The Winter of the Spring

April 15, 2011 - May 31, 2011
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izeveryboyin
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Location: Chicago
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The Winter of the Spring

Post by izeveryboyin » April 20th, 2011, 11:36 pm

In the morning...
I awoke to the quiet wind
And the sound of flakes hitting the window
Dew, frosted over... hiding any sight of the April I was promised.
In the night, I was hassled by rain, and hail
Drenched and unhappy
Feeling as if I had been robbed of the promise of new flowers...
Trees reborn...
The smell of warm weather on the air.
45 degrees outside and everyone barbeques.
They know it doesn't get better than this.
I yearn for the promise of the Mexican vendor carts on every major corner,
Selling Styrofoam cups filled with corn drenched in a heart attack
Big slices of fresh melons,
Little pinwheel chips
Slushies...
And a smile, en espanol.
Nothing more than a dollar or 2 because they understand the value of it
I yearn for the sidewalk soccer games played by eager young children who have chucked black and white balls at the walls begging their mothers for the chance to go outside and taste the sun
Denied by endless piles of snow and bitter cold.
I yearn even for the obnoxiously loud Mariachi music that blares from my neighbors windows...
Fighting with my Kanye West for airtime
I yearn for even a hint that winter has come to and end
When I can venture out, and enjoy the Earth again.
sometimes I just like to breathe.

www.technicolorfraud.blogspot.com

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judih
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Re: The Winter of the Spring

Post by judih » April 21st, 2011, 12:38 am

don't snow me, man
enough of ice and freeze
get this spring thing on the road

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jimboloco
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Joined: November 29th, 2004, 11:48 am
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Re: The Winter of the Spring

Post by jimboloco » April 24th, 2011, 9:44 pm

Wonderful presence of being in Chicago waiting for warmth to come around. Even better, hearing the pre·cious poet lady sounding strong, vitaL, connected.
[color=darkcyan]i'm on a survival mission
yo ho ho an a bottle of rum om[/color]

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one of those jerks
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Re: The Winter of the Spring

Post by one of those jerks » April 29th, 2011, 6:46 am

IT WAS a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. ....
So good to see you an your avatar
it seems like some people who were making such a big thing out of him being our first n*gger president are losing faith. And others keep giving him a pass because you know it is the Tea Party wackos who got us into Libya

I am keeping the faith, this much I am sure of, he is not a crook, he is not corrupt, no more than Abraham Lincoln or F.D.R.


I been rereading 1984 again, especially the appendix, the bit about political duckspeak.

Did you know I am a Quacker, or I used to be, those people have not heard from me in over thirty years.


http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2010/4/12/ ... -duckspeak

Yes the Quackers, aka The REligious Society of Ducks

boy it is good to see you
kicking
She is twice the man I am.

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one of those jerks
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Re: The Winter of the Spring

Post by one of those jerks » May 1st, 2011, 11:34 am

Boy oh Boy another bout of poster’s remorse
The old second thoughts about first thoughts blues again

Here it is May first and my last post is still hanging up there like a lead thought balloon, heavy on my head

I hope you finaly got some Mayla weather Kyla


Been a hard spring for me this year, did not got the maniac rebirth survived another winter rush I usally got this time of year.
Maybe because the winter was so mild here
I suppose a picture is a couple thousand words, attached is my zen garden in new berlin this year and last year, not too late to get my tomatoes in. I sure need to get my hands dirty. Too late, man those words like a mantra to me, my mother constantly telling me that all th rough my thirties. And I told myself all through my forties. Well these are my seventies and I am not the mama’s boy I used to be.

I remember once I asked you about his mother and you like to bit my head off.

Speaking of head, “Condi Rice gives articulate head.” LR

I still wonder what the comander in chief in him decided to invaded Lybia for. I read somewhere that he was “hen pecked” into the war. The military men was saying don’t do it but the tailor made women around him were for it. A couple of his female hands were haunted by what happened in Rwanda, oh well.
Don’t mind me and my latent Quakerism.

I hope you have wonderful spring sister
and
I hope I get going on my garden, cause it ain’t too late yet.
I missed butting heads with you
The avatar from a website called heartlaess bitches international

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.
She is twice the man I am.

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