VENTURA HIGHWAY: I had a loverly surprise this morning in my email inbox - an invitation to read at Zoey's Cafe in Ventura, CA on Thursday, January 20 during my SoCal tour coming up in a couple of weeks. Many thanks to Gwendolyn for asking me to be a guest poet that evening. The reading starts at 7:30 p.m. and there will be music as well. If you're in the area, come on by. Of course everytime I think of Ventura, I immediately flash on that great old song by America.

Ventura highway in the sunshine
Where the days are longer
The nights are stronger than moonshine
You're gonna go I know...

Speaking of moonshine, I had a wee bit too much to drink on New Year's Eve at Tina's party. She brews up this wicked "hunch punch" concoction that tastes like Kool Aid. You can't taste the alcohol (I think there was Golden Grain and vodka in this), so you just keep on drinking. Luckily, all I to do was stumble back down the hallway to my own loft.

Good to see Dubya has finally caved into the international pressure and bi-partisan disdain for the slow response to the crisis in Asia after the earthquake/tsunami. Ole' Dubya must have had to swallow hard asking Wild Bill Clinton to get onboard the campaign to encourage more donations. Both Dubya and Koffi Annan fucked up by remaining on vacation (Dubya, as always, holed up at the ranch in Crawford and Kofi skiing (?!) in Jackson Hole) and not returning to DC and NYC, respectively. When are these morons gonna wise up? And of course, there is plenty of talk about Brother Jebediah going to Asia and how this positions him to run for president. Creating a "Bush Dynasty" has one conservative talk show hack so orgasmically put it. Definitely getting my passport in order.

Comments

David Herrle said…
Well, Bush and Clinton are in the geopolitical game. Nothing is done apart from that. Plus, both guys are from the same cloth - plugged into the seedy, behind-the-scenes chess maneuvers of the global engineers. The differences are style and public image and "party" lines. :)

The REAL goodie is private donations/concern. There's where cultural basics become apparent. Our culture, despite "UnChristian" status of tsunami-plighted areas, are giving out of pity and charity. The reverse probably wouldn't happen - because some cultures are fundamentally bigoted and fanatically hostile. But helping civilians of inhumane hellholes like Thailand, etc., is part of charity. It's a human factor, not a religious/political factor - or it shouldn't be.

Reports of outright rejection of JEWISH aid, however, is disgusting evidence of bigotry - and the cultural contrast I mentioned above.

Thank goodness for many of the organizations that are joining to help and be a shining example. I'm a bit suspicious of the participation of that criminal network, the UN (a glorified Enron)...but the Red Cross and many, many other orgs are bending over backwards for relief.

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