October 24, 2008 by Clair Button.

Thank God the political season silliness is drawing to a close! After two years of nonsense, two weeks looks like the light at the end of the tunnel. I know, I know. It might be a train. Put that aside for now.

It looks to me as though we once again missed our chance to have real, honest to goodness, intelligent discussions on real issues. And once again, we pretty well dragged everybody through the pig pen with various forms of distorted propaganda, weird rumors, outright lies, and digging up stuff from the outhouse of past lives and relationships. The thing we all seem to have forgotten, is that once the election is over, we still have to figure out how to work together if we don’t want to have civil war.

You can’t tell me there aren’t going to be a lot of disappointed, bitter, angry people out there on one side or the other. For that matter, the winners might not feel too much like kissing and making up with the other one who said somebody’s grandmother was the illegitimate child of Adolf Hitler born to Joseph Stalin before he had a sex change operation.

So, I thought we might start the discussion now about how we are going to smooth over those ruffled feathers and hurt feelings. We need a little I’m OK, you’re OK session, sort of an old-fashioned love-in without the sex. Lord knows we don’t really want to get in bed with each other, but a little conciliatory expression might not hurt.

In that spirit, I offer the following suggestions to both sides:
Republicans, shake hands with the nearest Democrat and say, “Yeah, you are a human, even if you did vote for a socialist terrorist. I forgive you.” Next time, try it without muttering “You dirty so-and-so” afterwards;

Democrats, prove you are liberal and forgiving by pulling out your wallets and donating a dollar to Sarah Palin’s IRS defense fund (since the liberal media dug up her per-diem mini-scandal). Promise never again to say “They all ought to be in jail.”

I admit, it’s just a first step, but we have to begin somewhere. By the way, take me off your phone call list. I already voted.

Clair Button is the author of three mystery novels and also writes the odd bit of humor.

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October 15, 2008 by Linda Bergeron.

Five ways of looking at…….Harvest

I.Stepping into the morning yard with hot mug,first outdoor breaths,I spot the fallen plumsnestled in the rascal grass.I stretch my shirt into an apronthat will hold each oneas I take them to the kitchen,close to my chest, full of aroma,little fleshy bounties at last, since the long ago days of spring.

II.When the heat and spirit-warmth of Sunchange how it arcs the day,and knowing that diminishing is the next journey-way,one hungers alreadythe absence that will comeand runs out of doorsto greet the more precious September sunin a desperation July did not know.

III.Last flower of its kind, from the bush that a moon ago was full-headwith blossoms.I pluck it with my nail, todaya valuable harvest of pink and yellowto set in a tiny vase - remembrance and presence in a single one.

IV.Tucking in the still-green tomatoes in the coming on of twilight,under a sheet, draping off the edges where the cold could come in;

covering the solitary late-flowering morning glory ~all grown up and ready to bloom, so late in August, then willing to adjust from the random weed-and-rock bed to a pot of soil I gave it, a sturdy rod to lean on.She adjusted and continued to present her daily purple show;and lastly, the petite pepper who tried so hard to bear some fruit, andcarries now ~ a large and a small ~ misshapen bells,glossy greens that hang awaiting weather’s final tale.Covered, tucked, little attentions ~surely a way to say a fortnightof evening goodbyes and I-love-you’s, to the season’s garden.

V.What abundance!the evening bird voice, no longer the cacophony of many in unison,but now a single abbreviation of one telling the listening a single secret;

the bowl of fruit and the ease with which my hand travels over thelushness to select and bite into, another

the dried slices, plump and plentifulin an aromatic cupboardawaiting the hunger that winter’s coldwill bring;

how like the other side of the fecundityof spring is this:richness, plenty, fruition,blossoms and bees and breezesthrough long hot days,evening stars, meteors,Pleiades sparkling in the nighttime black,and chilled rosy sunriseslaunching toward autumn.

Poetry by Linda Bergeron

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October 15, 2008 by Linda Bergeron.

Awake. Last night’s full moon

still present, in predawn’s dark.

Out I aim, to the balls of lit clouds

that fill the great sky above this valley town’s stillness,

single stars scattered in the sky beyond.

My feet bridge me to earth,

my torso pivots slow moves,

my face is given to seeing everything,

to surrender to the endless vault of it all ~

my aloneness finally altered and dissolved

by the saying-goodbye coyote clan yips,

as She, in her brilliance, descends beyond the shadowed west ridge.

The small house behind my footsteps is hardly there.

Poetry by Linda Bergeron

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October 11, 2008 by Linda Bergeron.

Untitled Poem by Linda Bergeron

Bahama cruise:

no news,

sun, sea,

take-care-of-me,

horizon blue,

endless view,

cloud-watch sky,

unseen tide,

arising moon,

autumn soon,

present care,

home out there,

friend and kin,

without, within.

