26 February 2009

Thank You for Your Honesty


{Because we cannot mourn what we cannot see, I am appreciative that this ban from the ugly tragedy of war has finally been lifted.}

Pentagon Approves Media Photos Of War Dead, Officials Say
: News organizations will be allowed to photograph the homecomings of America's war dead under a new Pentagon policy, defense and congressional officials said Thursday. The ban on media photos was put in place in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.

{Full story on NPR. Image by the fine photographer Autumn de Wilde.}

25 February 2009

Leonard Cohen Afterworld



I've been in a Leonard Cohen mood this morning. He's going on tour. Must. See. Him. Hear that voice live from his golden lungs to my dirty, deaf old ears. Maybe it will stir something alive in me and I'll live in the kind of one foot in the heavens life Mr. Cohen's songs evoke. Lyrics from my one of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs of the moment... "I lit a thin green candle/to make you jealous of me/The room just filled up with mosquitos/They heard that my body was free." and "Take this longing from my tongue/And all of the things I've done wrong..." and "The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor/And there's a mighty judgement coming/But I may be wrong." A poet who sings. What else is better? Tell me.