…..if you’re African American, that is, is detailed here. These are excerpts:
On October 29, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Hidden behind its apple-pie-and-motherhood name lies a nasty civil rights time bomb….. [snip]
Florida’s racial profile mirrors the nation’s–both in the percentage of voters who are black and the racial profile of the voters whose ballots don’t count. “In 2000, a black voter in Florida was ten times as likely to have their vote spoiled–not counted–as a white voter,” explains political scientist Philip Klinkner, co-author of Edley’s Harvard report. “National figures indicate that Florida is, surprisingly, typical. Given the proportion of nonwhite to white voters in America, then, it appears that about half of all ballots spoiled in the USA, as many as 1 million votes, were cast by nonwhite voters.”
So there you have it. In the last presidential election, approximately 1 million black and other minorities voted, and their ballots were thrown away. And they will be tossed again in November 2004, efficiently, by computer–because HAVA and other bogus reform measures, stressing reform through complex computerization, do not address, and in fact worsen, the racial bias of the uncounted vote.
One million votes will disappear in a puff of very black smoke. And when the smoke clears, the Bush clan will be warming their political careers in the light of the ballot bonfire. HAVA nice day
On Sunday, when my women’s group gathered for brunch, we got into a loud discussion about my assertion that Bush’s America has managed a major escalation of the self-destruction of this planet’s human species. While the current lives of us seven women are not that bad (no thanks to Bush and great thanks to the feminist movement), we nevertheess feel powerless to have any effect on the supposed democracy in which we’re trying to at least to do a little better than merely survive. Even the major march of women in Washington — thought to be the largest rally ever held in the nation’s capital — is not making any difference. It barely got any media coverage, and you know that Bush and his cabal couldn’t care less anyway. Well, we still have our votes. Oh yeah. HAVA nice day.
I’ll meet you on the corner of Apocalypse and Armaggedon.

OK. He really is inspiring. Yesterday I went to a open seminar and a reading by Eamon Grennon as a way to wrap up this experience for me.
“poetry is an interplay between music and meaning…..between sentence and line….a dance…registering elemental presence in the ordinary…”
These were just some of what he tried to expalin in relation to his own writing.
elemental presence in the ordinary
Yes, that’s what his poetry achieves and that’s my goal as well.
He also spoke about the moment when the poem takes on a life of its own, begins to become something other than you started out with. That’s the point that I have a hard time getting to these days. It happens for me when I get into what I can only describe as a meditative state — drifting in deep and touching that “elemental presence.” Hasn’t happened for me in a while.
With a Irish lilt in his voice and a rhythmic movement of his shoulders, Grennon read his poetry into music. He talked a little about the background of each poem before he read it, adding his unique humanity and humor to the context of each.
What he said and what he writes resonate with the poet in me. I bitched and moaned about the writing exercises that he had us do, but I’m really glad that I hung in there. I just wish the timing had been better and I had more of myself to give to the process.
In between seminar and reading, I went out to dinner with five other poets, all but one who were in the Grennon workshop with me. Two are in the every-other-Tuesday night poetery group as well. Being in their presence — laughing, getting to know each other on a personal level, sharing stories — was amazingly energizing for me. Tonight is the Tuesday night group, and I’m definitely going….
…even though, while I was out last night, my mother experienced shortness of breath and didn’t eat the dinner I left for her. I think she’s having episodes with her heart, since she doesn’t want a pacemaker, since she doesn’t want to do anything to prolong her life.
And so it goes.