Television is no longer a vast wasteland

Yes, TV can be used for good. You can tell me that there are no original ideas. You can tell me that TV is for amateurs, that the only serious film is one on the big screen. But sometimes television moves me. I was sitting here watching Jericho tonight. I was watching a worst-case-scenario . . . Well, no, I guess it's not really the worst case, but . . .

I was watching a small Midwestern U.S. town which had been declared insurgent by a U.S. military officer. In my mind's eye, though, I was seeing an Iraqi town, filled with families and friends and merchants and the law and the clergy, all trying to make the best of a bad situation, trying to protect their own and have some semblance of a normal life. I saw them enduring want - of food and water and light, of safety and privacy. I also saw that army officer, stuck in Iraq in an untenable situation, trying to do what's right, for his country but also for humanity, of which every Iraqi and every American is a member.

I really don't know how far to go with this. I'm probably talking to the ether anyway. But, it tears me up. It twists my heart to see what human beings can do to other human beings.

Enough. Good night.
No poems today.

One final post for class.

Well, this blog started out as an assignment. This is the last post for the class. I've put my poetry out here. I've made some minor political commentary. I've gotten some nice responses from my classmates. I still haven't decided if I'm crazy or just eccentric. And I'm not sure if what I have to say is worth posting for everyone to see. But, I know that I need to write. And if this blog inspires me to do so, well maybe I should continue. We'll see.

Brain farming

Till the field of mind,
Make tunnels for the muses:
Poetic? Insane?
They worm their way, chewing up
Spitting out fertilized thought.

McCain Flap Follow-up

I see I'm not the only one who thinks that the NYT McCain article was poorly written, not wrongly written. There was a brief and to-the-point opinion piece (I use that word loosely) in USA Today Friday. Again, I encourage everyone to read the Times article for him- or herself. Don't let the boob tube crew tell you what was said, read it and analyze it for yourselves.