Letter from a Poet

For the record, Thursday January 25, 8:37 am.

I have a really weird but unshakable feeling my mail is being intercepted & read. Proofs sent to Canadian editor not arriving. I may or may not have written "Death to America" on my correspondence. I probably did. I know I did. (Hey it's not my joke it's from MAD TV (which is on FOX!)).

Anyway, if I'm arrested--which, actually, would be pretty kick ass, and therefore extremely unlikely--do get some Pandemonia from cafepress (before they shut my thing down) & send 'em to Jimmy Carter & Amy Goodman & Bill Moyers... & Farrar Strauss Giroux!

I know this is what you guys would do anyway, but shit, I'd hate to disappear and not have sent this.

Squeezychortle: My first phone call will be to my dad, second one to you.
Swill: I think the business was well concluded. This time.
JT: The real reason I wasn't at that protest was that I really like the war now.

forgive the paranoia or your servant,
T
(and d.t.a.!)

Thomas H. Crofts
Assistant Professor
Department of English
East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, TN
37614

The Swill Hearts Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)

Barney, Laura, und So Weiter

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
- Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg trials

UPDATE: Yes, the "Surge" logo comes from a Christian Ministry "Family Night" promotion. Yes, this was intentional. It's intended as a scathing satire against nights.

Captain, There Are Doubts

Oh Friends.

You may be surprised to hear our voice, but you won't be surprised to learn that we were not among the 45 million people who tuned in to Brave Captain's recent description of the "surge." Don't get us wrong: we have a greater-than-average ability to stare fuckwittitude in the face, as well as more-than-halting admiration for bald-faced, shit-house-rat craziness and delusions of every other stripe.

But recently, Friends, the suiciding and the homiciding and the burning and the raping and the murdering and the under-sentencing, well, it's starting to overwhelm even our seemingly infinite capacity for analysis. And the fact that they're not even really putting their heart into justifying it anymore, well....

And if the President is no longer trying to put together something even half-convincing, and if we no longer have the heart to indulge that twitchy corpse-fucker's murderous, demi-retarded soul-shrugging for even a few minutes on the teevee -- do you think we would have the heart to compose anything original?

Nope. You wouldn't. And you'd be right.

So what better time to reminisce about a time when MTV played music rather than beach-vollyball, even if they mis-spelled the band's name. Enjoy.

Dialogue of the Increasingly Dead

Can I ask you something?

Yeah, go ahead.

How old are you?

Thirty-six.

That's pretty old. I didnt know you was that old.

I know. It kind of took me by surprise my own self.

- Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men

Language Are Hard in Journalist

JT reacts to "analysis" of the "news":

Already, a contender for stupidest statement of 2007. A Washington Post article on the recent use of the word "surge" begins:

It's one of those words -- like 'chad' or 'blog' or 'waterboarding' -- that's suddenly become the go-to phrase to describe a contemporary phenomenon.

Yes: a deliberately deceptive word is just like a proper name, a contraction of a proper name, and an uncontracted proper name that literally describes the action that it names.

I want to scream.

Another Idea We Wish We'd Had