Doggie Deja Vu

I had this conversation with my nephew and then two days later my mom had this conversation with my nephew–the exact same conversation.

Me (or Mom):  Stop messing with the dog.  She doesn’t like it.

Nephew: Why?  Will she bite me.

Me (or Mom): No, but she’ll be very unhappy with you.

Time passes and I (or Mom) stop scrutinizing nephew’s actions.  Suddenly, the dog makes a very scary and unhappy noise.

Nephew: Hey!

Me (or Mom):   What happened?

Nephew: I was just messing with the dog when she did that.

Me (or Mom): Did she bite you?

Nephew: No.

Me (or Mom): So, in other words, you did what I told you not to do and the dog did what I told you she’d do and now you’re angry and upset.

I mean, seriously, folks.  My mom had to tell him to stop messing with the dog’s face.  Who messes with the face of a strange dog? The Butcher says “A ten year old boy.”

Fair enough.

“Life lived with poetry in mind is itself an art.”

Via Jill over at the Poetry Hut, we learn that Lawrence Ferlinghetti is still convinced that poetry can save the world.

I cannot tell you how happy this article makes me.  Ideas like this are why I live my life. 

How often do you sit around asking “What can we do?  What can we do?”

The world’s problems are so large and our ability to affect change is deliberately kept as minimal as possible.

But you can put this word next to that word and, even if you can’t write, even if you dare not write, you can say them, quietly to yourself.

The second major section of the book, “What Is Poetry?,” was started by Ferlinghetti in the late 1950s; here he provides backup for his argument for the importance of poetry, and that “life lived with poetry in mind is itself an art.” Here, the political returns – somewhat – to the personal, as “poetry is the shortest distance between two humans,” is “the anarchy of the senses making sense”; and “it is a pulsing fragment of the inner life, an untethered music” which “restores wonder and innocence.”

Woo hoo!  That’s good stuff, a blessing to unsettled folks. 

Happy New Year!

Only Among the Folks in Washington…

Only among the folks in Washington can three people who have all been Senators run for president and the man who’s run before be considered an outsider.

America, do you know who would be a real outsider in the Democratic race?

Tiny Pasture.

Call me with talk of “outsider” when he gains momentum in Iowa.