A brief compendium to contemplate while the Burlesque disappears into the rural deeps for a time.
First, a reprise piece for Chelsea Manning, who, as many have pointed out, has been given a far harsher sentence for revealing war crimes than Lt. William Calley and his My Lai massacrers were given for actually committing war crimes. 35 years for leaking docum
ents — while the mass murderers, drone bombers and death-squadding assassins of the Potamac Empire live free in pomp and privilege. “Good corporal, good corporal, what have you done? You’ve laid out the dead in the light of the sun.”
“The fields of grain are rotten, all the people are stripped bare: who is the culprit? Who did the deed?” A shambling look at this ever-pertinent issue.
A piece sparked by a phrase snatched during an earlier turmoil in Egypt, before the sirocco of the Arab Spring.
This one goes out to Edward Snowden and all those who, in the face of implacable imperial power, “drink down exile’s bitter wine.”
Where goodness dwells, and where it doesn’t. “They tore us all to pieces, in ways we still can’t grasp…”