War makes poets of us all

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Being at war forces many people to access the poet inside themselves in order to understand how they really feel about action, taken in our name, that is so distant from every day life.

From the way they write, I'm guessing that the people who sent Kristof their poems aren't the kind of people who sit down to write verse very often.

Grass, by Carl Sandburg
is not an anti-war poem, per se, but I think it expresses some of the realities of war. So if you haven't thought of the current war in terms of poetry, it's as good a place to start as any.

Now, this is an anti-war poem.

In the works

I'm trying to use Moveable Type to set up an actual blog, but so far, MT is a big pain in the ass in terms of its flexibility. I have a friend who has bent it over a barrel and had his way with it, so I should ask him for advice. Right now, the design looks godawful, but at least it's something.

I hope to move the content from this site over there; I also hope to get the whole thing launched by the end of the week. Ulimately I think it will be better.

But there's nothing like starting a new project when you have a lot to accomplish even without that problem.

Human nature -- at least my human nature -- never fails to amaze me.

Justify your existance in 250 words or less

What I wanted to write was something like this:

Koog is a big slacker who sleeps 'til noon if she doesn't have a good reason to get out of bed. Good reasons include a hair appointment or s brunch date. She prefers the company of her cats to most people. Although she is a grown-up, she owns two pair of Hello Kitty socks. Because of her lifelong obsession with skin care, Koog has nearly invisible pores. For breakfast this morning, Koog had a double espresso and about 15 peanut butter M&Ms. She spends her days downloading music from Russian servers that are questionably legal. She knows it's probably wrong in the eyes of the RIAA, but really, those guys are just a bunch of money-grubbing pigs...

But I didn't. I took the responsible route and talked about my accomplishments, such as they are.

before - after