The only difference between a native and an immigrant is that their mother gave birth to them on a different piece of dirt. If you are an American, that just means your mother or some prior mother made the decision to be an immigrant. If national birthright is important to you, this point of view, naturally puts all the power in the hands of mothers. If you don’t have a healthy view of women, that will probably make you very uncomfortable with immigrants.
I should have written today. The plan was to write for just ten minutes. Not about anything in particular. Just open ended writng with nothing more than a blank page and a running clock. But I woke up late. Work was full of long meetings. And I forgot. Well, I mostly forgot. During the three plus hours of TV shows, I occasionally looked over at my journal. I could have chosen to work on this new habit, instead I chose consumption over creation. Sure I am writing this now, but this is more due to insomnia over an unhappy stomach. I don’t know if this is the beginning of a good habit. I think I hit ten minutes. Anyway I am getting tired now.
Maybe tomorrow I will do something I planned to do.
If you don’t have any credibility, It doesn’t matter if you expose the truth. So they just destroy your credibility and they can do anything.
You had more than me. I wanted it. I took it. If greed is your god, then I committed no sin.
The truth is just a lie we got tired of arguing about.
Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. That boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is *your* value.
The Doctor
You can’t change your spots
They’re a part of you.
You can’t change the system
It’s always been that way
You can’t change the world
It’s too big, you re only a part.
So don’t speak out
You don’t want to be embarrassed
Don’t march in the streets
That’s what criminals do
Don’t give to a cause
They just keep it for themselves
Don’t campaign
You’ll just waste a weekend
Don’t bother voting
It’s such a bother
You’ve got work, and bills to pay
Groceries to buy, laundry to do
That ticket and busted taillight
The cough and no appointment
Everything is fine
The world is great
Again.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus (November 2, 1883)
In suffering we thrash about
Desperate for even a brief respite
From the electric fence that
Bars us from our Just peace.
As our pain envelopes us
We become indifferent to the damage
Our struggling inflicts upon our fellow travellers.
In turn they lash out blindly
Trying to escape their own pain
And the spiked wheel turns.
It takes an incredible force of will
To hold still
Grab the wheel and slow the turn.
It in much easier to give in
To the opiates of rage and indignation
With their hollow promises
Of simple easy solutions.
