Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:   (Published NW Herald Sept 6, 2015)

Avant-garde phony intellectuals among us stridently defend a man’s right to “become” a woman while coldly trivializing the sale of an intact fetal cadaver, justifying that savage butchery with hollow rhetoric spinning the indefensible as “women’s health.” Josef Mengele, Margaret Sanger and Kermit Gosnell serve proudly on the board of directors of that twisted mindset, totally void of a moral compass or hint of conscience.

Even the most staunchly devout agnostic/atheist thinkers subscribing to an ordered social fabric acknowledge the despicable/destructive nature of this sort of sick existence. Let’s hope so, because the overwhelming majority of so-called God-fearing Americans across the fruited plain cower in fear, somehow duped into believing they remain forever powerless to reverse and soundly defeat a willful insanity destined to destroy a once great nation.

William G. Parrot

McHenry

To The Editor:  ( Published NW Herald Sept 14, 2015)

William Parrot (“Argument indefensible,” Sept. 6) once again has fallen in love with his own multi-syllabic, obscure words – words about as clear as Wallace Stevens’ poetry.

From me, Parrot’s letter gets an “F” for supplying insufficient facts to support an unclear thesis.

However, if it is his intent to rant against legal abortion in the U.S. and also against the use of the resultant cells for research, then I have some very clear advice for him:

If you object to Roe v. Wade, then work to repeal it; that is, unless you are simply a windbag that blows across the U.S. every four years during presidential elections. Better yet, begin lecturing your heterosexual counterparts on abstinence. Thus, no sperm and egg will have a chance to meet and create that sticky problem to which, I think, you refer.

I know that it takes two to tango; but, for eons, women have led in the “saying-no” dance. Now, Mr. Parrot, if you and other men will take your turn on the floor and are successful in simply saying, “No,” problem solved as far as I can tell.

Jan Bosman

Woodstock

 

Published Comment

just folks 5ptsFeatured
50 minutes ago- Ms Bosman writes a very cogent and succinct response to Mr Parrot, who evidently has conduit to the  thinking of all "avant garde intellectuals," or "devout agnostics.."  Perhaps Parrot , like Kim Davis, hears voices from a higher plain .  I have no voices to guide me, but I can recognize the smell of bullshit. 

Me- The Sea

 

Shame.  You seem to know it no more.  You have spoken reverence to Me for eons.  You called Me Guo pu, Tangaroa, Neptune, Doris, Kanaluo, Idirgijengel, Njhord, and Poseiden. I received your prayers , your sacrifice, and your offerings.  I thought eternally I could reward you with my bounty, My beauty and My being.

I thought you had respect that My lofty mountains, My deepest canyons, My forests , deserts and even My angry volcanos which are home to more living things than populate your puny lands ?

Those that lived by My grace used to have respect for Me.  I was lore and legend. There was awe and inspiration from Me .

Now, I cry for vast islands of flotsam that gather as cancers on my  glistening skin. My tears flow copiously for my leviathans struggling in plastic netting ,or bounteous schools of marine life taken from Me beyond any hope for replenishment.

I grieve for fluids I stood as sentinel over for eternities, now drawn forth from my belly and spilled back into my realm by the careless who have appreciation only for the weight of their purses.

Aquatic clarity has become occluded.  My gardens die here, great reefs are destroyed and in my bosum My deepest flocks die because of temperature changes at my core. Slowly yes, but surely I diminish in sanctuary.

You delight in my shores, the beauty of sun off me .  “Oh, that sea air,” you relish. And then throw your garbage into my face. How callous.

Huge float factories skirt upon  my vastness,  with captures for hungry masses. But also are taken  the lives of the unwanted like seals and dolphins, and sharks and turtles, all deaths that go unmourned and worse, unnoticed . . . except to me when you throw their carcasses back.

Please know I am no more eternal than you.  This may not seem easy to grasp as I have always “ been.”  I was before and will be after.  But I can die. I am dying-  A death due to the disease of “You”.  Like all other things, you cannot take, take, take, and expect there will always be more.  You cannot keep dumping garbage  into Me and expect Me to remain  crystalline.  The wage you will pay for your pollution is death. Mine first and then yours, because we are tied and cannot exist without the other.  

So the time has come.  As My resplendence astounds your vision looking upon me,  think also of being part of My preservation.  It will come down to your decision and the teaching of it to yours and of your efforts to keep, guard and treasure My resource.  My majesty “from sea to shining sea”  depends entirely on y-o-u. 

-Jerry Wendt 2015 

The “Gods” of “Me”-  Tangaroa- Maori Australian, Guo Pu- Chinese,  Doris- Greek,  Poseidon- Greek,  Kanaloa – Hawaiian,  Idiragijengel -Inuit Alaskan, Njoprd- Norse, Neptune- Roman.

