Hiya All--

Seattle Bike Swap
  Feb 18th
(thxs for the heads up J at Bike Stand!):

 Bike Swap

Seattle Bike Expo
  March 10-11
(thxs 4 da word Bike Stand posse!)

 Bike Expo

[via tesccrier]

Prolegomena To A Future Poetics Reading Series Presents:
Robin Blaser reading from his own work

Robin Blaser found his beginnings as a poet in the excitement of the New American postmodern, particularly as it began to take shape in the work of his companions Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan in the late 1940s. Unlike many of his peers, however, Blaser has developed as a writer through subsequent generations and poetic movements; his work thus extends beyond the era in which it began. [link to remainder]

By WIlliam S. Burroughs

One of the ideas that developed during my walk with Mayor Foutch was the suggestion by a homeless gentleman named Mark that the homeless need a workshop-type space. 

I think Mark Foutch and I both thought this was a great suggestion directly from the level of the people who best know their own needs.

That discussion led to mention of Enterprise for Equity as a local group that might have the knowledge and ability to assist the Poor People's Union with the business aspects of developing a workshop type space.  I have been busy and I am not sure this is a thread of the fabric of the community that I can pick up, but I share the idea in case it appeals to anyone else, and specifically if it appeals to the PPU, that they should look into this idea further. 

I think government has a big role to play in the community, but it's not always direct funding of services, sometimes it's public financing of innovative small business ideas.  I know this is hard because our public dollars are flying into Iraq to be burned at a rate that the President thinks will require us to "save" Social Security and Medicare, so we can assume that public dollars are not easy to come by.  Plus, as we cut taxes (or don't raise taxed to pay as we go) while we blow the country's cash-stash in Iraq, our public dollars are essentially continuing to accumulate in the hands of the top 2% of the income and wealth - Reagan called it trickle-down, but it really turned out to be trickle-up, didn't it? (the key for trickle-down to work is that it must be tied to business investment credits and the government has to guarantee the time frame for the credits so that businesses burned in the past by fickle government policy are not afraid to do the investment, imho, anyway.)

The NYT  ran an article this morning that starts with the following:

In January more than 1,900 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed in the insurgency in Iraq, up from 800 in January 2006.

I heard someone this weekend talking about Iraq and saying basically - it's going to be bad in Iraq if we leave, and it's going to be bad in Iraq if we stay.  - can't recall who it was right now, but I think that person has it right. 

Human beings like to think in simple terms - black and white, win or lose - but the planet and outcomes in complicated, chaotic systems won't necessarily operate in simple ways and then plans that are designed around simple terms (mission accomplished?  bring it on? the surge? come to mind) are just completely inadequate to address the reality of a situation. 

I think that is the situation in Iraq.  Things will be bad there if we leave.  The Shi-ites will take over because they are the majority in the country.  A political democracy in Iraq looks like Iran because both countries have Shi-ite majorities.  It's not clear why the Bush folks didn't see this coming when they starting pushing democracy in Iraq, but I think they were busy attending to the parts of the takeover that truly appealed to them, the privatization of Iraqi oil fields, the contract outsourcing of the cost of war into the "cost-plus" system of the military-industrial complex (thanks for the warning, Ike).  Plus, I think the PNAC really completely deluded themselves about the limits of American military power.   Our military power is capable of running over anyone on the planet, but we cannot occupy and subdue captured territory without a level of american casualties and war crimes that the american people will find unnacceptable.