2010 Irascible Poet MLB Preview

It is Holy Week when Roman Catholics commemorate the death and resurrection of our Lord. It is also Passover when Jews commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. But more importantly we are in the last week of Spring Training and so it is time for the 2010 Irascible Poet Baseball Preview;

Baseball is the most contemplative sport. It follows the seasons and most resembles daily life since it goes on for months and months. I think the thing that I like best about Baseball is that it is every day. During the season you can watch the game and just when you need it it comes through for you.

Last year I was unemployed and depressed. I was sitting at home stewing in my own self pity and I had the White Sox game on and what do you know Mark Buehrle throws a perfect game. Baseball coming through for you.... I have been reading a new biography of Willie Mays by James Hirsch and he talks about the idea of Willie Mays catching a ball in center field-- sheer perfection in the face of the ordinary. Baseball is like being allowed to watch an artist paint or sculpt. It is sheer perfection but also failure and doubt and if you are a Cub fan like my dear friend Mark Tardi it is agony punctuated by numbness. I of course am a White Sox fan and so my life is filled with agony and deformity rather than numbness.

Everyone is making their picks and so here are mine;

NATIONAL LEAGUE

National League East

The NL East is an interesting division. The Phillies are a great team and they have a great ball park but I do not think that this is their year. The New York Mets should be a great team but the combination of their ball park which is too big and David Wright's weight gain does not bode well for them and then there is the fact that this is Bobby Cox's last year in Atlanta. I think that this is the difference and that Atlanta wins this division and gives them a storybook ending for Cox's career.

Braves*

Phillies

Mets

Marlins

Nationals

National League Central

It is well known that the Cubs give me hives and their fans make me want to vomit but I think that this might just be a good year for our bastard cousins on the North Side. This is Lou Piniella's last year with the Cubs and even the most vitriolic Cub hater has to like Lou (Just like we liked Ernie Banks only an idiot did not like Ernie Banks). The Milwaukee Brewers look good as well and the Cardinals have Albert Pujols which makes them a good team. Look for Dusty Baker to be fired by Cincinnati in May. So my pick is the Cubs by one game over the Cardinals who will win the NL Wild Card

Cubs*

Cardinals*

Brewers

Astros

Reds

Pirates

National League West

This is the weakest division in baseball. The Dodgers are going no where fast and the divorce drama will get worse before it gets better. The Padres are an empty shell. The Rockies are a good team but the team to watch is the San Francisco Giants. This is their year with great pitching they win the west.

Giants*

Dodgers

Rockies

Diamondbacks

Padres

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Now we move on to the real league, The American League.

American League East

The Yankees/Red Sox division is dominated by that rivalry and it produced a World Champion for only 200 million dollars last year. The Yankees are a great team but how long can this chemistry last? The Red Sox have one of the best pitching staff's and they also have the advantage of being an underdog. I would watch this division you will have a three way race between the Ray's, Red Sox and Yankees but the team that is most interesting are the Orioles. They have a good core of young players and could finish fourth and be over .500 if that happens this division tightens and the Yankees/Red Sox do not win 95 games. Having said that this is how they finish.

Yankees*

Red Sox*

Rays

Orioles

Blue Jays

American League Central

This is my home division. Filled with evil teams like the Twins and Tigers. Actually I like to call the AL Central the old jeans division it is so comfortable and the rivalries are fierce but no where near the meanness of Yankees Red Sox and that is because there are no assholes in the Midwest they have all migrated to the area between Philadelphia and Boston. Having said that this division will be the most competitive of the entire MLB. The Twins are a good team, my White Sox have the best rotation and do not forget the Indians who are young but have Grady Sizemore who is a great player. Watch for the Tigers to fall apart trading Curtis Granderson was a stupid move. So here is my call...

White Sox*

Twins

Indians

Tigers

Royals

oh and it will be another year of a one game playoff between two 88 win teams....

American League West

Is this baseball's most boring division? The Angels are about as exciting as a visit to a State Farm office. The A's could be a great team if someone would just show up to their games, the Mariners play in a great ball park and the Rangers could be great if it were not so damn hot in Texas. Having said that I think this is the year that that Rangers finally win the division. The cocaine problems of their manager will be resolved in May when he is fired and the Angels will be weakened.

Rangers*

Angels

Mariners

Athletics

POST SEASON

National League

Braves/Cubs

Cardinals/Giants

NLCS

Braves/Giants

NL Pennant

Braves

American League

Yankees/White Sox

Red Sox/Rangers

ALCS

Yankees/Red Sox

AL Pennant

Red Sox

I am not going to pick a World Series Winner mostly because I do not really care.

CODA

I remember once when I was travelling in Europe in the late 1980's that I read an article by David Halberstam in the International Herald Tribune about what it is like to be away from Baseball in an alien land on opening day. I felt this six times in my life when I lived outside the USA and I have to say that opening day and the baseball season is one of the only things I truly missed while living abroad. There are allot of great places to live in the world and i have lived in two of them but there is always an emptiness because of the lack of baseball. There is something cleansing about baseball something reassuring.

You can become immersed in it's minutiae and remove yourself from reality which makes all the difference in a world of pain. Other sports are great I enjoy College Football and the World Cup but there is just something about the crack of the bat that I cherish and in the end cannot live without. Roger Angell one of baseball's great writers said once that baseball is like a religion and once you are inducted you need it the way a Catholic needs the Eucharist or a Buddhist meditation.

