Use less is: A Review in Kind (unkind) of Ulysses by James Joyce

 My bookmark stands erect between the spreading pages of some 800 breast, hand holding the cover linen in a new shade of green - thumb worn puke! Shame Joyless said it could rebuild Dooblin, while eye said aye if it had ever been built the first toyme.  

Dust Jack, it fell off the shelf. Buy the window and bye the stairs for 3 pence a page to the teller, no golden apple required. 

- Ban it! That will be a dirty book now and ever. Was it Tristram pushed it off before ever being born, you sham, D? 

- How many years in the Homer before you read a book like this? I give you one decade and an Our Father, but only after the sin.

- No absolute shun without contrition, you Jesuit!

                            I'll roam the world from town to town

                            for the girl I left behind.

- Left behind and right behind. You'll have them both! So, we set sale.

*********************************

Now, just when it was about to get interesting one gets hungering for a kidney sandwich. The book pages keep flying, flying, flying off with dust. Allergen that. I knew a man once who could not be near the presence of old books for the allergies. Wife was a writer, but only of new books. Now these paragraphs are pages long, what's the point of even looking for a break. Put it down, pick it up and start anywhere, you'll never know the difference. Some people read every word, some people skim. Skimming has got to be the only way to finish. Some people don't read books at all. Better off. Waste of time, surely. But time. Look at the time, where did it go?

*********************************

    Shame

Take the jacket off now. Take the pants. 

    Bloom

It's a fecund story isn't it?

    Joyless 

It's a feckin' bore

**********************************

Now you be dreaming. Day-dreaming is a high waste of time. I read a book once, with a story, and adventure, and I felt so good inside! What is this all about? Oh, I two don't like books with a Molly in them. You should no that.

Exit now and close the Book. Be gone, begun the next one. Out of orbit by velocity of nun to find you're falling, falling now, fawl-a-ling, fa-ling, fa-fa-fa-fling, ffffffaling, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalling, fallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllling, falliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing, fallinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng, fallingggggggggggggggg, fffffffffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggggggg, ffffffffffffffffaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnngggg in, falling in forever, four eve or. 

Stand with Ukraine

 

Demonstrating 

solidarity 

with Ukraine, 

and against war,

in Denver Colorado.

Ukraine Must Survive

 Ukraine must survive.

Ukraine must survive because it is a country where people can still organize themselves to determine their collective future. Ukraine is a place where governing power is gained and lost, by revolutions and by elections. It is tedious to tut-tut Ukraine for the sad facts that corruption and right wing extremists exist there, in part. It is in fact more to the glory of Ukraine that their population has been trying, and sometimes successfully confronting, these bunions on the walking feet of their democracy. After all, Ukrainians have walked through the tall gates and all over the decadent mansions of their overthrown corrupt billionaire former president. Americans haven't. Ukrainians have chosen a Jewish leader, a member of a minority ethnic group historically oppressed, and rallied universally behind him. More than did some political parties I know close to home. When a socialist revolution happens and endures, it will be on the periphery of empire such as where Ukraine is. (Etymologically, u kray - means "on the edge of the country" or "frontier.") It is on the edge where change can happen, where people power can prevail, not in the center, where repressive forces are concentrated (Washington, Brussels, Beijing, and Moscow.) Therefore, for people to have the power anywhere, Ukraine, where the power of the people is everywhere, must survive.

Imagination is a lie as vital

     Imagination is a lie as vital as a next heartbeat, as living as your every breath. Breathe. Beat. Breathe. Beat. I imagine I will live. I imagine. I will live. My mother’s last breath was air that I will also one day hold. My last breath has already floated into yours.

     Years ago, my child told me (when I asked him what the purpose of life was, when after all the sun would destroy the earth in its expansion) that life was a chance to make as many friends as possible. Then I saw.

     The friend that I made was you. For that, you see, I am grateful to the end of time.

An Open Letter on Why I am Demonstrating at the Colorado Capital

To the esteemed citizens and residents of Colorado:

I am a teacher and on Friday, April 27th, 2018, I will demonstrate with thousands of my colleagues at our State Capital in Denver. I am excited about the collective energy, but I want to tell you that I would much rather be in class with my students. Not because my job is easy, but exactly because it is hard. The success of my students is the center of my life. I love my family most, but my weakness is I leave the best part of myself at my school.

