sjrozan

Day of Atonement

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Wed, 8 Oct 08 18:48:00 UT

And I guess I'm going to need to atone for being online after sundown. But I wanted to say, no matter your religious, non-religious, or anti-religious persuasion: may you be written down in the Book of Life for a sweet new year!

Fortieth Saturday

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 4 Oct 08 18:19:00 UT

Gray sky, gray river.
White tug circled by white gulls
Churns glowing white wake.

On building site, mounds
Of excavated dirt, smooth
With soft moist green moss.

Under far pier's tent
Tiny people jump, sway, run.
Dawn circus workout!

A Sap's Fable

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Thu, 2 Oct 08 08:23:00 UT

One day We the People and Fat Cat set out to sail the sea. We the People had a cramped cabin on Fat Cat's opulent yacht. As they sailed, Fat Cat dredged the sea for treasures and dumped them on deck. There were once regulations for what, and how much, Fat Cat could pile on the yacht, but Fat Cat's bed-mates, House and Senate, had eliminated them. So while We the People fished, Fat Cat hauled in nets full of wealth. Then, under the weight of Fat Cat's treasure, the yacht began to sink. Water trickled in, then flooded. Fat Cat and We the People were up to their necks. "Help!" squeaked We the People. "Rescue me!" bellowed Fat Cat. The Ship of State steamed into view. On the deck, House and Senate argued over how to save Fat Cat and We the People. At one point, House got mad and stomped away. But eventually they came to an agreement and threw two things into the water. One was a bloated life preserver with a golden parachute attached. Fat Cat climbed in and was pulled aboard, immediately jumping back into bed with House and Senate. We the People reached for the other thing in the water. It was a piece of paper with instructions: How To Swim To Shore. At the bottom, We the People found a note from House and Senate. "Good freakin' luck," it read. "And remember, we did this for you."

Happy New Year

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Mon, 29 Sep 08 12:49:00 UT

The world's falling apart, money's worthless, the polar ice is melting and there are wars and rumors of wars. But fall's come around again. The light is clear and the air is sharp. Leaves are turning, birds are flying south. The possibility of good seems to get fainter every year, but it hasn't disappeared yet. L'Shona Tova, you guys.

Thirty-ninth Saturday

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 27 Sep 08 10:27:00 UT

High tide after rain.
Pilings almost lost beneath
Water's gray glass skin.

Six-man scull slides by
Alone on empty river
But for one white gull.

Fog bank slips upstream,
Dissolves towers' squared-off tops,
Fuzzes their facades.

Dear one, please respond

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Tue, 23 Sep 08 21:42:00 UT

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

(Tip of the hat to Christina Sum for this one.)

I love New York

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sun, 21 Sep 08 08:47:00 UT

I'll get back to politics, bailouts, and other outrageous facts of life soon, but I just wanted to say this about yesterday, all the rest notwithstanding:

7 am: down by the river, watching clouds, waves, and tugboats.

8 am: at my desk, wrestling words, listening to the dog in the neighbor's backyard point out that they've gone back in but he's still outside.

1 pm: in Central Park, watching a dozen Bhutanese monks on their first trip outside Bhutan performing a demon subjugation dance.

3 pm: at the gym, stretching and lifting.

4:30 pm: buying coffee at a high-end food joint where in the summer they sell "cold hot chocolate."

5 pm: strolling among the fruit and vegetable stands at the Greenmarket on my way downtown.

5:30 pm: eating flounder, snow peas, and fried rice with two other writers in a basement Chinatown restaurant

7:30 pm: in the backroom of a Chinatown teahouse where the rock band's warming up.

I love New York.

Thirty-eighth Saturday

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 20 Sep 08 10:21:00 UT

Small bright orange tug
Docks in brick tower's shadow
By white patrol boat.

New skyscraper grows.
Sharp glare from mirrored windows
Slices blue water.

From river's center
Wave rolls lazily to shore.
Ship passed long ago.

Bailout

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Fri, 19 Sep 08 10:02:00 UT

So I have two questions about these trillions of taxpayer dollars about to be spent to save the "greed is good" industry from its own short-sighted avariciousness.

One: is this the kind of bail you do in a sinking boat to keep the wrecked thing afloat until you can limp into shore and find someone with a clue to fix it? Or is it the kind of bail you do when your bloated brainless boozehound relative is in jail and even though he belongs there you get his useless behind out?

And two: are there really people who, in the face of this disaster created by a lack of regulation, and in the face of the fact that oil prices are at massive record highs and there's an oilman in the White House; and that we're involved in two wars in the middle east that not only aren't we winning, it's not even clear what winning would look like; and the fact that global warming, which everyone but us agrees exists and is a dire threat, contributed to the worst hurricane season on record -- are there REALLY people who're planning to vote for the party that brought us all that?