That seems right to me so only a few days left to the crack of the bat....

A Special Place in Hell for Cardinal Ratzinger

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html?src=me&ref=general

I write this blogpost as an angry, disappointed, faithful Roman Catholic.

I am not some wild eyed Catholic hater who wants to destroy the Church.

But any faithful Catholic who has not seen the fertile field that our Church has become for Sexual Predators is not seeing reality. I grew up in a great parish in suburban Chicago a place where I was nurtured and supported but even in that environment two priests were removed for the sexual abuse of boys. In our safe place these things happened and the evil was not dealt with properly. The Church chose to protect pedophiles and to allow the abuse of Children....

We as faithful Catholics have seen our institutions destroyed, Hospitals, Parishes, Schools, Universities, that WE paid for with our hard earned dollars have been sold to pay for the evil decisions of Bishops to protect sexual criminals. Our money has been taken to pay for the sexual violence that was perpetrated on our Children.

After college I worked as a Catholic Lay Missioner in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It was the greatest experience of my life and I met Priests and Sisters who were the "real deal". I think about those people, people like Sister Fulvia a Franciscan Sister who worked with prostitutes, Fr Ignacio Harding OFM who embodied St Francis and Fr Oscar DeWulf who really lived and worked to educate the poor and my heart is filled with what is possible. These people reaffirmed my Faith but they are in many ways the exception- not the rule.

I also knew other priests and sisters who were not so saintly. I knew Bishops who had mistresses and Children. I knew Catholic sisters who had affairs with priests and when they got pregnant they were expelled from their orders while the Priests were sent to better postings. I heard rumors about other evils done by priests and brothers to young boys and how nothing was really done about those evils. I also experienced the strong misogyny of a clergy made up of so many sexually underdeveloped men. Men who obviously were not comfortable with women and who had odd proclivities.

I was not surprised by Sexual Crimes that were exposed. What has surprised me is the fact that Bishops chose to ignore or avoid these problems. They chose to protect priests who committed crimes.

• Pope John Paul II gets lauded by Conservative Catholics as a Saint. He is in fact guilty of allowing thousands of Children's abuse
• Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, is also guilty of allowing Children to be abused.
• The Sexual Culture of My Church is sick and needs reforming.
• Women in our Church are abused and ignored everyday.
• When Women Religious dare to challenge the Church they get investigated as they are now.

In the end I remain a practicing Catholic because I believe in the Eucharist. I believe that the Church has produced so much good. Just in our own country we have produced Catholics like Cesar Chavez, Flannery O' Connor, Dorothy Day, Cardinal Spelman, Thomas Merton, John Courtney Murray, Fr. Jacque Marquette, St Francesca Cabrini, Bishop John Ireland, Robert and John Kennedy and so many more. I believe in the Catholic people who struggled to build Churches and Schools in a nation that hated them because they were Catholics and my heart breaks when I see our Bishops and our Popes violating that trust.

If Pope Benedict were a CEO and he did what he did he would be indicted or fired. Perhaps that is what he should do? Maybe we are in need of Reform? Pope Benedict deserves all the derision he is receiving. He allowed a priest in Milwaukee to abuse hundreds of young Deaf boys. There is a special place in hell for someone who allows that kind of evil to continue.

Where is our St Teresa of Avila?

Where is our St Francis?

Where is our Cluny?

Where is our St John XXIII?

Deo Gratia +

My President, My Alma Mater, Prairie Lights--- what more can you ask for?

President Obama was in Iowa City today.

What more can you ask for? He not only went to my Alma Mater to talk about health care victory but he went shopping at Prairie Lights Bookstore-- where I learned to love to read. President Obama is missed here at home in Chicago but he went to Iowa City and that is okay by this Hawkeye.

You know I am just tired of the Goebbelsque tactics. I can see why Germans believed in Hitler though if you listen to bad things enough they sound like the truth. My parents watch Fox News and sometimes I feel like I am talking to Sean Hannity. My parents are smart and somewhere down there I know they must be embarrassed?

Healthcare reform was not perfect but I would not trade it for the Patriot Act or Tax Cuts for Rich folks. Obama showed some balls. The Word in Italian is Palloni ....

So give them hell Barack and it is a good day when you can say you spent it in Iowa City.... the Athens of the Midwest and home to the best burger (at the Hamburg Inn) anywhere...

Brazilian Sun, American Darkness

I first moved to South America in 1993. I can still remember the first day I spent in

Bolivia where I went to be a volunteer after college. There were smells and tastes and

odd foods and also there was a sense that I as an American had come from a place very

far away. Over time I learned the nuances of Bolivian culture and I learned that it was me

as an American who was the odd one and that the norm for Bolivians was more normal world-wide

then my own coddled upbringing. I learned to speak Spanish and learn how to read new expressions and it was the adventure of my life.

I spent most of the next 10 years either living or working in South America. After time in Bolivia I found a job in Brazil. In of all paces Blumenau in Brazil's south. Santa Catarina is one of the those places that no one knows about but is so great, kind of like the Carolinas.

In the process I met my wife, learned Portuguese and got to know Brazilian poets. I used that knowledge to work for many more years with Latin America and in the end I have either lived or worked in every nation on the continent except Canada,Cuba and the Guyanas. I loved working South America but I never doubted that life is easier in the USA and that one has more opportunity here.

Every time I visited South America, until last week, I had the feeling that the U.S. was a dynamic place that . That "The Future" was somewhere in Texas or New York but never in Sao Paulo, Blumenau or Buenos Aires. That feeling is no longer part of my thinking.

