I miss hester

[stilltrucking]

Has anyone talked to her lately

[mnaz]

i talked to hest about a week ago or so. she's fine. just in a bit of a "creative lull"... taking a break.

[Arcadia]

sending an Hola! to Hester! "creative lull" sounds good...!!!!

[Doreen Peri]

Me too. You can find her Facebook. I see her there some days.

Wish she'd come back here more often.

[short timer]

Thank you all for the information
Her last poem keeps reverberating inside my head like the Tales of Brave Ulysses

Towards sanctuary

I carried load after load
of my possessions
to a new space.
As if an alien hand
had ahold of my shoulder,
pulled me amiably along,
through it all.

Saw a few flashbacks,
of moves in the past,
more people, pizzas, beer.
This time just me.
No one else to consider.
Only the moments,
little incredulous bumps of joy.

All those shopping bags
I bought because I forgot,
came in handy.
Held my trinkets well,
while I the robust muse,
hoisted all my favorite things,
towards sanctuary.

http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.p ... 41#p139341

[Steve Plonk]

Hester Prynne, where you at?! I miss your posts, too. Come back soon...

[sooZen]

I "see" her almost daily on FB. She is a busy woman!

[stilltrucking]

Good to know she is staying busy
I only hope she still has some time to sing

Listen To Hester Sing

[hester_prynne]

It feels so good to be missed!!! I miss myself being here. I miss all youse. I have been busy. All the changes finally kinda caught up with me too. I had to retreat, get up, go to work, come home, watch tv in a blur, go to bed, do it all again. And then there's been that sinking feeling, due to our current government and the unjust losses to us folks that just keep mounting up. Overwhelming. But I'm back...You'll see me more and more. I think I can, I think I can......ad infinitum!

[sooZen]

The ebb and flow of life! Hey Theda take it as it comes and keep those wolves (not the gray ones!) in sheep's clothing from the door. Smile baby!

[stilltrucking]

What I missed most was those "skinny" poems you write, or maybe they are "thin poems" they are pure joy to me, even the painful ones. go figure, I guess I admire the intellect that wrote it so much I forget about the pain for a little while
thanks for the reply theda girl

I believe our government is the finest money can buy, I believe we should spread our precious American Values around the globe, I only wish I was young again so I can be a Christian Soldier and bring the word of G-d to the heathens.

No I don't loose no sleep over it sister,
I just whistle in t he dark and say
"Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my.

and I watch TV,
interesting show about the culture we live in
soon to be a world wide culture of fear
I wish I could renumber the name of the show but I picked up this bit from it.

Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and controlled, more
susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line postures.
... They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve their
insecurities.
- George Gerbner

[stilltrucking]

sorry I get distracted by the wars, our three trillion dollar war in Iraq and who knows how much in the others.

Yes you were saying our current government, doing the will of the "Kochsuckers"

Listening to bill moyers talking about the politics of greed.

He quoted this bit

“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will”

Antonio Gramsci, 1891-1937

The war in Libya
has Obama lost his way?

____________________________________________________________

Losing Our Way
By BOB HERBERT
Published: March 25, 2011


So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.


Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.
Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.
The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.
Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.
There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.
Americans behave as if this is somehow normal or acceptable. It shouldn’t be, and didn’t used to be. Through much of the post-World War II era, income distribution was far more equitable, with the top 10 percent of families accounting for just a third of average income growth, and the bottom 90 percent receiving two-thirds. That seems like ancient history now.
The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent.
This inequality, in which an enormous segment of the population struggles while the fortunate few ride the gravy train, is a world-class recipe for social unrest. Downward mobility is an ever-shortening fuse leading to profound consequences.
A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year.
As The Times’s David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”
G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.
Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.
New ideas and new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed.
•
This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years. I can be reached going forward at bobherbert88@gmail.com.

[hester_prynne]

I've really missed you Still. Thought about you every day and still do. Want to get back to writing and hangin out here again...miss the intelligence, the love, the connection. The articles and quotes in your post were like sustenance. You are like a sustenence.
Thank you
Hest

[stilltrucking]

thanks for the music
I read an article about poetry in some obscure arty farty journal, a very technical discussion of "narrow poems" pro/con, it was mostly con for me, I am just a fan of your work. how you drill down to it.
sustenance boy oh boy that is high praise sister.
you honor me.
music poetry and compulsive typing
and a half a dozen prescription drugs
high fiber oatmeal and instant coffee

so much sustenance I have to smoke a cigarette ever few hours just to keep one foot in the grave

my sense of humor is worse than ever
but it is cool I got my mojo working

[stilltrucking]

technical discussion of "narrow poems" pro/con, it was mostly con for me

by technical I mean I hardly understood a word of it, but for some reason I am not articulate enough to write it or maybe it is because my memory fails, it did remind me of your poems. in very positive pro way not con.

and maybe that is a Freudian slip for me or a typo, I meant I saw the pro side of it not the con.
but the article seemed so snooty maybe I just did not understand his con.
I wish I could find the link again but so far my searches have returned nada.