“[I]n times of crisis it’s interesting that people don’t turn to the novel or say, ‘We should all go out to a movie,’ or ‘Ballet would help us.’ It’s always poetry. What we want to hear is a human voice speaking directly in our ear.”
Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate (2001-2003) speaking to the New York Times, as quoted in The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson
this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
we honor courage in all its forms
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
april is national poetry month
image and poem below the fold
A grieving Iraqi man is helped by friends at the funeral for relatives killed by gunmen in the town of Badad Ruz, about 40 km (25 miles) east of Baquba, April 1, 2006. Police said insurgents attacked a group returning from another funeral, killing five people and wounding two. REUTERS/Helmiy Al-Azawi
Woman Martyr
by Agi Mishol
translated by Lisa Katz
The evening goes blind, and you are only twenty.
Nathan Alterman,
“Late Afternoon in the Market”
You are only twenty
and your first pregnancy is a bomb.
Under your broad skirt you are pregnant with dynamite
and metal shavings. This is how you walk in the market,
ticking among the people, you, Andaleeb Takatka.
Someone loosened the screws in your head
and launched you toward the city;
even though you come from Bethlehem,
the Home of Bread, you chose a bakery.
And there you pulled the trigger out of yourself,
and together with the Sabbath loaves,
sesame and poppy seed,
you flung yourself into the sky.
Together with Rebecca Fink you flew up
with Yelena Konre’ev from the Caucasus
and Nissim Cohen from Afghanistan
and Suhila Houshy from Iran
and two Chinese you swept along
to death.
Since then, other matters
have obscured your story,
about which I speak all the time
without having anything to say.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat
view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day
a personal note: Various folks have at times expressed their concern about the emotional cost to me of putting together these diaries. I appreciate that concern very much.
Many of you know that in my working life I’m a registered nurse, and that my clinical experience is in high risk/high mortality settings (medical/surgical intensive care, chronic hemodialysis, and bone marrow transplant). Earlier this year I transferred to the neurosciences intensive care unit at my hospital, a well-known tertiary care teaching facility in Boston.
Most of our patients arrive here suddenly, having experienced an unexpected and life-threatening event like an internal brain hemorrhage. These people are “sick” in the most extreme meaning of the term, and those who survive the risks and complications of their injury and treatment often face lengthy rehabilitation and a lifetime of disability.
Others arrive at or near death, and their families are faced with the decision to withdraw life support and/or whether to allow their loved one to become an organ donor.
I like to think that I’m comfortable with death, in the sense that any of us can be comfortable with the inevitable, or that any of us can learn to function as professionals in a stressful setting. At the same time, my challenge is always to balance some sense of humanity with the objectivity and distance that helps me do what I’ve chosen to do.
Anyway, long story short – looking at the images that I use in these diaries, along with the images that I review but ultimately do not use, does not embitter me, or make me feel hopeless. It is not an undue burden.
The images are simply as real a depiction of what is going on in Iraq, or New Orleans, or elsewhere, that I can access without actually being there myself; and I’ve tried to face those realities as honestly as possible.
And frankly, looking at and posting images, no matter how disturbing, is very simply the least that I can do.
More importantly, the ways in which each of you join in this witness is most life affirming. Whether you’ve been here once, or every day; leave a comment, or just look; your presence in these diaries sustains me.
Thanks,
Jerry = RubDMC
Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.
” I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
from Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Peace
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children – Innocence Lost!
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed–those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone–it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
Dwight Eisenhower, Speech (1953)
The so-called Christian virtues of humility, love, charity, personal freedom, the strong prohibitions against violence, murder, stealing, lying, cruelty–all these are washed away by war. The greatest hero is the one who kills the most people. Glamorous exploits in successful lying and mass stealing and heroic vengeance are rewarded with decorations and public acclaim. You cannot, when the war is proclaimed, pull a switch and turn the community from the moral code of peace to that of war and then, when the armistice is signed, pull another switch and reconnect the whole society with its old moral regulations again. Thousands of people of all ranks who have found a relish in the morals of war come back to you with these rudimentary instincts controlling their behavior while thousands of others, trapped in a sort of no man’s land between these two moralities, come back to you poisoned by cynicism.
John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching
The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor’s heart — and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.
Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil
Tracking coalition military deaths in Iraq, one day at a time, across the map. Click HERE to see the Flash-Animated Map.
“Never again shall one generation of veterans abandon another.”
{Flash Productions}
3 YEARS
ASHAMED
Peace Takes Courage Site
And they put a Great New Song to a Meaningful Video!!!!
WORLD PREMIERE: DIXIE CHICKS
The Dixie Chicks are back, and they’re still pissed off. The ladies take their critics to task in ‘Not Ready to Make Nice,’ from the forthcoming CD ‘Taking the Long Way.’ Watch it exclusively on AOL Music for 24 hours, and tell us what you think by voting!
If you didn’t bring it up to full screen do so!
{button is next to volume control}
This is what is written at blackboard sceen:
A DixieKiss For cheney!!
Watch it here
Jerry, as an acute (hospital setting) hemodialysis nurse, I know and understand your view of all of your feelings here. I just know that it is good to know that one can save lives as opposed to the opposite. I have seen the effects of war….so senseless and needless, to say the least. Anyhow, I do know that you have a good outlook on your chosen profession and accept the challenges of your profession well. For the most part, courage is what it takes to do such a job. I applaud you. Death never gets easy for me to deal with, for the most part. I know it is inevitable for certain situations, and some feel that the demised is better off now that they are not in pain any longer. This may or may not be true. It is not for me to judge. I just celebrate life to the fullest for everyone, no matter what season ones life is in. Hugs to you….and thank you for doing a job for humanity’s sake that is very much needed and one that it take a very good nurse of excel. qualities to do.
I really liked doing outpatient dialysis (I also did acutes) – it gave me a chance to build relationships with people I saw three times a week, week in and week out.
May the Spirit of Florence Nightingale be with us!
Together, we stand in Peace. SOmeday my friends, we will see it for others. You and I and all that allow themselves to be touched by the reality of this illegal occupation, will be there for the healing. It’s all within. Dare to reach for it.
Peace…Namaste.
I want to clarify something. The comment above under Diane101 was really me. I didn’t realise she was still signed in on my computer. See, we really are all melding.
Carroll Rejects Statements Made in Iraq
((((RubDMC)))) I don’t alway comment but I seek out your diary each day. I am thankful that those who are facing death and disability have you to care for them. You are a blessing.
I am weepy for other reasons now, but we are all fucking human, and we share the same hopes and dreams and longings… This must STOP!!