We arrived in Sao Paulo on a Friday. Sao Paulo is the largest economic engine in all of Latin America it is larger than the rest of Latin America combined in GDP and it produces more things than the country of Mexico and it is just one state in Brazil. You see it all over the city, factories, malls and restaurants this is a place that is moving and growing. The feeling I got upon arriving was that unlike Chicago or New York there was no pall of depression or fear. In the USA right now many people are living lives of fear and doubt we see a false credit driven reality that made many of us feel secure when we were not and today many are wondering how to get out of the dead end? It seems evident why the International Olympic Committee Picked Rio over Chicago the energy and the hope is obvious.

In Brazil, for all its poverty and violence you can see a society that is emerging and growing. We spent time in Sao Paulo and the restaurants were full, the factories were humming and the people seemed confident in the future- perhaps Brazil has finally lived up to it's moniker "the country of the future"? For the entire 10 days in Brazil you could see the "Future" around you with growth and change even my Father in law saying that it is hard to get someone to do manual work because their are other jobs to be had. If that were only true in Chicago. So as the week progressed things became hopeful for me. For the first time in a year I felt that maybe things would get better and that there were possibilities.

I read in Florianopolis at the Centro Cultural Arquipelago a wonderful space where a young artist opens her home and studio to readings. The reading was a delight and poet Sergio Medieros did a great job of helping me to present my work to an audience- along with some great translations from Paulo Henriques Britto. In the end the day was a great, albeit a little hot and so humid it was like wearing a wet wool sweater. The whole trip was a joy and returning to the place where my life began as an adult was a sure way to begin again...

I left Brazil hope full... upon my return to Chicago my hopefulness lasted a day.

I turned on the TV news and watched the fighting and the insults, spoke to my many friends who are unemployed or underemployed, learned that another set of relatives have declared bankruptcy-- and for the first time in my life wished that I was not living here in the 'land of opportunity' but instead in the 'country of the future' . Things are not perfect in Brazil- but the pall that sits over everything I know here in the US remains like a dark rainstorm blocking out the sun.

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America - The Atlantic (March 2010)

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America - The Atlantic (March 2010)

2010 in America is Like Germany in 1925 is our Future the Same?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

I came home yesterday to find my new copy of the Atlantic Monthly in my mailbox.

This in itself is so 20th century. But as a quaint response I brewed a cup of tea and read the Article Jobless America and the Future which is linked above.

Many have fatiqued to this conversation and many no longer want to discuss what the author Mr Peck describes and thus he confirms his thesis that America has changed and not for the better. Writers from the right like David Brooks and from the left like EJ Dionne have begun to make a point that needs to be spoken loudly-- America is not only in decline but if you want to see the future of large parts of America you need to go to Michigan and get used to all of America looking like that.

What has happened is that a whole generation of Men many white and in their 30's and 40's have already made the most money they will ever make in their lives. The result of this reality is going to be a profound change. Peck argues that White males who are now middle class- with college or especially no college are going to look like a group much more like inner city Black men in the future and I have to say that I see this all around me. I see formerly Middle Class men relegated to being dependant or worse violent and no one cares because in the 'old' mindset these men are the oppressors but in reality these are an old ideas whose time has passed.

It is convenient for political expediency to argue that Heterosexual White Men are the oppressor and every kind of "other" are oppressed but in fact this is no longer reality. America's colleges are now approaching 58% female. According to many studies if you are a highly educated woman you are more likely to be hired as the same man and for working class men you have no prospects. The fact is that White Males in America who are not in the elite are becoming marginalized and that is not a good place for them.

If you look at every major statistic working class males without college degrees are today America's most vulnerable population of adults apart from Black men. The problem is that no one in the Elite cares about these men and this will be to the nation's detriment. According to Peck all aspects of society are in deep decline among White Working Class Men . Religion, Civic Groups, and more are simply not serving these people's needs as huge segments of the economy melt away. The reality is that what happened in the Black community in the 1960's; that is the destruction of Black men's role in society is now happening to White Men and Boys.

It is not politically correct to say this but we have created a society where a working class, high school educated White Male is a marginalized figure but it its true and it is bad. This has moved beyond those who worked in Auto Plants. Every former middle manager I know who is jobless is a White male whose life is melting away.

There is allot of unemployment among other groups but never before have so many middle class families been reduced in this way. If you want to know where the Tea Party Movement comes from go to any unemployment office and listen to the people who cannot find work and who have no prospects. Listen to their stories. The issue for the next period in America is not what to do to make 'oppressed groups' lives better it is trying to save the Middle Class as Elizabeth Warren has said. All aspects of these people's lives are now in doubt and a man with nothing to lose is a dangerious thing as Malcolm X once said.

There is allot of kvetching about budget cuts, state budgets, education cuts et cetera and all of that is the result of the destruction of the middle class. I would tell my academic friends if you want to see the California University System funded then we need to solve the problem of Middle Class job destruction and most of those jobless are white men. The most important societal problem we have in this country is a place in it for these White working class men if they become totally marginalized we are looking at a new political order that will not do anyone any good.

There was a time in the past where a similar situation existed and that was in Germany in the 1920's. Whole segments of the German economy in the 20's were destroyed by this type of social dislocation. I would remind people that the German people did not turn to the Left for respite but to the Nazis. If you want to see a parallel to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party People look for it is Der Sturmer.

