The Hiding Habit

originally posted May 1, 2024. Seems worth another go....

THE HIDING HABIT

When the world shouts obscenities

and the winds of change roar in the trees,
move low to the ground to the hiding place.

When fear is strong, pay attention.
Sit in stillness, in silence and listen.
Wait. Think. You don't have to move yet.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
Purr to comfort yourself.

If you must move, be stealthy,

silent in the shadows, then return to safety.

When quiet evening finally comes - emerge. 

Look around. Sniff the air. Stretch. 

Give a wide yawn. Blink. You are still here! 

Pay attention!

- Mad Mar Mistryel Walker

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When this photo was taken, the windows were wide open and there was a crew of roofers working on the block  After a while I noticed my three cats were missing. I hunted under and behind everything until I found them. They were  lined up in a straight row in the narrows behind a dresser, hiding from all the noise. 

April 2016 Poem A Day #2 - Consequences

Consequences

She said
"I'm going to march and get arrested." 

I said
"Oh Really,"
 "And what will that prove?" 

She said
"Corporations have too much power,
  "we'll show them people count." 

I said
"Did you vote in the midterm elections?" 

"No" she said.
"It's a free country I don't have too." 

I smiled sadly, donated her bail
to the League of Women Voters.

                         --- Mar (Mistryel) Walker




                       

We need a Constitutional Amendment:

Let's amend the constitution:

PROPOSED AMENDMENT: Pay and benefits for the elected legislative branch must be set once a decade by national referendum. There shall be no interim raises, no government funded healthcare, and most especially > no retirement plans for elected or appointed congressmen and senators unless they have served in office for 20 years.

What do you think - can we get it passed in 50 states?

We need to invert the power distribution in this country. Siphon it off from our egomanical congress and senate and take it to ourselves via NATIONAL REFERENDUM!!!

Rant on Political Ads

From the archives:

Imagine a world where elections were won by over-the-top spending of a different sort, say donating millions from campaign coffers to pay down the national debt. Or spending to actually help someone: creating jobs for the jobless, homes for the homeless, assisting those left destitute by weather, war, disease or corporate raiding.

 Now that you have imagined high purpose, turn on your TV. Almost any channel will do during prime time. The election ads you will see feature distortions, half-truths. Say candidate x voted against an ethics bill. Maybe that bill didn’t go far enough, maybe it had a rider raising or cutting taxes, or granting a presidential power or some pork barrel project wasting millions.

 Any legislator or senator with a voting record has been in a bind at one time or another, having to choose the lessor of two evils according to his beliefs. Yet these unqualified sound bite ads are offered up to us as if they held facts revealed instead of obfuscated, and all backed by emotional music and images. This has cheapened, poisoned and polarized us. In the guise of free speech, this has enabled monied partisans on both sides to fool some of the people some of the time.... But the reality of any legislative situation is more complex than a two-minute ad. And the tasteless spleen-filled ads I see daily, more nearly resemble a mental mugging than the civic discourse they pretend to be. Don’t think I don’t mean your candidate.

 At the paper where I work, letters to the editor attacking a candidate are not accepted for the last week before the election. Partisans may tout their favorite, but may not blast the opposition at the last minute when there is no time for a rebuttal. For television, a ban on negative ads beginning a month before the election would give us relief from the onslaught of tawdry distortion blaring endlessly from the tube right now. TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION IN PROTEST.

Join me in my small bid to change this disgusting election curse. Help America toward civil discourse! Ban negative TV campaign ads! Or at least ban them in the last 30 days of the campaign, so last minute lies, later debunked, can’t tip elections.

---- Mar Walker, 10/28/2006

POST SCRIPT 2011: OVERTURN Citizens United!!!

Vote. It's important.

Vote. Whoever you are, vote. In the end, when you complain to me about the results of this election - I will ask you "DID YOU VOTE?"  If you didn't vote you  should be ashamed and no one should listen to your complaint. I know I won't. Are you in the hospital? Out of the country? Get an absentee ballot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DRkUU-qhjk