Fear and Love

I do not fear
To walk the lonely road
Which leads far out into the sullen night
Nor do I fear the rebel
Wind tossed sea that stretches onward
Far beyond the night of human lands or human loves
It is the brooding, sharp-thorned discontent I fear
The nagging days without a second song
The sunlit noon of ease
The burden of delight and flattery
It is the hate touched soul I dread
The joyless heart
The unhappy faces in the streets
The smouldering fires of unforgiven slights
These I do fear
Not nights
Nor surging seas
Nor rebel hands

But heart unlovely and unloved

Ariel On a Bad Day!!!

Thought of The Hour

The Diplodocus seen around the world

A Romeo and Juliet love story from Iraq

Evil Reporter Chick

Mike and me in Baghdad in April, 2006. He believed in love. I wonder if he still does.

I met Mike when sectarian strife exploded in Baghdad in 2006. That was not his real name, of course, but it was what he went by in his job as a translator for American soldiers.

Mike and I spent several evenings chatting at a coffee shop on the vast Camp Liberty complex. He was a smart well-spoken man with Antonio Banderas looks. He told me about his life in Iraq before the war. He taught computer science at a small Baghdad college and ran a photo processing shop.

He told me about the hope he’d held in 2003 after the ouster of Saddam, after which he worked as a security guard for Kellogg, Brown & Root. Eventually he found a job as an interpreter for the U.S. Army.

But things did not progress…

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Facebook Ruined My Life, Now They Must Pay

Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings

Should a ginormous corporation be allowed to humiliate a child and profit from her pain? Could $167,000,000 in compensation even begin to make up for her suffering? We can only hope so.

I give you, Exhibit A

Oh, the humanity

What’s the first thing you notice about this picture? (Besides the vast number of people piled onto 2 chairs.) Your eyes are drawn to the child on the right.

She sits alone. Two skinned knees are proof of a life spent tripping and bumping into coffee tables, and it’s not hard to see why.  Her cats-eyes glasses hint at the weak eyes beneath, while her chubby body attests to a complete lack of athletic skills. Her hand-me-down dress is so short the viewer can practically see both London AND France. From the top of her head (uneven hack-job on too-short bangs) to the soles of her feet (in black knee-socks…

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