Hiroshima today is nicer than Detroit

http://www.uncoached.com/2010/01/07/hiroshima-versus-detroit/

Recently I was watching ESPN U's Coverage of National Signing Day for High School Seniors for College Football. One of the announcers who also happened to be an Ohio State graduate began to talk about why many of the best players come from the south and west and he blurted out- because all the older areas of the country have lost their manufacturing bases and populations and so sick people cannot produce good football players.

It was an unwelcomed reality check amid something that I am sure ESPN did not wish to become political. But this comment brings be back to the website that is featured on the top of this blog comparing Hiroshima to Detroit, Michigan.

Hiroshima along with Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt and Tokyo have been rebuilt from ruins and today those cities are places with levels of infrastructure and industry that no American city can even hope to attain. In both Japan and Germany a decision was made after the war to build public institutions. In the US for over 40 years the choice has been to "let the market dictate". The result of letting the market dictate is Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Ohio, St Louis, Missouri, and other formerly great cities that are now empty shells with less than half their populations. The reason for this most conservatives would lead you to believe is that the free market made these places obsolete and they could not keep up.

The truth is that a conscious decision was made. Newt Gingrich said in 1982 that Alvin Toffler's vision for the future where most American's would be "knowledge workers" was our destiny. The result of this is that the American fabric had been torn asunder. The knowledge workers dwell in southern states, a few urban cities of the north and university towns while huge swathes of the American landscape have become like Michigan and Upstate New York. Empty and destroyed. Smaller towns like Newton, Iowa and Galesburg, Illinois have seen a huge decline with the closing of factories places like this that were middle class towns are now devistated by Meth and Unemployment.

So who won World War 2?

The Big Corporations did.

In 1945 most states outside the South had good, free or cheap universities. Good public schools, manufacturing jobs, and the world's best infrastructure. We had so much money that we could afford to make the swamps and deserts of the south and west habitable. We transfered huge amounts of wealth to build cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta and Las Vegas. Big corporations did not want to pay the taxes needed to support this growth and so unlike the Europeans and the Japanese we began to neglect our great cities.

Just go to Detroit,Buffalo, Cleveland, most of New York City, Chicago outside of the rich areas, St Louis, Cincinnati or Philadelphia and compare them to any city in Europe or many new places in China and ask yourself what is wrong with this picture?

I think that President Obama has elicited so much vitriol because he has dared to ask these questions. The Republicans believe that it is because of Unions and Liberals that Detroit declined. The fact is it was corporate America that decided that they did not want to bargain collectively and they did not want to build their communities and moved jobs first to the south and then to China and they caused all of this and now they are complaining because Americans are not buying anything?

It makes you wonder and now a whole generation of "knowledge workers" are out there looking for jobs and the curtain is removed to show what a lie it all was.

Obama: Democrats are Wimps that is Why We Lose

Have you ever been at a party with Liberals talking politics?

I am often at parties with Liberals and the thing that comes over loud and clear is no one in the room has ever punched anyone in the mouth.

Liberals used to have tough guys, Robert Kennedy, Cesar Chavez, Richard Daley, Lyndon Johnson, Walter Ruether, Harvey Milk, Harry Truman and many other Liberals were tough and they were not afraid to fight for what they believed in but somewhere during the 1960's these tough guys all went away and what we got was Professors, Poets, Artists, and Volvo Drivers.

As I look back at Obama's first year and also one year where I have been unemployed I just get angry. It is almost like Herbert Hoover , he lost in 1933 and then during the Hundred Days he came back to challenge FDR and convinces everyone that the Depression is FDR's fault. Why is that Obama and Democrats have not driven home that they won a huge election and they have the right to govern and change America.

Because they are wimps.

The other day my Republican father who by the way gets Medicare and Social Security and VA Healthcare complained that Obama is a Fascist ( he watches a lot of Fox News). I wish Obama was a Fascist at least something would get done and the Republicans would be shut up. What Obama really is is a professor.There is nothing wrong with professors but the Republicans are armed with lead pipes and we are armed with what.... irony and metaphors?

The reality my Wimpy Democratic friends is that 51 Million Americans are either out of work or victims of joblessness in their families.

These people are angry-- I am angry-- and instead of fighting for us and blaming the people who caused this-- that is 30 years of Free Market economics and the Robber Bankers that have not created a job since 1999-- Fox News and the Conservatives are allowed to blame President Obama and no one says or does anything about it. Can you imagine FDR or LBJ allowing this to happen? May be Michael Moore should run for President?

Democratic wimps get some backbone before we have President Sarah Palin .

Limbaugh, EWTN, Fox News, Robertson & Haiti

Well the truth of our friends has been made manifest.

Rush Limbaugh does not want people to help in Haiti
because we have already paid taxes. EWTN our Catholic version of Fox News has absolutely nothing on their homepage to help
a nation that is 80% Catholic. Pat Robertson believes that Haitians made a 'deal' with Satan and Fox News's prime time programming is all Hannity, Beck and O'Reilly and little about this tragedy.

The truth is for all these folks Haiti does not matter because they have dared to one elect a former Liberation Theology Priest as president and because most Haitians are Black? Or is it something else? Why is it that the people who watch Fox News choose to ignore Haiti but want to continue to listen to the escrement coming from Fox?

It has been said by Rush Limbaugh and company that they want Obama to fail. This is completely true they want him to fail because if a Liberal who also happens to be Black succeeds how do they get power back??

