May 29, 2006
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MONDAY READINGWhen the war in Iraq began I discovered Poets Against the
War, which has continued to post poems all these months and
now years from individuals of every age and place. On Memorial
Day, here is one by Liza Singer,15 years old, written this month.
She says she is: “Just a high school student who sees really no
point in war in general. A person who cannot understand how one could
kill another. My opinion is that no matter what, I’d kill myself before
anyone else.” And here is her poem:
Dying DreamsListless air passing through the empty room,
There is nothing left here.
Countless souls seeking retribution through all the empty bodies,
There is nothing left here.
The memory of the faint whistle of a bullet destroying countless dreams,
There is nothing left here.
All previous goals are lost as emotionless soldiers die in a split second,
There is nothing left here.Oppressed by the invisible bonds holding us down,
Dragging us into an infinite spiral.
Depression is our only comfort,
There is no sky.
Deep Thought:
“As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red
again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a
bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.”
Today I am grateful for: Food labels
Guess the Movie: “I
always tell the girls, never take it seriously, if ya never take it
seriosuly, ya never get hurt, ya never get hurt, ya always have fun,
and if you ever get lonely, just got to the record store and visit your
friends.” Answer: Almost Famous, 2000.
Winner: journal_of_a_working_girl
War Crimes: My Lai is a Lesson from History
The killing of 24 civilians in Haditha has reminded America of another massacre that tarnished its reputation 38 years ago.
by Rupert Cornwell
To Americans of a certain generation, the news this weekend must have
seemed dreadfully familiar: an endless war, whose rationale is ever
harder to understand, and where “victory” is gradually drained of
meaning; a group of soldiers enraged by the loss of a comrade to an
invisible enemy, running amok and exacting revenge on civilians, whose
only crime was to have been in the wrong place at the wrong
time. (Rest of article here.)
Comments (30)
Thanks for sharing!
This part of her poem,
“There is nothing left here.
All previous goals are lost as emotionless soldiers die in a split second,
There is nothing left here.
Oppressed by the invisible bonds holding us down,
Dragging us into an infinite spiral.
Depression is our only comfort,
There is no sky.”,
is where I’ve lived every day since my divorce. People say it will get better and I will get better.
roflmao
I’ve just learned to hide it better because I know they are tired of hearing about it.
Have a great Tuesday!
War propels young people into a state of awareness that they otherwise might have never experienced; those that aren’t focused only on themselves anyway. It’s a harsh reality. This is a wonderful poem.
on a lighter note:
“As the light changed from red to gree to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.”
I’ve been there! I really enjoy Jack Handey’s quotes.
Profound, moving words.
This gives me some hope that the younger generation will take events going down on the planet a bit more seriously and get involved a little more than they seem to be. It appears to me that the younger ones, a lot of them, are afraid to speak out about the war, as we (or I) did back during the Vietnam “conflict”. ~lea
Yes, family tattoo day started a year or so ago. As many as 5 of us have gone together before. It is strange, but somehow it is good.
Have a great Tuesday!
Ok, so tell me…is Lionne your real name or a pen name?
Your posts are so interesting, I think I always subconciously wonder what you are like…what sort of person you are and where you come from. Stuff like that. Like, what kind of bread you make your tost with and what kind of jelly.
I’m wierd.
John
Wonderful poem from a 15-year-old girl. I wonder if young people truly are less interested in speaking out, as a poster above said. I have my theories about that but won’t clutter your blog with them.
Thanks for sharing the article comparing My Lai and Haditha.
Cool poetry from a poetic soul!
The poetry is moving. I like the deep thought as well – Ha!
movie: almost famous. penny lane’s a gem, she is.
Yes, Almost Famous wins! And BandAids rock.
Thank you for stopping by my site and commenting. I appreciated it. Come by anytime. We have wonderful friends in Vancouver, WA and Portland. Try to get out that way every few years when we don’t meet up with them in AZ during the winter. LOVE the NW!!!!!!!
The poem is wonderful. I am continually amazed and hopeful when I read about people like Liza.
I’ve wondered for a long time…and I’ve retyped this four times now. She says she’d take her own life before taking another. I’ve always felt that way, too, but I wonder do those monsters that take the lives of others (usually their loved ones) know that, the way we know we wouldn’t? And then to consider the context of war. HOw could a society as advanced as ours behave this way? No wonder there are so many people in the world who are nuts.
Wow I just stumbled on the most amazing essay: http://www.chuckherrin.com/CrushedOptimism.htm
For some reason that gave me almost as much hope as reading your blog that our young people are thinking and getting involved.
perfect movie quote. of all time really.
