches with notes. Irony think as molasses on both sides.

Iran is moving forward to further enrich uranium for nuclear purposes. Cue maniacal laughter.

Haiti is still a mess. Please donate to the Red Cross, and don’t be deterred by folks who say we should “fix our own messes” first, because we must do what we can do always.

by Jason Boyte

This past Wednesday, we, relatively quietly, put a man to death. By the time of his death, his name was John Allen Muhammad. Previously, he was John Allen Williams, an American military man who grew up in New Orleans.

If you don’t remember the time the way that I do, this man was responsible for perhaps the greatest amount of fear in the greater Washington DC area since the attack on the Pentagon September 11. He [...]]]> by Jason Boyte

This past Wednesday, we, relatively quietly, put a man to death. By the time of his death, his name was John Allen Muhammad. Previously, he was John Allen Williams, an American military man who grew up in New Orleans.

If you don’t remember the time the way that I do, this man was responsible for perhaps the greatest amount of fear in the greater Washington DC area since the attack on the Pentagon September 11. He and his “partner”, a child he’d indoctrinated, are responsible for the murders of at least 10 people, all of whom were shot at long range with a sniper.

Assassination of the ordinary.

His goal was terror and it worked. He put the fear of God into everyone. We were told while the mystery of the shootings were occurring to watch out for a white van. Information to be totally incorrect, but information onto which everyone latched. I couldn’t believe how many white vans existed those weeks. Everywhere – anywhere – there was danger turning left, right, parking in front of you.

I worked in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside of DC. I was running a lot at the time, training for a marathon. A couple colleagues and I would go running during lunch in and around the area Mr. Muhammad was targeting victims. I cannot possibly express how one’s perspective of their surroundings changes when one is faced at the possibility of a single bullet appearing from out of nowhere to potentially end their life. Though statistically improbable, I and my friends were faced with the possibility of just this. The sky seemed bigger. We noticed hillsides more, where one could potentially perch with a weapon. We still went on out of stubbornness, thankfully, but yes, we were scared, and yes we thought twice about it.

It dawned on me then. That is perfect terrorism, if there can be such a thing. Bring terror through the unknown and the unpredictable. These people who were killed were innocent of anything real or perceived. They did nothing, and that was the point. Anyone could die just like that. A bullet from nowhere.

It made me appreciate, when John Muhammad was finally caught, what so many countries deal with everyday — danger. Real and persistent. Random. Terror. But what happens to it? Does it fade? Does it become like the possibility of a car accident? An IRS audit? Or does it seep in deeper somehow and become a more profound fear?

John Muhammad died this week knowing that he would die and why. Sadly, according to his beliefs, he probably got a great deal of satisfaction out of that knowledge. For he undoubtedly thought he’d be rewarded for his jihad. While I do not agree with the death penalty for anyone for a number of reasons, it is particularly upsetting in a case such as this. When I heard the news of his execution, I did not feel satisfaction that a killer is stopped, but instead I felt we missed the point as a people and nation.

The DC sniper was executed Wednesday, November 11 by lethal injection.

Read more at The Washington Post

I’ve been thinking a lot about patience — largely because it has been a huge challenge of mine to actually have it lately. Times have been tough, time and money short, and dreams have had to be pushed off, remeasured, and truncated too much lately. Seems that’s the case for most people I talk to these days as well. Bosses are more surly, and more and more people seem more reactionary in their daily interactions. Things [...]]]> I’ve been thinking a lot about patience — largely because it has been a huge challenge of mine to actually have it lately. Times have been tough, time and money short, and dreams have had to be pushed off, remeasured, and truncated too much lately. Seems that’s the case for most people I talk to these days as well. Bosses are more surly, and more and more people seem more reactionary in their daily interactions. Things get “nuclear” at the drop of a hat.

I’m vowing to chill out. It’s a good thing. Perhaps you should too?

And perhaps so should the screaming, frothing, weepy entertain-newspersons that dominate the air these days. More facts and fewer decibels, shall we?

by Jason Ward Boyte

This morning I was baptized. Now I’m lying stretched out in the backseat with my legs up on the black vinyl. It’s hot. My calves and the back of my neck stick, but I don’t have the energy to move. Pastor Sherwood said the next flood would be fire. That makes sense.

