madame zenobia's

"if the new hampshire law is upheld, states will feel free to more aggressively circumscribe the ability of women and girls to legally end a pregnancy. but if the justices vote to nullify the measure, courts and state legislatures will be obliged to weigh whether abortion restrictions would harm or pose an undue burden on women; a nullification of the new hampshire law would also force state abortion restrictions to include exceptions that protect the health of women."
"abortion wars, once again"
u.s. news & world report, 5 december 2005

"to leave that country before the job is done would be to hand that country to car bombers...when the united states of america makes a committment, we keep our word...this is a very, very important piece of history that we're living through."
vice president dick cheney
fort drum, new york, 5 december 2005

so, between these two things, along with a story on "talk of the nation" about the current state of gay marriage across the globe, i've been doing quite a bit of thinking about what i hold dear, what i believe...

i believe in a woman's right to choose--either way.
i believe that it's been time to leave iraq.
i believe that don't ask, don't tell is bullshit.
i believe that every life lost in iraq is a reason to grieve.
i believe that lindsey lohan is so over-rated.
i believe that kanye was right.
i believe that a homosexual priest can serve with as much faith, love, and dedication as a straight priest.
i believe that wolf blitzer, william bennett, and the producers of hilltv should be ashamed of themselves.
i believe in Christmas.
i believe that the first dumbledore was the best.
i believe that we all gotta swim upstream.

poem for the day

"A Poet Is Not A Jukebox"
Dudley Randall

A poet is not a jukebox, so don't tell me what to write.
I read a dear friend a poem about love, and she said,
"You're into that bag now, for whatever it's worth,
But why don't you write about the riot in Miami?"

I didn't write about Miami because I didn't know about Miami.
Iv'e been so busy working for the Census, and listening to music all night,
and making poems
That I've broken my haibt of watching TV and reading newspapers.
So it wasn't absence of Black Pride that caused me not to write about Miami,
But simple ignorance.

Telling a Black poet what he ought to write
Is like some Commissar of Culture in Russia telling a poet
He'd better write about the new steel furnances in the Novobigorsk region,
Or the heroic feats of Soviet labor in digging the trans-Caucausus Canal,
Or the unprecedented achievement of workers in the sugar beet industry
who exceeded their quota by 400 per cent (it was later discoverd to be a typist's error)

Maybe the Russian poet is watching his mother die of cancer,
Or is bleeding from an unhappy love affair,
Or is bursting with happiness and wants to sing of wine, roses, and nightingales

I'll bet in a hundred years the poems the Russian people will read, sing, and love
Will be the poems about his mother's death, his unfaithful mistress, or his wine, roses, and nightingales,
Not the poems about steel furnaces, the trans-Caucausus Canal, or the sugar beet industry.
A poet writes about what he feels, what agitates his heart and sets his pen in motion.
Not what some apparatchnik dictates, to promote his own career of theories.

Yeah, maybe I'll write about Miami, as I wrote about Birmingham,
But it'll be because I want to write about Miami, not because somebody
says I ought to.

Yeah, I write about love. What's wrong--with love?
If we had more loving, we'd have more Black babies to become Black brothers and sisters and build the Black family.

When people love, they bathe with sweet-smelling soap, splash their bodies with perfume or cologne,
Shave, and comb their hair, and put on gleaming silken garments,
Speak softly and kindly and study their beloved to anticipate and satisfy her every desire.
After loving they're relaxed and happy and friends with all the world.
What's wrong with love, beauty, joy, or peace?

If Josephine had given Napoleon more loving, he wouldn't have sown the meadows of Europe with skulls.
If Hitler had been happy in love, he wouldn't have baked people in ovens.
So don't tell me it's trivial and a cop-out to write about love and not about Miami.

A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
I repeat, A poet is not a jukebox for someone to shove a quarter in his ear and get the tune they want to hear,
Or to pat on the head and call "a good little Revolutionary,"
Or to give a Kuumba Liberation Award.

A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.
A poet is not a jukebox.

So don't tell me what to write.