So, to explain this action, I want to clarify some things, because there is a lot of misunderstanding out there. This is not a strike. This is not a walkout. I am not in conflict with my employers, and I am not unhappy with my career. I am using my own earned general leave time with the approval of my school and district leadership to fulfill my responsibility as an education advocate for the good of my students, your and my children included.

Yes, there are personal stakes for me and my family. Teachers have lost ground for a decade. Since 2008, we have endured years of pay freezes, increases in our share of health insurance premiums, additional uncompensated work responsibilities, larger class sizes and reductions in retirement benefits. There has been no recovery for teachers and other workers since the Great Recession. Now, the cuts continue despite a booming economy in Colorado. What will happen in the next recession?

But the stakes are higher than just my job. High quality, universal and public education are necessary for the reproduction of healthy, happy and honorable society. To attract the best of the rising generation, we must provide districts with the funding they need to properly compensate and supply all of our teachers. It is something all Coloradans benefit from, whether or not they have their own children in public school. Do we want everyone in our state to be skilled and informed, or don’t we? And we need to keep attracting the warmest hearts and brightest minds to the teaching profession. This is not distant or theoretical. We hire for hard to fill positions every year, and new candidates are getting increasingly hard to find.

What we are demanding is for the Colorado legislature to prioritize the education of children. In Colorado, state tax increases must be approved by a statewide popular vote, but corporate tax giveaways are simple legislative matters. This has constricted the state budget year after year, and education funding has been the shrinking waist of fiscal belt-tightening. Eventually, a statewide vote will be needed to increase revenue through taxation in order to properly run all the needs of the state budget. But, meanwhile, education funding has to be the clear priority. They can do that by committing state budget increases to education at an expeditious rate, at least until education is funded at pre-recession levels. The crisis is here, and now the population knows it. This will go a very long way to a thorough solution through popular sovereignty by voting.

We can make a difference, but only together. This is not a group of selfish interests grasping for what others need. This is the servants of the beloved community standing up bravely for the interests of the vast majority, and for the future. This is a movement not just for teachers, but for all families, workers, and everyone who wants a brighter, more educated future, where everyone is included. Join us please, if you can. If you live in Colorado, call your state representatives to ask where they stand on education funding and demand they make it a priority. https://leg.colorado.gov/find-my-legislator  It will make you feel good to be involved because your voice is power, and “We the People” are strong. Then, on election day, vote.

With sincere thanks to you, and to my teachers who taught me,

Kevin O'Donnell

I am at the Colorado Sate Capital building
with thousands of my colleagues to lobby lawmakers
to make the education of children a priority, holding the sign I made
with materials repurposed from the recycling bin!

Past, Present, Future, or From God and Back Again

     This acrylic on canvas painting is an expression of my struggles with anxiety. The colors and paths have symbolic meaning to me, but I prefer to keep my interpretation to myself here so viewers may make their own meanings of the piece if they wish. In fact, my own interpretation changes over time and from viewing to viewing. So much so that I find it difficult to even settle on a title. One working title, while I was creating it, was "How Not to Commit Suicide." I'm glad to say I have made progress since those difficult days. I spent dozens of hours, over a span of two years, in its creation - hours of therapeutic meditation, painting over the canvas, again and again, not so much to refine the image, as to more deeply experience the process. These days, when I behold the lines, fields and strands, I soak in an awareness of the resilience I have recovered and strength I have gained from my experience. What it reminds me most of is the truth that no moment lasts forever; everything changes, which now gives me hope.

Coming out of Warsaw Central Station, or Dworzec

     The Warsaw Central Station received his curiosity like a birthing pain; it spilled out. Sleepless since at least Berlin, and before that, too, he, bleary eyed, glanced at signs which held their meanings from him. Better follow the flow of people past the tumbling tracks, escalator up, to lighter hallways and different smells (not burning oil and brake heated iron, but sickly sweet body odor, his own first, then stronger past the standing bag keepers, breezes wafting exhaust from open doors and cigarette smoke) through fricative and sibilant announcements. "Dong-Ding. Ishka. Hiss. Dvashets loodie. Terrace each a Poe Chong. Nack-oh nyets. Dong-Ding. The shape of the sound and the feel of the smell will be the signature of Poland for him. The endorsement on the check of an overdrawn account of experiences, which the tellers have not caught but keep providing.