Breaking my own moratorium

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Thu, 18 Sep 08 09:51:00 UT

While I think there's way too much Sarah Plain stuff filling the air- and cyber-waves, to the detriment of actual discussion of actual issues (the economy? the price of gas? the environment? the WAR?) I got this yesterday from the inimitable Barb Shoup and found it too good not to pass on.

Back in the city again

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Wed, 17 Sep 08 09:54:00 UT

I feel like I've been on the road since late April. This is pretty close to true -- trips near and far, including but not limited to (as we say in architectural spec writing) the big ones to China and Italy. And any part of the summer when I was here, weekends at the rented Rancho. It was all great, but at this point I'm tired and just a tad... confused. All right, my head's spinning.

But now I'm back. A day in Philly the week after next, a weekend in Baltimore soon after that, a weekend in Milwaukee in November; but otherwise, here in NYC, settling back in.

Which is one way of apologizing for the lack of posts lately, with so much news going on. But now that I'm back, I'll be back.

Thirty-seventh Saturday, from Rancho Obsesso

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 13 Sep 08 08:13:00 UT

Rabbit up early
Munching on clover, sees me,
Gets right back to work.

Pearl-gray clouds, edged pink,
Drift north to south overhead.
Gull flies opposite.

Autumn cicadas
Whirring all night, into day,
Announce the season.

Sept. 12

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Fri, 12 Sep 08 22:44:00 UT

Yesterday, of course, the anniversary of 9/11. Went down to Ground Zero to hear the names read. Now that construction's happening on the site itself, the ceremony's outside it, in a nearby park. The families, firefighters, police and EMS people were allowed onto the site to lay wreaths in the towers' footprints, but then they had to come out again. So the loudpeakers were in the park, and the barricades for the people like me who weren't family but just wanted to be there were across the street. Which meant between us and the 3,000 names of the dead were cars, buses, the occasional fire engine. Pedestrians, hot dog carts. Lots of reporters. And you know? I liked that. The thing about these people was, they were living their lives on an ordinary day when those planes crashed into them. They were here, in New York, in all this chaos and vitality, and then they were gone. And here they are, being remembered in that same situation. This year, by the way, the names were read by two groups: people who'd lost someone; and foreign students from the City University system, who announced what country they were from ("I'm honored to be representing the citizens of Thailand.") It was a lovely idea, and a faint shadow of the world-wide solidarity just after 9/11 -- remember that? -- before we threw it all away.

Okay, so, politics

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Wed, 10 Sep 08 11:31:00 UT

What's there to say? Most of you know my position: way to the left, and at this point, seriously cynical. (A cynic is an idealist who's been disappointed one too many times, is all.) I'm for Obama, but truth is I'd have been for whomever the Democrats put up against McCain. Not because I'm a true-blue Democrat, politicians being politicians, but because McCain truly is more of this military swaggering, what global warming, let's keep government out of places it might help (like health care) and stick in in places where it has no business (like reproductive rights) neo-con crapola we've been mired in for the last 8 years.

I do admire Obama, though I don't think he's the Second Coming, politicians being politicians. And I think the choice of Biden for VP was inspired. All Obama's weaknesses are Biden's strenths. This will make a very good governing team.

Unfortunately, I think McCain's choice of Palin for VP was even more inspired. She's playing -- no, she's pandering -- to everyone in America who likes to vote without thinking, which is a lot of people. Obama said about McCain and Palin, "You can't just make stuff up," but the truth is you can. Palin says she's for this and against that, regardless of her past record, and people are lapping it up because she's spunky and feisty -- words no one uses for anyone they're taking seriously, by the way. She's non-threatening, but her positions are those of the far right so they love her, and they can look non-sexist doing it, these people who believe a woman's place really is in the home. And McCain can look like a maverick, not because of his same-old-stuff policies (it didn't work the first couple times, so let's do it HARDER) but because he bucked his own party's wisdom and came up with a winner.

This election, everyone's said for a long time now, will be decided by the undecided. I think now it'll be decided by the un-enfranchised. Not the disenfranchised, people who haven't been allowed a voice, but people who often just don't vote. By which I mean a certain segment of women; and young people, and especially blacks.

This isn't the only political blog I'll do. But my closing thought today is: this election is far too important for Obama to lose. The right is already celebrating. The Democrats have got to mobilize and go after people who'd otherwise sit this one out. Those are the people who will make this difference.

I'm not at all sure we can win. You know, that cynicism thing. But the one great thing about me is, when I make predictions, I'm usually wrong.

Thirty-sixth Saturday, from Rancho Obsesso

sjrozan@sjrozan.com — Sat, 6 Sep 08 09:10:00 UT

Two dozen robins,
Feasting in rain-soaked garden,
Flee when I step out.

Heavy rain all night,
Thick mist at dawn. Half-open,
Morning glories pause.

Drops in my teacup.
Sweatshirt suddenly spotted.
Rain sweeps through again.