“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.

One thing we know – there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after all.”

Been busy getting my act together at the University.  I’m looking forward to summer recess starting shortly.  I know, I know.  I’ve been working for a few weeks but I’m ready for summer break to start.

Look, I just want to finish the novella I’m working on before my time gets eaten up with course work and university politics.

I’m also not in work mode.  So  ‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

Actually I just wanted to share that.  It kind of trumps all the little emoticons wouldn’t you say?

Feel free to copy/paste and use liberally.

‹^› ‹(•¿•)› ‹^›

If anybody can get it into a cell phone text format let me know how.

The Dragon folds his wings today.  Ronnie James Dio has died as a result of stomach cancer.  He was one of the greatest voices in metal and a terrific lyricist.  A major influence on my early writing.  Those impressions still echo in everything I write.

Rest well Dio.  May you forever remain a Rainbow in the Dark.

Maybe I’m a bad kid, I dunno.  I wrote my mom a Flarf poem for Mother’s Day.

 Pink Bats

A mother casts her dreams into the sea.

A mother serves sugar.

A mother’s love determines how

a vase of flowers in a window frames

a villanelle.

Behold!

close your eyes–

see

from the distance of our separation,

like fairies in a tale

who are grand,

happiness can also be haunting.

Happiness, like a sunny day,

like most things, comes

from far away.

My darling

mother,

your children

have no fear,

are all in one

beautifully rushing glass.

How can you know

How to be a mother without

Hubble-Scopes?

I want to say

I could give the world.

I can’t.

I’ve lived a life of fantasy and terror.

Within your heart,

put sunshine.

Maybe more than sunshine?

Maybe a Snowdrift?

An Anchor?

Mere happiness? The song I’m singing,

not my contentiousness,

mirrors your love

screaming, screaming, screaming

be friends with

the sky

and the gardeners.

Home

is the place where

eyes in the back of heads

make memories

marooned

all day

taken

by the May sea.

The fairy tales

of grown children find

understanding

throughout the years,

making

no difference in

your love.

No.

Not long ago I,

without you, strained

to be like leaves upon the wind.

Weep, Weep,

my mother,

and feel the fortune of the years

you have.

Dream, dream

like the Arizona sun.

This article appeared on my desk not too long ago.  It’s both funny and sad.  The opinion expressed here is not just that of the author.  I was in Washington D.C., on the roof of the Chamber of Commerce, across the street from the white, on the night when Obama was elected.  People ran into Lafayette square celebrating his victory.  Students from GW mostly.  But there was another group grinning to themselves on the sly.  The Russians broadcasters who were there covering the story.  A Georgian friend later told why they couldn’t contain themselves.  They, the former Soviets, had finally won the Cold War.

Here’s the article from Pravda. (more…)

This week, I get back on schedule with a special piece by Joe Rose.  

Sorry about the skip week.  I had been working on a special post.  I conducted an interview with Andersen Prunty author of The Beard among other novels.  And just before I posted it, he contacted me saying The Dream People, a surrealist online zine, was featuring his works and was activitely looking for interviews and criticism with and about him.  So instead of posting, I submitted my stuff to The Dream People.  Hopefully, my stuff makes the cut and will appear in the May issue.  I’ll post about it if it does.

Here’s how I describe Joe–a shaman of the modern man.

In a world where most people have downgraded themselves to Human Having, or to the even more degrading Human Appearing, Joe Rose stands as a Human Being. (more…)

Gotta love how jacked up the world is.  Reading this kind of stuff fuels my absurdist views… seriously.

“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR”

China: Crunch Time

By Peter Zeihan

U.S.-Chinese relations have become tenser in recent months, with the United States threatening to impose tariffs unless China agrees to revalue its currency and, ideally, allow it to become convertible like the yen or euro. China now follows Japan and Germany as one of the three major economies after the United States. Unlike the other two, it controls its currency’s value, allowing it to decrease the price of its exports and giving it an advantage not only over other exporters to the United States but also over domestic American manufacturers. The same is true in other regions that receive Chinese exports, such as Europe.

What Washington considered tolerable in a small developing economy is intolerable in one of the top five economies. The demand that Beijing raise the value of the yuan, however, poses dramatic challenges for the Chinese, as the ability to control their currency helps drive their exports. The issue is why China insists on controlling its currency, something embedded in the nature of the Chinese economy. A collision with the United States now seems inevitable. It is therefore important to understand the forces driving China, and it is time for STRATFOR to review its analysis of China.

An Inherently Unstable Economic System (more…)

I’ve been working on my CV to apply to the local university.  I’m quite certain that my education alone certifies me for the job. And writing my life achievement, or lack thereof, onto a single page is dehumanizing as hell.  I look better in person than on paper.  I come off as smart or at least a smart ass.  (I’ve come a long way from college.  Or maybe not.  Everyone thought I was smart in college as well, but looking at my CV I look kind of like a dumbass.) (more…)

It’s looking increasingly like I’m going to be working again soon. Like at a job, a job type job.

Two things are brewing. A teaching gig at Sanya College, which would be cool because it would be a great excuse to read and write criticism if nothing else. And a gig writing a 2 page section of the local paper covering the development of the island into a world class tourism destination. This would also be kind of cool if it doesn’t take too much time and isn’t too bureaucratic.

It’s even possible I’ll be doing both because neither of them will pay much of anything.

I say these are kind of cool because I’m trying to keep myself from swimming out to sea further than I know I can swim back.

Some good news, an editor from New Pulp Press is interested in taking a look at my manuscript once they start reading again in June. Fingers crossed. I’ve also got queries out to a few other select presses. We’ll have to wait and see what becomes of this round of submissions.