Concrete colors filled his vision - light grey blocks, both of sidewalk and apartments, waves of black asphalt undulating under moving mountains of rubber bus tire. The bright white cloud cover cast shadows where no sun shines. Dirt muted car colors weave behind the billows of sooty particulant  clouds. Long plazas take his legs several thoughts away to reach the other side. This will become his mental map. But now it is still . . . . He looks with wide eyes.

Twin towers of the span of time framed the view. On the one hand, the Palace of Culture, paeon to Communism, filled with unseen iron behind a pressed and sculptures monotone of rock, and Stalin's gift, filled with unmentionable irony. On the other, the Hotel Marriott, rising streams of blue glass shimmering like clean water and money, so easy to see yet hard to find, proving the regime of the Washington Consensus, just out of reach. But at the moment he had a notion that he keep grab them both with his hands as he stood at the steps of the Warsaw Central Station. (From a memory of 1994)

More Sundry Poems

My latest collection of poems is available online. These poems are linguistic snapshots and inspirations from my life as a religious novice, teacher, husband, and father from the past 14 years. Follow this link, if you would like to read from them. Peace!

Revolutions; Bicycling to Resist

Soon the environmental policy of the country will be run for the interest of massive economic gain for the very few and for the very short-term, at the expense of the very many, and of the entire future. There may be nothing the American Resistance can do to stop this, although countries around the world continue to be committed to saving the future of the life we know on earth by reducing carbon emissions and other greenhouse gasses. When America abandons recent reduction targets, and emits and pollutes more than ever, even the effort at carbon reduction of other countries may be neutralized by the Republican-Trump team. Even if Americans of goodwill cannot stop the cataclysm, we can move to show that we wish the earth, and earth’s nature to endure. That might encourage the world to stay on the path of sanity, and if we get out of this political nightmare, there may yet be something of the climate salvageable. To do this, the American Resistance should make collective and individual plans to curb emissions and sign on to the Paris Climate Accords as citizens of the world. That’s what I plan to do, and become healthy and happy doing it, by bicycling to resist.

The public infrastructure of the necessary commute through roads and highways are not designed to make bicycling commuting easy. Cars and trucks are dangerous to bicyclists. Work schedules are indifferent to daylight and weather. But they are there, and the infrastructure as it exists can be used to meet healthy, sane, and community building goals. My commitment (gesture really) is to bike to work at least two times a week, all year, all hours, and in all weather. I would like to get rid of my car altogether, but Children need to be picked up from school, and family living requires some compromise, and the requirements of working in a capitalist society makes fleeting grasps at freedom and integrity challenging enough, indeed. With my will and the help of God, this will become habit and character changing in me, and I can advance towards my ideals.

As I have begun, I am realizing that biking as an act of social consciousness is also an act of personal liberation and mindfulness. When I push my pedals through the sun and dark, heat and snow, I lose myself in the motion of wheels. I feel the stress of the day fall away from me. I sense the smile and laughter on my face. I say hello to others I meet on the street or path. I come home to my family in a better mood, and in better health. It reminds me that I am of the earth and that the earth is of me. When I meditate on the fact that I am on the earth, I respect it more. I notice that on days I bike, I also wash and reuse plastic bags and containers.  I slow my life down and see the purpose in it. I am grounded, and I am changing. Just like the revolutions of the wheels of my bike. And, hopefully before long, the Revolution of the powers of our world.

Make America Safe from Hate; Why I am Against a Trump Presidency

The November 2016 election is a watershed moment in American History. The current political order is preparing to endow an egotistical fraudster, race baiting White Nationalist, and inveterate misogynist with the highest office in the land. This, when the very clear alternative is more popular in the explicit voice, through votes, of the people. I come to this statement with the conscientious resolve to demonstrate an example, and as a leader in my family, work and community. I am obliged to state clearly what my position is. It is at times like this that everyone must decide and speak, so that we may continue to clearly contest the future. The study of past collapses of democracies prove the urgency and moral necessity of doing so.