I am just nauseated by them. I am nauseated as well that a "Catholic" Channel like EWTN is going along with this? I guess that the corporal works of mercy are only for those who want the Latin Mass?

Shame on them....

Catholics Come Home. To What?

catholicscomehome.org

Anyone who watched TV during the holidays could not help but see the ads by a group called Catholics Come home. The ads are vaguely like those run by Mormons and other groups inviting Catholics who are fallen away to return to the Church and others to investigate Roman Catholicism. They invite people to investigate the Catholic Church as a spiritual home.

My reaction as a Catholic who is still observant but who is very dismayed by our Church was to ask "come home to what?"

Recently I was talking to an active female member of my home parish in suburban Chicago about the state of the community. My home parish was a wonderful place to grow up. It was the place where I learned about justice and the service to God's people. It was the kind of place where Catholics be they conservative or liberal felt at home.

When I wanted to be a Catholic Lay Volunteer I needed to raise money- and my Parish gave double the amount needed. I have nothing but good memories of the place. It was home to me and always dear but things have begun to change.

One of the areas of my home parish that was always excellent was adult education. There is this Sister who runs that program and every year major speakers came and gave missions and classes helping people learn about 2000 years of Catholicism. This is not the kind of Parish that has much patience for pictures of Jesus that talk to Polish nuns or bleeding Madonna's. It is the kind of place that Vatican II imagined when they talked about the Church in the Modern World.

To contemporary conservative Catholics the way my home parish was run is an affront. In fact

anyone who dares to hold progressive Catholic views is an affront to their interpretation of what the Church stands for. As a result whole segments of the Catholic Community are anathema. If you like the books of Thomas Merton you are not "really" a Catholic. If you think Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers have it right you are a communist. If you think that women and gay people should be accepted and empowered you are 'dangerous'. If you dare to organize yourself against the Church's refusal to realize that pedophilia is not the result of "Homosexual Predation" as was asserted on EWTN (The Media/TV Megaphone of these Catholics) but rather the result of a stunted and perverse view of women and sexuality you are anathema.

Slowly but surely the Conservatives have driven out people. Cities that used to be predominantly and culturally Catholic like Boston are today a memory because of Pedophilia. While Cardinal Law lives in luxury in Rome still a Cardinal of the Church.

The promise of the Second Vatican Council has been traded for a Church that refuses to realize that Women, Homosexuals, Divorced People and others need to be empowered and respected. The Church refuses as well to realize that those millions of people who have left the Church may be in places where they have more power and do not have to worry about their Children.

I write this because I was told that at my home parish a speaker was not allowed to speak because conservatives complained that the sister invited used Reiki Massage in her therapy practice and this is not 'healthy'. She also dares to believe that God thinks women should preside at the Eucharist. So amid all the unhealthy attitudes using Chinese medicine techniques and believing that women are equal to men merits not being allowed to speak?

At the same time being a pedophile merits protection and "care" ?

John Paul II is a saint according to them but the fact that he and Pope Benedict ignored the pedophilia scandal here in the US and in Ireland is unimportant?

Conservative Catholic's hatred for the Second Vatican Council and everything that came from it from Archbishops Oscar Romero and Dom Helder Camarra to Guitar Masses has created a toxic environment that does not feel much like home. Deal Hudson, a Catholic Right winger who, by the way, was accused and admitted to molesting a student of his at Fordham has called all these people I love "Fake Catholics".

In fact what has happened over the past 20 years is that conservatives have decided that ignoring pedophilia as the past and current Pope have done, and love of the Latin Mass is more Catholic. Pluralism, openness and the open window letting in the fresh air of the world that Pope John XXIII tried to bring in is fake Catholicism.

So I say... Catholics Come Home.... To What??

GO IOWA BEAT GEORGIA TECH

The Poetry Foundation and the Poetic Class- My First Rant of 2010

http://www.poetryfoundation.org

It only took two days of 2010 for me to find something to rant and froth at the mouth about.
When Ruth Lilly first gave her millions to the Poetry Foundation I listened as 'avant garde' poets made comments about John Barr and Christian Wiman and the Poetry Foundation. There were complaints and challenges so many poets told me "I will never work with them" "they are reactionary" well that all changed when the money and fame began to flow and today they all write things for the Poetry Foundation site or magazines.

Poetry in the the United States is the most insular art form where poets are mostly interested in impressing those who are part of the Poetic Class elite. That Poetic Class includes people like Marjorie Perloff, Ron Silliman, Caroline Bergvall, Eileen Myles, and Matthew Zapruder who were featured in a recent "poetry over the past decade article on the Poetry Foundation Blog".

Poetry in the US is the only art form where there is little audience and no public to sell to and as a result the Poetic Class decides what is good and bad. The Poetic Class once scorned the Poetry Foundation but today they are merging well.

It is important to understand that in The Poetic Class system that elitism is central to being taken seriously. Basically what Charles Bernstein once called Official Verse Culture is alive and well and it appears that the Poetry Foundation is trying to become its college of cardinals. For all the Blogs and all the "new media" real access to poetry and the levers of critical power are held by academics and members of the Poetic Class.

A strong criticism of the Poetry Foundation's Decade in Review is that in all of these short articles there was nothing about global poetry. How is it possible that one non American poet was not included? Surely there are international poets who matter?? Eliot Weinberger in his great talk at the Poetry Project in 2003 said the following that still applies here...

