1. On CNN special report today I learn 50% of Air Force Academy cadets
(future officers) are self-identifying Evangelicals.
2.Other CNN news (as well as other channels) document huge popular anti-US
uprisings in Afghanistan in response to Newsweek's recent article
documenting official reports that Guantanamo interrogators desecrated the
Koran - setting the book on toilets, and even flushing one down the toilet.
3. Is there any American (or other national) poet addressing what appears a
fulfillment of Bush's original post-Sept 11 analysis of American intended
response (revenge) as a rebirth of the Crusades?
I suspect most of us (at least US citizens) on this list live on the margins
of this war - possibly very well informed - but insulated from direct
involvement with its literal manifestations in this country's institutions -
military Pentagon. State Department. Between our marginalization - in the
body of text, so to speak - the country is being led by a Biblical seeming
leadership bent on consuming us in an ancient Biblical dynamic set on
crusading, vanquishing, etc.
Our immediate isolation from this dynamic, I suspect, is going to ultimately
and inevitable bite us in the butt big time. Unless.
Is there any MFA program that encourages crossing these boundaries -
investigating and incorporating the news (disclosed or not)?
What will be the Global literary equivalent of William's City, a global
Patterson - if that work can be seen as a model? Or Zukofsky's "A"?
Many friends with whom I talk in this country agree that it feels like the
nation - is dying. A nausea in the air.
Just ruminating here before going to dinner.
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
|