1, Trump's ideas and actions are abhorrent, and have incited and revealed exclusion that I have set my life against. He began his campaign with a vicious attack an the entire Mexican nationality, which is a culture I am deeply fond of, and among whom I know individuals that I deeply care about. The preconditions of genocide are being set now, and I oppose them. Trump has committed himself to making our country practice torture, and worse. Horrifically, America has a history of waterboarding and other unconstitutional actions. These should not characterize America, but Trump has glorified such crimes against humanity. I say, not in my name.

2, Trump lacks a commitment to the nation and inspires others to feel same. He has not paid taxes, and yet aspires to direct the budget of the nation from all those who do. He has not contributed, throughout his career to the public, but has always worked assiduously for his private gain. He has flaunted laws, including labor laws and tax laws, and already broken his promise to reveal his tax records before the election. Trump also has made treasonous requests for foreign countries to attack the sovereignty of the United States, such as when he asked Russia to share data with him from their illegal cyber-attack espionage. Americans who have worked their lives to keep our country great deserve better than him. Trump, during his campaign claimed that elections are not necessary, and he refused to even acknowledge any result other than his own seizure of power, a priori. Any acquiescence to his ascension is appeasement and capitulation. I stand opposed.

3, The will of the people has been thwarted by an undemocratic process of the electoral college, which must be fixed. Twice in 16 years a president has been selected by the losing side of a popular vote. If this is left to stand, it will erode the legitimacy of our government in the eyes of the people it is supposed to govern. Our Supreme Court will be filled to interpret the Constitution in the interests of a small group of Americans, through a Trump nominee, while the nominee of broadly mandated President Obama is left foundering. The Republicans of the House of Representatives had fewer votes in 2014 than the Democrats, yet they rule. Trump received fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, yet he is President-Elect. There are solutions to the problems of gerrymandering and the electoral college; A Constitutional Amendment, promotion of election reform laws by states, and explaining the freedom of electors are among them. I intend to campaign for upholding the majority rule of elections, a pillar of democracy.

4, The generations of the future scream for action and justice, from earth’s climate, to the threat of war, and the security of a culture of rights and prosperity and generations of the future scream to me for justice and action. Trump has already begun to appoint climate change deniers and polluters in position to take over our government policies, just when the world was beginning to make steps to address climate change, and just when climate change is beginning to make clear the devastation to come, and when all who study it know that the tipping point for catastrophe is at hand. Trump has an agenda to expand nuclear weapons throughout the world, after decades of slow delicate progress in nuclear disarmament, and several near misses of nuclear armageddon. No one is safe from nuclear war, and Donald Trump is too ignorant to understand how to keep us safe. Economic inequality is beyond all historical precedent, when in history each expanding gap has preceded an economic collapse. Trump is not interested in reducing the constraints on economic and political power of the 1%, especially his own. The pain and burden on the vast majority will be extreme, and is entirely avoidable through good governance.

5, The reasons for revolution exist now, and have existed before this election, and the conditions that exist now make it is an opportunity for change that must be struck. Joins me and the millions of others who will make America safe from the hate of Donald Trump. The public demonstrations, the online publishing, and the face to face conversation we all have in peace is the soil of our resistance. Our communities of understanding and mutual care is the plant of national cohesion, and love and reverence for humanity is the fruit of our passion and effort in this revolt. It won’t be easy, quick, or direct. It may become dangerous to act, but it will also be dangerous to stay still. For myself, I choose to act, and so I do with this message. Together, we can do this. We can make a better tomorrow, and indeed, we must.

I take inspiration from the words of the beloved poet and recently passed Leonard Cohen. This citizen of the world was committed to liberty and justice for all.  In his song “Anthem” from his album The Future, he writes -

“I can't run no more

with that lawless crowd

while the killers in high places

say their prayers out loud.

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

a thundercloud

and they're going to hear from me.”

Let them hear from you!