"How many of those 8000 poets have ever been to a Third World country (excluding beach vacations)? How many think it worthwhile to translate something? How many can name a single contemporary poet, not living in the U.S., from Latin America or Africa or Asia?"

"After thirty years of self-absorption in MFA and MLA career-mongering and knee-jerk demography and the personal as political and the impersonal as poetical, American writers now have the government we deserve."

This is still the best summation of American poetry over the past 10 years. Poets who are unconcerned about the greater world and who are writing to serve the Poetic Class and become loved within that structure. If all the money that the Poetry Foundation has is now to be in service of that Poetic Class Structure then poetry in the next 10 years will become even more irrelevant.

It is important as well to not delude ourselves that "multi cultural poetry' in the US is Global Poetry it is not. A Hispanic or Asian origin poet writing in the US is a unique expression but it is not the river of poetry being written globally and needs to be defined as what it is an immigrant literature.

In China there are poets who are sitting in jail cells for writing poems critical of their government or environmental degradation. there are poets in Iran who are persecuted for their work and one who were killed . There are poets in Brazil whose work is quoted in major media yet none of these poets were deemed important for these articles.

But the musings of a small poetic elite in the US was deemed important. In the end no one in the general US really cares about the musings of the Poetic Class . Poets should be prophetic and challenge their society not become part of a Poetic Class.


Lets hope that in 2020 that more American poets are reading globally and that the Poetic Class includes more poets and critics from places other than Brooklyn, Palo Alto, Berkeley and Iowa City.

2009 is Over Thank God

2009 is over- thank God. If ever I was happy to see the end

of a year 2009 is it. Early in 2009 I lost my job with Advanstar

Communications. The combination of the economy and corporate change seems to have effected so many people I care about. The

fact is that while the economy has seemed a little better many people

are still seeing their lives melt away.

In 2008 President Obama was elected and we all had so much hope. In 2009 President Obama did some good things- frankly without the

unemployment extensions and the COBRA subsidy I would have used

up my savings a long time ago.

But I think many of us were hoping for FDR or LBJ. We were hoping for a president who like Ronald Reagan would change the conversation. Many of us wanted the stupid red necks and their corporate enablers to be turned back that dream has been dashed.

As Americans we can hope that 2010 will be a better year for all of us including our dear President. I think President Obama would do better if he came home to Chicago more. Maybe getting out of Washington and talking to real people would help?

In the end I am glad 2009 is over. I am also glad that the decade of the zeros is over. Lets see what the future holds? and hope for better.

Avatar Christmas

Normally during the Christmas season I write an uncomfortable reflection about Jesus as God with us.

I then get some nasty responses from people who think that Jesus is bunk and we all return to life as before. What makes Christianity different than other monotheistic faiths is that that God entered into history, lived with us died for us and knows what it means to be us he chose to make all creation sacred.

The Christian idea of God With Us- Immanuel makes allot of things sacred. God chose to be one of us and bless his creation. Destroying His creation and his creatures wantonly is a sin. The sin is Gluttony. This is the best argument I find with right wingers who argue against protecting the natural world. If you are in favor of unjust wars, environmental degradation, and violence then it seems that you are in fact contrary to what God ordained and you are among other things a glutton.

Christians throughout history have chosen to ignore what God ordained by his Incarnation and embrace gluttony and sin. They have justified all manner of evil. A few have chosen to make gentleness and reverence for Creation important and reject gluttony- St Francis, Charles de Foucoult, Bartolome de Las Casas, Menno Simons and today the New Monastics come to mind. But normally we get tomes about "sexual purity" or "morals" and nothing about the sin of Gluttony that kills millions of people, animals and plants every minute of every day.

Yesterday, I went to see the new movie Avatar. Normally movies are experienced and then I move on but I cannot get the images and ideas of this film out of my mind. The film is a conviction of our world as it is today a world of Gluttons.

Forgetting about the fabulous images and special effects Avatar is an advocacy film of the first order. It challenges gluttony against the natural world and makes it very clear what is wrong with our current Capitalist/Industrial model. The mining scene in the movie evokes the copper mines of Chile and the Tin Mines of Bolivia. The attitudes of the humans in story are very close to many business executives I have known in my life- get the money, walk over anything, rape, pillage and forget about the consequences Gluttony of the first order rather than the kind of husbandry and care.

The difference between someone who cares for and cherishes people and land and water and air and makes the world a better place and those who will consume everything and then dump their garbage in the sea. It is not evil to make money but in the service of money much evil has been done and it is not wrong to point that out and ask is it necessary?

Avatar argues that the created world is sacred and should be cherished and respected rather than used until destroyed. This is an incarnational way of seeing the world and fits well into this season of Christmas. Avatar exposes the lie that we can do whatever we want with the created world.

It also makes real what happens everyday in our world vis a vis our environment. The fact is that our current Capitalist/Industrial is not only destroying our world but it is in fact sinful is lay ed out on the screen and it disturbing in the way Holocaust films are disturbing.

Avatar makes its world view very clear. It also evokes what happened in the past when those who were more powerful got what they wanted. You feel that you are seeing the destruction of the Incas and the carnage of Potosi again. You feel like you watching the African Slave trade and the destruction of the millions of Hispanola again and you want to cry out. It is not a naive evocation of a "nature people" as some have said. So many times we patronize native peoples for example as more in touch with nature and that is really false. The Capitalists are not always evil but since gluttony is rewarded capitalism makes these evils possible.

