Poetry

from ‘Gyroscopes’

I’d like a break from

compulsions of idealism

and religious psychosis

I’ve seen pictures of

real stars exploding,

They confirm the spatial illusion

the time inverted reality

Holy vaudeville cast with

self fulfilled prophesies

I’d like to know what

they confirm in the algebraic brain

a scratchy infinite equation

leading to lost and partial quotants.

four billion years

to know what it is I seek.

Now, seeing the upside

down line of your lost silhouette

it only seems probable to

lay next your soul to challenge the universe

to its cyclonic fragmentation

An uncharted moment

lost to all but us.

bloggerdriller

Now we have, Umar Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber and a new pten line of terrorism from al Qaeda from training camp in Yemen. In a ‘You’re doing a hellava job Brownie’ moment of This Week WGS Sunday Janet Napolitano was completely unreassuringly about terrorist tracking on the airlines. Since Umar’s own father alerted authorities in Nigeria weeks ago that his son had been radicalized against the US and felt that he would strike, where was the state side pickup? It was homeland security that was caught with its pants down. What good is the list 550,000 suspect names and 4,000 ’no fly’ names if one’s father dimes you out, he paid for his one-way ticket in cash, he had been traveling without luggage, he was denied entry into the UK for lying about a school he said he was attending. Napolitano clarified on Monday that she was talking about the events after the fact, and acknowledged that there were failures leading up to the incident. The upside to all of this is that all of this is actionable intelligence.

potn by Jan Carroll

‘birds’

from Days of Mercury

looked past him

at steel-blue aves

crying carnivorous sin.

potd by Jan Carroll

‘snow hello’

C(ard)otd by Jan Carroll

and now for something completely fouffy

All that nastiness even with Senator Reid ineffectually calling for civility, I must escape to the ballet.

Pennsylvania Ballet had a warm-up run of George Balanchine’s Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center two weeks ago and they are now back at The Academy of Music back in Philadelphia for the duration of the holiday period.

Although the platoon of Snowflakes that begin the real dancing at the end of Act I, looked a bit drifted in moments (it was their fifth dance storm in two days) they are completely glittering in the various Act II ensemble divertissement. While PB’s production may seem old hat by now, but is still full of star power from the children’s roles right up through the ranks of corps, soloists and Balanchine specialists among the principals.

Julie Diana as the Sugarplum Fairy is in command from her serene adagio pointe work with the Angels to her steely piques and thrillingly paced pirouette runs. She is so well partnered with Zachary Hench (as her Cavalier) that they glide through the intricacies of their pas de deux. Hench’s unfussy aerials keep the spotlight on Diana. Her jetes onto his shoulders are a marvel of suspended trajectory.

The Republican Rag

Speaking of hyposcrisy. Republicans stick to the script of accusing Dem of backroom deals and influence and favors to Senators in their own states over the health care bill. I have a few words for them starting with Halliburton and Blackwater Mercenaries.

In the NYTs todayPaul Krugman uses political scientist Barbara Sinclair broke down the filabuster dance that renders the Senate virtually disfunctional because of Republican obstructionists.

In the 60s, threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation

 the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent.

after 2006 when Republicans gained minority status 70 percent.

Krugman assesses_ “Bush-era Democrats weren’t nearly as determined to frustrate the majority party, at any cost, as Obama-era Republicans. Certainly, Democrats never did anything like what Republicans did last week: G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department — which was on the verge of running out of money — in an attempt to delay action on health care.”

So, they have been delaying, using every dusty procedural wrench they could to derail any legislation, And they are such sore and vengeful loosers, they insisted that the latest consessions be read out loud in Senate, then accuse the Dems of manipulating a middle of the night vote to keep the details secret.

That mental giant Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) gravely pronounced, “Our friends on the Democratic side seem determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic mistake.”

Well Lamar the AMA disagreed with you today and that and your party’s tactics will not go unnoticed.

tic tic tic

Another hurdle barely cleared in a completely poisonous atmosphere on 1:22am- the floor of the Senate in the bloody march toward health care reform. The Reps. are of course saying it’s being rammed through only because they are out of procedural delays. Dems have bent over and grabbed their socks to appease them and they just want it their way or no way. Their opposition is built on lies and fears. Let all of the poisons hatch out.

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12:34am waiting for the Senate vote on the health reform bill and killing time by youtubing celebrity guests from ‘What’s My Line’ which I used to look forward to every week in the 60s, because everybody was from Broadway and film, or so I thought and everyone was dressed in evening wear, bowties and gowns, a world I could only dream of being in.  Of course the subtext of What’s My Line was that it was also a peak into a world that was gay, gay, gay.  So now it just all makes so much sense when I see people like Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Sal Mineo, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Tony Perkins, Rock Hudson, Mongomery Clift, Yul Brenner, Ginger Rogers,  Sophia Loren, Gypsy Rose Lee at ease and slinging all that stagedoor banter.  Course, as silly as it was as I watch this assemblage I suddenly wish there were a political ‘What’s My Line’ where the mystery guest had some wit and class, showed respect to the show and was answering honestly even when our blindfolds were still on.