The Secret's Out

Well I guess the world has seen our dirty little secret. That's right, the United States, the economic powerhouse with the world's most powerful army (Note: there's a branch of Chevron in every country except North Korea and Iran and a smattering of poor countries like the Congo. http://www.chevron.com/operations/worldwide/ Add Iraq (now taken over by us) in there and you have what Bush called "the axis of evil." Hmmmmm.) , can't and in fact many times the leadership has just plain refused to take care of it's own people. By "taking care" I mean providing institutional support (examples range from after school programs for children or protecting their parent's jobs), access to a good education and medical care, and safe housing. In 2004, another 1.1 million people slipped below the poverty line. And the poverty line is quite low to begin with. Many of those above the "poverty line" live squalid conditions. And while we fight wars in other continents, it's sobering to think that most of these soldiers, a great majority of these soldiers, are from the poorest classes. Living in poor homes in poor neighborhoods, it is highly likely that their public education was substandard (Instead of improving the most destitute of public schools, Bush wants to give school vouchers for private institutions which have the right to accept and reject whomever they want, a luxury that public schools do not have. Say we had vochers, do you really think that the elite schools would start accepting mass numbers ("mass" being more than five) of students from the Barrio? Come on people, put it together. It's another way to help the upper classes get more, leaving scraps for the rest. Anyways, I digress.) . Having no money and few job or educational prospects, the military seems like the best option for these young people. During the Vietnam war era, young men in college got deferments and were not drafted. Not much has changed today, only now the soldiers are drafted under the guise of it being "voluntary." Voluntary meaning they have no other choices and are attracted to the money and the false sense of glamor that advertisements and military recruiters (who swarm all over public schools) promise.

I really wonder if when they gave the evacuation order, did the officials think about those who didn't have the money to leave? Those who didn't have a car? It is easy to point this out now that we have a huge disaster on our hands, but the American concious did not give a shit before, and that's the honest truth. Why deal with poverty when we can be distracted by Brad & Jen's divorce and fret about gas prices while filling up our SUVs? We have a Secretary of Homeland Security, but we really need a Secretary of the Inner City, and have needed one for the last 40 years.

Poverty in 2004
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/csm/20050831/ts_csm/apoverty_1
Poverty Thresholds in 2004
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh04.html

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Can't sleep

So this is my blog.

Slide open the screen door.
Bent so it wont shut tight
Letting in the bugs.
Why do I want to talk to YOU?
I don’t know why…maybe because I’m your girlfriend, your wife, your daughter, your lover.
Why the hell don’t you want to talk to me?
Two can play this game.
I will do it my way.
Stop. A Dream.
Eyes open. I fell asleep on the couch.
The room is still.
I can hear the clock tick.
There are bugs on my left arm
I see centipedes, flies, spiders, moths, snails, green beetles, black beetles, termites
Larvae between my fingers, blighted corpses on my nails
I see birth and death on my arm.
Creepy crawlers now my friends
Loving my left arm.

An old story I never finished

I am walking towards a skeleton. His hollow eyes are on me, concave and shadowed, but he is smiling: waiting for me. When I reach him we turn the corner and walk together down the street.

It’s almost Christmas and the streets are humming with activity. A Salvation Army volunteer is ringing a bell for donations. I deposit my change in the red canister and in exchange get a small card with a holiday message. I realize I’m hungry. We stop at a hot dog stand and he buys me a pretzel with butter and salt. I don’t like those fancy toppings. I say thank you, it’s a good pretzel, and he smiles. He’s not hungry.

A little farther down the street is our final destination, the ice rink. I’m not the best skater, but he wanted to go. Inside we get our shoes and lace up. His shoes are too big, so he goes back to get another pair. Meanwhile, I step onto the ice. The skates are heavier than I remember from those few birthday parties I went to as a child. I hang onto the wall for a moment and use my arms to push off. Eventually I have a little bit of a glide going. Right. Left. Right. Left. I’ve made it part way around the rink. Then some kids speed by and mess up my rhythm. I teeter for awhile until I catch the wall and hang on. I don’t want to fall and get wet. Just then, wearing the right sized shoes, he skates by and executes some kind of spinning jump. Arms extending upwards, legs whipping around until he lands smoothly on the ice. A double axel, he later tells me. Show off. Grinning, he comes to me, grabs my hand and pulls me to the center. It’s becoming more crowded with families and other couples.

His hand is cool and thin. I enjoy rubbing the ridges of his fingers between the phalanges and the distal phalanges. He takes my other hand and we start spinning. I laugh at our dance and we spin faster and faster until I think I’ll fly away if he lets go.

I first met him in physiology class. He hung on a hook, ribs bloated, extremities dangling, gently rocking back and forth, and forth and back. He came from a skeleton factory in India. Before death he had sold his bones for money. The money was given to his family and he was buried underground for six months to decay. Then the factory dug him up and covered him in maggots to eat away the remaining flesh. All cleaned, they bleached him, aligned his vertebrae on a metal rod, and glued the rest. Somebody bought him, for learning or a personal collection (I’ll never know) and savored him for ten years. Then he was donated to my high school where he hangs before me daily.

My future as a foot model? You be the judge.

Thanks to Yvonne for the photo!