Return to shore?

Aground once more.

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October 5, 2008 by Dave Rama.

There are so many questions in my mind about forms.  Who are the people who think up the questions on forms for businesses, schools, and the IRS?   Who decides what needs to be known?  The other side of this coin is to wonder who reads this information, and why do they want to know?  there is certain basic information that everybody has , like an address or phone number that I understand needs to be known, but there are an awful lot of unnecessary questions asked as well.

One of the organizations that does a lot of work with forms is the public school system.  (I can’t speak about private schools, but I rather suspect that is more a case of being able to lift the bag of money onto the headmaster’s desk.)  Every year the kids come home the first week of school with a pile of forms to fill out, and they can’t even read yet. After a few years, it became clear no one was reading this material, and we would fill out the same information again the next year for the same child, like this eight year old kid had maybe picked up a few credits at MIT over the summer.  How many languages does this child speak?  That question might make sense if you lived close to Canada where French is spoken a lot.  When these forms asked for parents’ occupations, we changed jobs each year.  Once, I put down that I was a steel-driving man, and my wife entered courtesan. (Robert Fulghum wrote that he always put down prince in the occupation blank.) Why does the school need to know the grandmother’s maiden name?  Would my child be held back a year if I lied about that?  It hasn’t happened yet.  (How many grandparents are named Attila, anyway?) In the blank for parents’ languages spoken at home, I usually entered Portuguese, Korean, and Hindi, but no English.  This avoided a lot of unnecessary parent-teacher conferences.  I also never knew why the school needed character references for parents.  The Public schools have to take kids even from Jack the Ripper, right?  Still, I filled in the blank.  I always listed my sainted Grandmother Rama, and if a second reference was needed, I put down Mother Teresa.  I didn’t think anyone was going to call Calcutta, and no one ever did.

Now, however, I find myself on the opposite side of the form.  I would like to sell my house.  The greedy have turned that into a fantasy for the moment, but it might happen at some later date.  At that point, I will have a form to give the lenders to fill out instead of the other way around.  The questions about character references will be long and very thoroughly checked.  Any lender with a history of bankers in the family will be rejected out of hand.  Anyone with connections to the Republicans will never get my business.  Anyone who lists character references that lack the combined positive qualities of St. Francis of Assisi, Abraham Lincoln, and Rose Kennedy will be swiftly assigned to the trash.          Dave Rama

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October 3, 2008 by Clair Button.

Well, shucks. Here we thought we could just turn our heads and trust all those geniuses on Wall Street to manage our money and all of a sudden we discover “GREED AND CORRUPTION ON WALL STREET!” I swear, we just woke up in a whole new world.

I couldn’t count all the times I heard that phrase on television last night. Only an imbecile could fail to recognize that those greedy bogey-men in three-piece suits are at fault for gambling away our hard-earned savings. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that we naively believed we could trust those boogers to make us a pile of money if only we got rid of the rules and regulators that were “in the way” of our great, American entrepreneurial spirit.

Not that I was all that greedy, myself, mind you. I only wanted a little piece of the action. Hell, I knew those CEO’s were out to make a killing. That’s what the history of capitalism is all about. But greed and corruption? What were those guys thinking? Were they dumb enough to think they could get away with that? Oh, boy, we’ll fix them! We’ll cut the strings on their golden parachutes so they only get a few million more apiece.

There was a time when I thought I couldn’t afford to gamble on stocks. Still, I read the investment advice telling me I should invest any extra money in a stock account to make fifteen or twenty percent a year. It was my bad judgment to figure a schmoe like me couldn’t do much better at picking stocks than saving the six or seven percent by paying off my home loan. Hey, if I was smart as Warren Buffet, I’d own Tahiti by now. Nope. It ain’t gonna happen. On the other hand, the bank ain’t gonna get my house, either.

And though I don’t like the price of gas, we’ve found that by driving a 1991 Volvo (with duct tape to hold on the cracked turn signal) that gets 30 miles to the gallon and by staying close to home, we can still afford to drink premium beer. You just have to get your priorities straight.

Now, the whole world’s financial system is in a shambles, and since my life expectancy isn’t all that long, I figure someone else is going to be holding the bag when we finally figure out we can’t pay off those “toxic” debts, reset everybody’s mortgage, send all the kids to college, and wage several wars all at once.

They say those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, a whole new world will start again next year. I figure this is a good time to invest some of my extra beer money in stocks. It should be safe now. Sarah Palin says she and that other reformer, John McCain, are going to “end greed and corruption on Wall Street!” Now, that’s one hell of a promise! I’m all for that. I’m just surprised that the Democrats didn’t think of that and jump on the bandwagon.

Clair Button is the author of three mystery novels and writes a little bit of humor from time to time.

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