Avatar says everything should not be exploited and we should not be gluttons. This message will probably be shouted down by those who think that gluttony is all necessary to make our lives more efficient and more profitable you know the "Greed is Good" Crowd. They have been in Washington opposing Health Reform, Environmental Reform and more. I am surprised we have not had entire Glenn Beck programs about the evils of Avatar but that must be coming soon.

I for one was moved. I could see my heroes people like Dorothy Day, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, John Muir and others saying to the screen yes, yes that is what God wants. I hope the message penetrated better because of the 3D and the digital images but it is still the same message .... Immanuel God With Us

Why I Hate the Amazon Kindle

Every time I see this ad for the Amazon Kindle
I get angry.

In fact all e Readers make me angry.

Unlike an Ipod which does not fundamentally change
the ways we consume music and films as primarily
aural experiences e Readers are an attack on something fundamental- the Book.

The thing that has been lost by the growth of the internet is serendipity. If you think about it because of the internet there are many pleasures that younger people will never experience.

The finding of an article in the newspaper that you did not expect to read and acting on that seredipity. Finding an album in a record store that you never thought you would buy and now with e Readers they are trying to destroy the last bit of anonymous chance the bookstore.

I know, I know, we all buy books on line but is there anything better or more important than a good bookstore? I for one came of age among some great ones, Prairie Lights in Iowa City, Seminary Co-op in Chicago and the lost but not Forgotten Gotham Bookmart in New York.

There is nothing better than spending a couple of hours here in Chicago at Seminary Co-op. Chatting with Jack Cella its' great General Manager then finding an obscure book that you thought you would never read. Opening a new book with its pages and its artwork is something tactile and real that I have never felt from something electronic. It seems that our goal as a nation is to destroy everything that is actual in favor of the virtual.

I don't want to eat artificial food- I want real food.

I want to spend warm June afternoons at the ball park watching my White Sox and not have so much stimuli that I cannot concentrate on the game.

I certainly do not want all bookstores to go away in favor some electronic paper whatever the hell that is? Imagine not being able to browse a bookstore and find that right book?

Someone please tell me what we are to do?

I don't want to read books- even bad ones on a computer screen. I want to sit with a book and coffee and read books that are objects not just pixels. It is bad enough that Google is stealing every book ever published but tell me why are they trying to kill the bookstore? Frankly I have had enough please go away Kindle and the rest of your satanic brethern....

Poetry in Chicago is a Small Pond Lacking Oxygen

I have not been very active in the Chicago Poetry Scene this year. Being unemployed and trying to get on with life my energy has been sapped and I am trying to just keep things together.

Three of the events that I have participated in are the Mark Nowak reading organized by the Poetry Center of Chicago, The Italian Poet's Reading organized by Litmus Press and Jennifer Scappettone co-sponsored by the Poetry Center of Chicago and a reading at the Sullivan Gallery where the Poetry Center asked poets from many genres of poetry, from Slam to Experimental to Regional Writers to reflect on a piece of art in a new opening.

All of these readings have been first rate. Mark Nowak who I introduced is a great poet who brings to so much to our current economic situation. The Italian event was spectacular. It was a much needed infusion of Global Poetics to our all too provincial reading list and was well produced and the Sullivan Gallery event brought together genres and poets to do something great.

The fact is that Francesco Levato is diversifying the Poetry Center amidst budget cuts, loss of donors and a general contraction and keeping it in the forefront. Francesco along with the Danny's Series, Chicago Poetry Project, Dancing Girl Press, Series A, and other groups are trying to give our poetry scene much needed oxygen that our small pond is lacking.

Of course there are critics and one of them has decided that there is an evil Kabal I guess organized by Francesco Levato and Myself to ruin Chicago's poetry scene which is ridiculous. One of the things that Francesco organized are poetry workshops at the Poetry Center. Now I realize that this is a radical idea but in most cities there are literary centers that do workshops. Some of these are really sought after and in some cities Literary Centers actually work to create literary community. Sometimes they actually charge for these workshops because the product has value.

Literary Centers cost money. In New York, St Marks, Poets House, Bowery Poetry Club and many others are actual physical places with endowments and staffs. They are not just websites with one crazy mediocre poet spouting hate and division. If only more energy was expended to build a literary center rather than defaming good people.

Francesco Levato of the Poetry Center has seen fit to devote himself to a vision where the Poetry Center actually engages the whole poetic landscape and tries to create something new in a tough time. I write this post because I salute Francesco's work on behalf of our community.

I also dare to ask the question will Chicago ever have a literary center? The fact is that it is the very lack of poetic oxygen that the critics revel in that stands in the way. My feeling is is whatever kind of poetry you want to do- do it well. But do not use your own personal vitriol to attack others because their vision is different.

Chicago was not always a great theatre town. But in the 1960's small theatre companies decided that they were going to do serious theatre here in Chicago. Innovative things that could sell tickets and fill theatres. Today we are a great theatre town it took vision to do that not harping and defaming people's character. It seems that within our poetry community that will never be possible.

The fact is that whatever poetry community you are a part of in Chicago, Experimental, Latino, African American, Spoken Word there are poets who stand out for their excellence be they Kevin Coval, Simone Muench, Ed Roberson, Francisco Aragon, William Allegrezza, Garin Cycholl or Peter O'Leary and all of them would benefit from a literary organization. Francesco Levato has been struggling to build that and I applaud him for it.

