Sailing to x, solving for Byzantium

A new week begins, just as the old one was beginning to feel familiar. It had come in like a wet dog, and it shook itself so hard we all got soaked. When the conversation finally resumed we had to go back, start over . . .

I have solved for x far too often. From now on x can solve for me.
vajrayana practice

That smiling bitch. With her fingers pointed like a rifle at my cock. Humiliation and shame, it seems, are to pave the road to democracy. Who stands naked now?
The Coffee Sutras

I started to scream again. I was having a hard time breathing. I was gagging from my own bloody nose and whatever she dumped on me. My stomach turned and the woman stripped the tape from my mouth and projectile barf went flying.
A ‘Coon Named Legba

The photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib are bad enough, considering that possibly 25 prisoners have died while in American custody. However, some faked photos are also circulating, including pictures of an alleged rape by soldiers that were actually taken from a porno site.
Spin of the Day

They managed somehow to communicate with each other and to fashion (my memory fails me here) some kind of eyeball attached to a muscle that let it hop around and see things and report back to the brains.
Fragments from Floyd

This results from my need to learn about Cascading Style Sheets and structure-based page markup and buzzword-based jargon leveraging . . .
Creek Running North

Since conservative religionists blame gays for everything from AIDS to 9/11 to Tinky Winky and the Catholic Church’s sex scandals, I was wondering how long it would take for gays to be blamed for Abu Ghraib? I got my answer: oh, about a day.
Joe Perez

I’m not sure–I’m not sure that, given the same circumstances, the same boredom, the same bitterness, the same mix of factors–I would categorically not have been that woman with that leash in her hand.
Feathers of Hope

here’s the bed she lies in
the sheets might as well be snow
she’s so cold
the heat disperses above her
the ceiling blankly accepts it
she sinks clean as a stone

Ivy is here

So we each answered the questions, each one according to her opinions. The beautiful thing in this, is that our answers did not agree, but they were close. We are mothers, and we hate wars. And we want peace for our families, and for our countries. The program will be broadcast on mothers day in America – I mean, May 9. I hope it’s a happy day for all mothers in America and the world – that families gather. That nobody is absent, participating in a war or something similar. And that peace surrounds the whole world.
A Family in Baghdad

O inhabitants of al-Andalus, what happiness is yours, having water, shade, rivers and trees. The garden of Eternal Happiness is not without, but rather within your territory.
– ibn Khafaja, Valencia, 11th century
mysterium

Everybody has clotheslines; in fact the fronts of the buildings give very little clue about the vibrant life that happens in the back gardens and alleys between rows of attached buildings on two parallel streets.
the cassandra pages

[Lot for sale = Zero.]
cloudshift/photoblog

Eventually, maybe it will be recognized that those individuals who dare to blow the whistle and who refuse to participate in anti-human actions are the real heroes, the truly civilized.
Blaugustine

Khalid wanted to go and die in Iraq, not because he is a loser, not because he wants to have a 72 virgins (I don’t know where did this virgins story come from), and not because he wanted to achieve personal benefits . . .
Khalid like other hundreds before him, and thousands after him, wanted to say NO, he wanted to change his/our world, and it is our fault that we didn’t give him other means to express this protest.
Raed in the Middle

“The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without feelings,” says don Genaro, “because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication to his beloved. And who, you may ask, is his beloved? I will show you now.” He then performs an astounding demonstration, in which he “embraces the earth.”
Book of Life

There was a time when people here felt sorry for the troops. No matter what one’s attitude was towards the occupation, there were moments of pity towards the troops, regardless of their nationality. We would see them suffering the Iraqi sun, obviously wishing they were somewhere else and somehow, that vulnerability made them seem less monstrous and more human. That time has passed. People look at troops now and see the pictures of Abu Ghraib . . .
Baghdad Burning

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause . . . “

Helena Cobban

There is a sign hanging beside my piano. It says “Don’t shoot the piano player. She’s doing the best she can.”
Switched At Birth

First he joked that only Jews could make a holiday of a day when nobody died. (We laughed.) And then he observed that, in this day and age, when so many of us begin our mornings by turning on the radio or checking news online to see how many casualties the Iraq war has generated overnight, we might find ourselves identifying with the impulse to celebrate such a day. (We weren’t laughing any more.)
Velveteen Rabbi

We are greasy in death, and wet
and slippery and vainly named.

Lekshe’s Mistake

the darkness can go away now, the darkness can go away
Awake at Dawn — Writing Journal

I have solved for x far too often. From now on x can solve for me.
vajrayana practice
__________

This post was inspired by the late, lamented blog commonbeauty, which demonstrated the potential of the blogroll collage/chrestomathy form in the posts “twenty upanishads” (April 08) and “twenty questions” (April 12)

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