Bodies in the Backwater

You're poor, dirt poor. 
You have no car.
You have no credit card.
You have no way to pay for a hotel even if you could find a way out. 
Payday is tomorrow, you don't even have the cash.
You're poor, you're black, in the deep south...
And a hurricane is coming to town.

'They should have left' says the accumulated wisdom of two doctors sitting in a restaurant in Brussels sipping on wine. This after witnessing the deaths of hundreds - horrible, avoidable, neglected deaths in the most disgraceful response to a natural disaster in our history.

Bloated bodies floating in the brackish backwater, lying in the streets, for days. 
6 days of suffering, of hunger, of thirst, of constant reminders they are unimportant, don't matter, even if that means they die - unnecessarily.

'They should have left' - as if. Racist, ignorant, spoiled, superior, inhumane, and sadly - typical.
It took all my will not to spit in their smug, arrogant, dispassionate faces. 

For sure - never forget - how far we have yet to go.

Jimi Hendrix

Looking down from my 3rd floor apartment window open onto winter night’s 

A streetlight below, its shadows - cold, stark

Wisps of snow dancing lightly on the pavement

pushed along by the bitter cold in what was otherwise perfect stillness

Clouds of icy breath, eyes transfixed, staring into the night 

Just a boy, thirteen 

A quiet sadness, a burning angst - alone in this far away country 

Alone in myself

The record on the cheap portable phonograph by the bed had just begun - Jimi Hendrix 
Purple Haze and the Wind Cries Mary
the first I’d ever heard him

3 am

my god 

nothing was ever the same again

Snowden, Cheney and 'Intelligence'

Lots of anger, conversation, and condemnation focused on Edward Snowden these days.
Precious little on the NSA or our government.
Snowden has revealed that many in our government exhibit an utter disregard for civil liberty, domestic and international law, or even common sense  - and yet the conversation, the anger, remains focused on the messenger.

Where was this sort of outrage when Cheney publicly revealed the identity of a covert CIA operative and her entire network who were actively involved in investigating terrorists? He did this in an unbelievably petty act of political revenge against the operatives husband, damaging important anti-terrorist efforts and endangering lives. In doing so he committed treason in time of war - he just did - argue as you may - he just did.

Snowden has taught terrorists not to talk too much on cell phones or digital networks and otherwise has just deeply embarrassed Washington - clearly much worse.

I'll say it again. If our government doesn't want to be this embarrassed again it has two courses of action.
1. Stop doing illegal or questionable things.
2. Or get better at keeping secrets.

Snowdens reveal problems with the governemnt - they are not THE problem. In this digital age Snowdens are going to happen again and again and again. Maybe business as usual ought to be rethought - hey?