In this Season of Hope the Church Continues to Ignore Evil

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07mon2.html?ref=opinion

As a practicing Roman Catholic the recent priest sexual abuse scandal is a great evil and pain to all of us. Retired New York Cardinal Egan was forced to publish his personal notes from the many priest abuse cases when he was Archbishop of Hartford. The fact that almost every Bishop in the world covered up for serial abusers over decades shows a Church that acted more like Carlos Escobar's Medellin cartel than the City of God.

I worked within the Church as both a lay volunteer after college and I also considered entering religious life. Many of my dear friends are sisters and priests but the weird sexual vibe found in many religious houses makes for an odd mix of misogny and homoeroticism that I chose not to enter into as a younger man.

Today rather than facing the unhealthy sexual vibe of the Church the Bishops are instead moving to the Right. Rather than addressing the evil that their mindset created they are assuring everyone that the real problem is feminist Sisters, women priest advocates and those who believe that the poor are a priority.

In the end you reap what you sew but in this time of rebirth and incarnation it is time that the Roman Catholic Church realizes that its sexual mentality caused the sexual abuse of minors but that would mean questioning the closed system that is more about power than about God.

Amanda Knox is Convicted Gets 25 Years

Amanda Knox, an American Exchange Student from Seattle was convicted
today of the brutal murder of her roomate in Perugia, Italy. The case has been a salacious feast for the Italian press but the question that I have is how do you convict someone of a brutal murder when there is no DNA or other physical evidence?



http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/4-Problems-With-the-Amanda-Knox-Trial-1800

But apart from the critique of the Italian justice system that are well founded what I find most disturbing is the fact that the Italian prosecutor would be allowed to to call this woman "a dirty minded she devil". It is hard to imagine an American jury buying this hyperbole. It is also amazing that they have another person who had DNA on the dead woman's body and has already been convicted. I think that this type of Sexism makes the verdict suspect and in the US beyond a reasonable doubt.

Another bit of rottenness is that Knox's parents are being sued for 'defamation' for simply expressing an opinion about the fact that Knox was questioned without a lawyer present.
This is a terrible story only made worse by this verdict.

The Swiss Ban Minarets.... God Bless The First Amendment

The nation of Switzerland known for
watches, Banking, and Tasty Chocolate is now
infamous for something else, banning religious architecture.

I remember the first time as a visitor to my mother's hometown in Italy the jarring presence of Muslim women in full chador on the piazza of the place of my ancestors. The fact that in our little Alpine town, amid the Churches and polenta there were Muslims was new a jarring.

I can understand the dismay of traditional Europeans with
this change. For those of us who are close to our roots Europe
conjures up certain images and minarets are not part of that narrative.

Europe is reaping what they have sewn over for the better part of 40 years Europeans have become both secular and addicted to immigrant labor to the jobs they no longer want to do. They have treated immigrants not as new neighbors but almost always as "Strangers".
Unlike the US, Brazil, Argentina and many nations with long immigrant traditions Europeans
have done a lousy job of integrating their immigrant populations into their societies.

How is it possible that I, who was born in New Jersey and raised in Chicago feel more connected to the valley in Italy where my mother comes than the Muslim immigrants living in that valley now? Why are they are still referred to as "Stranieri" or Strangers when their Grandchildren are now being born there?

It is possible that racism is to blame but I think the real issue is intolerance and a lack of honesty. For all of America's faults one of the things that we do very well is process immigrants and lay our cards on the table. There are other countries that do this well also, Brazil comes to mind.

Unlike Europe with its long history and traditions we in America based our nation on the following premise; as long as you are not hurting anyone else and you participate in the economic life of the nation you are welcome. This is not a nicety, there is much wrong with America but we have done a good job of making Italians, Arabs, Africans, Jews, Poles, Germans and Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Jews into Americans.

In Europe the 'native people' and the immigrants live very separate lives. In the US last week
I bet you that my Gujarati neighbors ate Thanksgiving like the rest of us and we both have Obama signs in our windows.

In Paris three and four generations of Muslims continue to live in Banlieues separated from society, in Chicago the owner of my local Dunkin Donuts, Mr Singh works at the counter with his Sikh turban on his head and he wears a Stanford or Williams sweatshirt sporting the school colors of his two children who are studying at those prestigious schools. We do a better of job
of integrating immigrants and maybe the Europeans could learn something?

I think it is because of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Americans, and that is what any immigrant is when they decide to come here are guaranteed the right to be left alone.

No matter what was said about Catholics when they first arrived the Protestant majority could not ban their churches or close their schools and they became Americans. When Jews arrived the majority had no right to ban their worship and they thrived. Today Muslims and Hindus are vibrant members of our society and achieve so much here because we have the First Amendment.

Maybe the Swiss should realize that diversity is a good thing and that the Chocolate is not that good served with a helping of bigotry.

God Bless the Bill of Rights

Jack Myers 1941-2009

http://writersgarret.org/jackmyers.shtml

This week Jack Myers, Poet and Educator died in Dallas, Texas. For the many poets who choose to dwell in smaller or more provincial places Jack offered another way of being a poet. Many times these poets get passed over but Jack showed how to be a poetic force in Dallas and at Southern Methodist University where he taught.

He was the founder with his wife Thea Temple of the Writers Garrett of Dallas which is the most humane writing institution in the US in my estimation. Jack's humanity filled that institution and he nurtured a whole community of poets in Dallas, myself included, to be better to and ask better questions. His presence will be missed by many.

To Thea and the entire Dallas poetry community which is so dear to me know that Jack and all of you are in our prayers and thoughts.