When people twist the teachings of religion and mouth that “God hates . . . . . . .” and go about killing others, I often wonder is there any hope but mine and those of a few others. Is there hope that the moving and shaking politicians of all countries will cease this insanity ? ? ? ? ?
Are you really Turtle_Dove’s mom, or have I misread something again?
Hello. Thanks for dropping by my site. That was a great poem. What truth it has! I hope you have a great Wednesday!
Anna
I REALLY liked what I found on your pages..THANK YOU!!!
Wishing you a GREAT DAY..
Hugs,
lucy
That is indeed a great poem.
Haditha is reminiscent of My Lai, yes. But as horrible as the actions were, I blame it not on the shooters but on war itself. War does that to people. It turns us into animals. Check that. Animals are way better than whatever it is we become. Being a member of the armed services, being in harm’s way every minute of every day, not knowing the terrorists from the innocents, it plays on the mind. However vicious and unforgivable may have been the acts of the killers, I blame not them but war.
Oops, I forgot I was logged in as blip32962, so wrapt up I was in making a comment. It’s me, twoberry, coming over to subscribe as my alter ego blip32962. As I explained to a few other people, I show maybe half of my subscribees at twoberry’s place, partly to make it easy to click on their link and get to their sites, and partly to honor them as great writers.
Wanting a more exclusive list (the “honor them” part), I want you to be on the visible list of subscribees at blip32962. Just because you’re so fabulous.
I’m still twoberry. Getting ready to subscribe as blip32962.
Not to change the subject, but that vaccine you mentioned on your other post – and I know it’s been approved by the FDA (but to me that doesn’t mean much), should we wait to get our injections until it’s out of the experimental stages (assuming we’re gonna be the guineas, as usual – like with Bextra, Vioxx, etc., etc., etc.), or what? I guess I can either take the chance OR take the change, right? LOL
sorry, i meant “take the chance or take the (other) chance.” hope you’re doing well today. i love your site, always so much information. ~ lea
Thanks for your information. I’m such a negative outlooker, and suspicious. I don’t know where I get that, LOL. But I think I’ll go with you on this, and I’m going to check it out for Richard (my husband) also, as he’s had the open heart surgery and the stroke during the surgery in 1999, and maybe they would set it up for him. Thank you so much, Sweetie. ~Lea
That was a fantastic poem. In a way, I think it could’ve only been written by someone that age, as there is a newness behind the thoughts that I don’t think would underlie someone who is more jaded. But the absolutes are eternal.
RYC: I NEVER vote for the party….always the person….in this case….NO CAN DO TO EITHER!
‘Twas happy to see you at my site–glad you enjoyed my memories
As to your questions re Geocaching. The best place to start is a http://www.geocaching.com. On the left is a box “New to Geocaching? Let’s get started” That link will help you set up a “profile”–as detailed and expository as you wish–so that you will be able to access the cache web-pages. It is free-but you do need a profile if you are going to use the lat/long coordinates to find the caches.
(There are actually some folks who geocache with no GPS unit–I think they must have more time than I do, altho I have found a couple that way. The clues and descriptions must be very good in order to do that.)
Once you get your profile set up you are set. We usually do our web search for caches by zip code (the upper right corner of the geocaching home page has this option)-it makes your search less exhaustive–in PDX you can pick your local zip code and only caches in that zip code will show on your results screen. You wouldn’t get caches in SE PDX if you used a zip code in NW PDX. Each cache has it’s own web pages where you can learn about it, see what other finders have to say about it, get clues, see if there are any travel bugs or other interesting tidbits, check out any photos that may have been posted, and actually get a map to the cache.
Basically, you enter the coordinates of the cache that you want to find into your GPS unit. Depending on the specific GPS unit that you have, it will show you which direction you have to go to reach the cache, and get you to within 10′-20′. Then the search begins. Each cache has a double ranking of 1 to 5 stars. One being easy and 5 a major challenge. One of the rankings indicates the difficulty that you will have in actually finding the cache itself, the other ranking indicates the challenge of the terrain. In other words, a 1star-1 star cache will be a pretty easy cache to find, as well as easy to get to. Technically a 1 star ranking of terrain is supposed to be accessible to wheel-chair cachers–and we’ve met quite a few of those, actually.
If you explore the geocaching website, you will get a really good idea of what is involved. If you click on the Geocaching box on my Xanga site, it will take you to our geocaching profile. That will give you a little idea of some of the stuff you can include in your profile, etc.
I’m quite certain that there is a geocaching organization in PDX–I’ve seen some of their events listed at the web-site.
Once you set up your profile, you can e-mail other cachers through the website–drop us a line and let us know you’re up and running. Maybe we could get together some time for an afternoon of caching
Good Luck and hope to see you in the caching logs!
So much like Viet Nam and so very sad.