Guilty Pleasures

My Sis is a pretty little thing, sometimes,

all ruffled up in checkerboard gingham
and lacy trim just skimming across
knees plastered with Spongebob band-aids
from a losing battle with her new bike
                                                         
Oh my, those too short days
of Barbie and telling the most awesome secrets with gal pals
under the big Catalpa in the front yard
that bloomed lovely orchids, then later shed ugly black pods
that crunch when stepped on .

Theodore from down the street

tried to schmooch on her when Suzanne wouldn’t
but she turned away and told him she had a cold
because really it was Jimmy Waskowski
that she wanted to kiss her.
 

She has a crayon picture of Jimmy

kept scrunched into her plastic Dora purse
along with a hankie from Gram, a baggie of hard old gummie bears,
and a hairbrush she can’t use cause she brushed Rex with it
when he got into the burdock out back.

 Mom will be calling her home for dinner soon

The family all must eat together
but she’s twitching to go go go upstairs
to her secret space under the bed
and put down all of this fantastic day in her diary,

which I now must close  and carefully put back as I found it

to get downstairs to dinner before I am missed.

Current Events

One drop

 

falls from the eye of a mother

grieving that her young son is dead

at the hands of a cop who says

his dark skin was not the issue.

 

One drop

spilt from a plastic gallon ladle

of a Navajo woman in New Mexico stretching

one of 7 allotted for cooking cleaning and coffee for a whole week

because a nation forgot to care for its own.

 

One drop

From the brush of a apple cheeked Iowa lad

scrubbing his prized 4H Heifer that no one will notice

because they are so involved watching a rich man drop from the sky

with promises that even an Aztec God would envy.

 

One drop

mopped from the brow of a smoke jumper

Loaded with 40 pounds of heavy gear

spading earth in 100 degree heat to protect

 the 3^rd generation home of a Washington family.

 

One drop

molecule of the simplest hydrogen and oxygen

Most bounteous and precious

binder to our very being

twining us all together.

-Jerry Wendt 2015

Billy Joe MacAllister

Billy Joe MacAllister

 

Pinnacle is not a point of permanence       

just a prominent perch of ponder,

not necessarily portent for a fall.

There is ever option to rise

buoyed by cumulous of tomorrow.

 

Tallahatchie river flows on,

 balance to perspective from point

atop Billy Joe’s shoulders.

Try to sort sawmill grist,

separate tinder from timber

 

Many stood ; more still to stand,

rising from this place

instead of falling into muddy water.

We have him to thank.

It only seems the solitary place.

 

We know better now

Billy Joe gave us that gift.

Today is not about tomorrow

where shadows  fall different or not at all

Tallahatchie ....

 

I Know You Now

I didn’t know you then,

certainly didn’t invite you in,

and was innocent to your plans.

You had no morality,

you just snuck in my door

found a home and moved in.

 

You violated me

Intimately invaded my core

and had no intention of leaving

until you left me decimated and useless

helpless to your ongoing rape

heedless of wasting away to death.

 

You are a bully

disregarding all my plans

you tried to control me,

sneaky at first and then boldly

you asserted your command

overwhelming and ravaging me.

 

But I prevailed.

I had friends

who stood beside me

and very learned people

who knew your ugly ways.

They had weapons to bear upon you.

 

A battle ensued,

I was worn thin,

every sinew of my being stretched

beyond what I thought possible.

I tried to become whole again

to heal what you brought upon me.

 

Now I think you have left

I hope not just hiding .

I still live with memory

of your hideous crime.

 I am ever wary of your veiled ways,

forever scarred from your vicious intrusion.

 

I overcame being afraid.

I am proud that I fought and won. . .so far.

If there is to be another battle I am ready

I no longer fear speaking your name,

Cancer.

I know you now.

 

 

 

Ahooga

Ahooga

Thomas caught, hand in cookie jar.          

Interrupted, he recoils,

“Crash” goes the jar.

What are you doing ?  Nothing.

 

Ahooga

Sitting across a pub table

Sam’s date gives her most alluring smile

inadvertent “Burp” drawing attention

to the spinach appetizer caught in her teeth.

 

 

Ahooga

Grandpa bends to pick up a croquet ball

pants tearing open his seat

“GrrrrRIP  cracks the air”

to the delight of his watching grandchildren.

 

Ahooga

The gum Blanche was chewing at the funeral

dropped from her quivering lips onto the departed

“Splat, “

sticking right there on her lace collar.

 

Ahooga

Jimmy’s parents bedside at hospital

willing his broken body to mend.

( silence )              

Deaf, he did not hear the horn.