Licence to kill

There is no excuse for shooting and killing an unarmed man, whatever his age, color, physical size, or legal priors. None. Period. The police must be held responsible for their actions. It has nothing to do with race. It is strictly a matter of public policy. Anyone who would argue otherwise is letting their prejudices and paranoia cloud their reasoning. A badge does not give one carte blanc to bully, harass, or control those you've supposedly sworn to protect. Darren Wilson was largely responsible for the situation in which he found himself. According to his own testimony, he was presented with numerous opportunities to calm a developing conflict and time and time again chose instead to throw gasoline on the proverbial fire. Those are the facts, my friend, and they are as straight as a line from point A to point B. No one needed to die in Ferguson. If he's an not-and-out murderer, he's at least a bad cop and should be off the street. His incompetence ultimately cost a life. A trained professional should be held to a higher standard of behavior than a stupid kid with a chip on his shoulder. If former officer Wilson is currently unemployed, it's his own damn fault. I don't hate the man, honestly, but I don't feel sorry for him either.

And, I may add, I have no idea how any of this could possibly be connected to mid-east terrorist groups or legalized abortion except within the disarranged mind of a confirmed conspiracy theorist. Let's get our mental ducks in a row, people, and focus on one subject at a time. The militarizing of local police units is a problem born of both the war on terror and the polarization of economic class and ethnic identity in American politics. Both corporation power and class privilege are effectively guarded by the institutionally accepted right of the police to maim, injure or kill anyone of their choosing without a realistic fear of prosecution, punishment or official public censure. In a perfect world, people behave properly because it's the right thing to do. In the real world, people must be held accountable for their actions; especially those actions performed in the name of the community. Public servants should serve the public and not themselves or their own small group. The job of law enforcement is not to terrorize, rob or control the local population, but to secure property, protect life and assist those in need. In a democracy, public empowerment goes hand in hand with personal responsibility.

Failure to punish the abuse of police power is a license for continued abuse. Law enforcement officials -- being human and fallible -- will inevitably do whatever they are allowed to get away by the the public and their elected representatives. Unless limited by both statute and the desire to enforce statute, the quest for personal power and the desire for group solidarity will almost always trump the public good. In any court room, the most dishonest and dangerous individuals are, more times than not, those representing the state. The more repressive a society, the larger its prison population. Physical control replaces justice as the motivating factor in all interactions between those in power and those in peril. Police states are created out of desperation and maintained out of fear. And the number of petty criminal offenses currently dealt with on a draconian level by federal and state courts is a clear sign of the direction the country is drifting. Darren Wilson isn't the cause of the decline in American jurisprudence, but a symptom of a deeper, more distressing malady now infecting the body politic. His removal -- and the removal of those like him -- is but a first step in the reformation of American democracy.

Wiass

Wisdom is a saxophone solo. . .

Author's Dossier

I write in spurts. When light creeps in through the edges of shroud covered windows. And doors bolted on the inside pop open for a infinitesimally brief instant. I write in spurts.

I write in haste. When a word left unspoken might be lost forever. And a thought left unexpressed will stick in my heart like a rush of clean water in a rusty pipe. I write in haste.

I write in delight. When the muse of occasion engulfs my brain in fragrant fire. And the impulse to move becomes slightly greater than the usual clarion call to inertia. I write in delight.

I write in hope. When the spirit moves me to song, but my voice gets stuck in my throat. And the disparaging parts of me unite to create something beautiful or unique. I write in hope.

The Words for Longing

The words for longing. Are few and far between. Leaking from a splintered heart. Tumbling from a shattered soul. Bits of verbiage. Metaphors of loss. Fashioned from wet clay. And the ticking. Of watches in thread bare pockets. And meals eaten alone.

The words for longing. Litter journal pages. Quaint descriptions of bleak romance. Penned on off-white sheets. Small disappointments. White hot embers. Growing cold in spider-webbed corners. And other recesses. Moist with decay. And wasted years.

The words for longing. Are like no other words. Images of love and lust. Beckon from beyond the grave. Hopes never abandoned. Dreams never forsaken. Staring across a no man's land. Of sweet imagination. And bitter memory. And arms forever empty.

All Voices. . .

All voices are lost eventually. All faces are forgotten. All names are erased from time's ledger. It will be as if they never were. History isn't a sieve, it's a brick wall.

More Random Thoughts.

When you tar everyone with the same brush the brush gets dirty fast.

If personalities were physical ailments, yours would be a paper cut; annoying, momentarily painful, but largely inconsequential.

When taking my new razor out of the packaging I cut myself on the plastic.

"Hell is other people." I'm almost positive Jean Paul Sartre wrote this line while driving. Maybe he was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the Boulevard of Crime.

When you live in a cage you soon come to believe that bars are a normal feature of the landscape.

The stream of consciousness is frequently polluted with cerebral waste material.

The blessing is in the perception of reality, not in the reality itself.

When the only thing that can be done is what needs to be done, choice is an illusion and heroism a mute point.

He who chooses his own honor over the wellbeing of others mistakes ego for honor.

Self-sacrifice is the only real sacrifice. Everything else is robbery or murder.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will develop ulcers.

The greatest curse bestowed on any individual is the ability to see everyone's point of view.

One step is often one step too many. When balanced on a cliff edge tread lightly.

Rush's Love Life

According to Wikipedia, Rush Limbaugh has been married three times. Explain this anomaly, please:

1] Alcohol and roofies.
2] God hates women big time.
3] We are living in the bizarro universe.
4] The number of blind/deaf women has increased several hundred percent since the end of World War II.
5] Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and Phyllis Schaftly.
6] A loaded 38 and three rounds of ammunition.
7] Fat, bald, self-deluded, and shrill are the new signs of male virility.
8] Bad breath, bad manners, and impotence are more appealing in person than they are on the radio.

Two Short Poems

ODD RHYME SCHEME

No flight, only a secure nest.

No sight, only steadfast belief.

No joy, only the absence of grief.

No employ, only eternal rest.

*          *          *

CLOSED SYSTEM

In a box. In a room. In the grasp. No way out.

Nothing gained. Nothing lost. Nothing beyond. Twist and shout.

Out of time. Out of joint. Out of options. Death and doubt.

In a fix. In a fight. In the dark. No way out.