Through the window, I can see the fig trees go by. Acres and acres of fig orchards stretch for miles. That’s all that grows on this [...]]]> by Jason Ward Boyte

This morning I was baptized. Now I’m lying stretched out in the backseat with my legs up on the black vinyl. It’s hot. My calves and the back of my neck stick, but I don’t have the energy to move. Pastor Sherwood said the next flood would be fire. That makes sense.

Through the window, I can see the fig trees go by. Acres and acres of fig orchards stretch for miles. That’s all that grows on this side of town. On the east its grapes, because there’s a river that comes down from Yosemite, and there’s better irrigation. Here it’s dry. Rows and rows of trees, spread out across the plots in a grid, their trunks whizzing by the window like the blades of a fan. At home I’ve got a card clipped to the spokes on the back wheel of my bike. Speed can blur things to where they look solid. Like running by a chain-link fence. If you run fast enough, it looks like a solid, silver wall.

In the front Dad mutters, “Too hot to mow the lawn.”

The church is still ten miles from anywhere in town, but the town is catching up to it. The windows are rolled down, the hot wind cooling the sweat from my hair. A chill goes down my neck. It makes my stomach turn. I’m so tired, I could dissolve. Songs are going through my head, but I don’t know the words yet. There are times that I feel like I can just separate from my body, float above myself for a while, but I always come back, even when I don’t want to.

____________________

We are the Disciples of Mayhem. Within five miles, there’s a spray-painted D.O.M. on every Neighborhood Watch sign. We’d already marked most of our territory, but we’re working toward omnipresence.

It’s the first Friday of fall and all the leaves on the block have been raked up off the lawns and put into white plastic bags along the curbs. About two or three per house all lined down the street, on every block. Mark’s behind the wheel of the Crime Car, giving it all he can, and Dave and I are holding a pair of bags out the window by their necks. Mark clicks a dirty beige cassette into the stereo, and the beginning of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” crackles through the speakers. It’s just two notes repeated over and over, building momentum. It’s on ten and distorting. Mark is trying to get the car up to speed. The thin tires of the car hiss over the slick street. Halfway down the block—as the french horns break away from the trombones—he gets it. We release the bags, and the leaves swirl down to the rushing asphalt, then up again in huge arches of crackling tans, oranges, rusty reds, and pale greens. The french horn solo blasts beautifully, so high I think it can shatter the windshield or pierce through the roof and keep going. It’s so loud we can’t even hear our thoughts. It’s magnificent.

____________________

Mother cries a lot these days. It started after Dad died. I used to try to talk to her, but I always seem to make it worse. More and more I find myself just closing the door when I hear her. Doesn’t seem like me doing it when I do. Lately I’ve been breaking things, too, and I don’t know why. That doesn’t seem like me, either. I just get mad sometimes, even though everything’s going better now. But, you know, things seem better when other people don’t have to tell you they’re better. Everybody at the meetings always say things are better, they insist it, like they know something I don’t. Maybe it’s just that they’re telling me it’s better now. I don’t know. But I’ve been getting my act together.

I talked to Dave a few weeks ago. He said he’d talked to Mark, and that Mark is pissed at me, that he won’t even say my name anymore, and that he says I’m a “complete shit.” Maybe I am. Other people seem to have their act together, and where the hell am I? Sometimes I really want a drink, but I stop myself. It’s about all the strength in me.

by Sonia Greenfield

If you listen close To the shell-shaped cookie You can hear the ocean

And the sea’s fortune speaks: You will never know hunger. As if it were simply enzymatic

To digest this idea. As simple as bread in mouth To quiet the din

Of organs consuming organs. The noise cries up From my belly

Even after the food gets eaten, Because appetite does not succumb To matters of meat.

Take for example The flesh loneliness Of a room solely occupied.

This crumb and water subsistence of one. A crash diet; the sense of shrinking; A body starved for [...]]]> by Sonia Greenfield

If you listen close
To the shell-shaped cookie
You can hear the ocean

And the sea’s fortune speaks:
You will never know hunger.
As if it were simply enzymatic

To digest this idea.
As simple as bread in mouth
To quiet the din

Of organs consuming organs.
The noise cries up
From my belly

Even after the food gets eaten,
Because appetite does not succumb
To matters of meat.

Take for example
The flesh loneliness
Of a room solely occupied.

This crumb and water subsistence of one.
A crash diet; the sense of shrinking;
A body starved for attention,

Until we feed and give back
And feed again in the cyclical chain
Of pleasure.

As in the lover
Who consumes my orchard,
Heavy with bearing,

In exchange for his grain—
The field wide with the fury
Of a good growing year.