Trippers and askers surround me;
People I meet—the effect upon me of my early life, or the ward and city I live in,
or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks, or of myself, or ill-doing, or loss or lack of money,
or depressions or exaltations;
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights, and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am;
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary;
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head, curious what will come next;
Both in and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it.
Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders; I have no mockings or arguments—I witness and wait.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, “Walt Whitman”
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“All contradictions may be found in me ... bashful, insolent; chaste, lascivious; talkative, taciturn; tough, delicate; clever, stupid; surly, affable; lying, truthful; learned, ignorant; liberal, miserly and prodigal; all this I see in myself to some extent according to how I turn.... I have nothing to say about myself absolutely, simply and solidly, without confusion and without mixture, or in one word.” —Michel de Montaigne
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Political werewolves prowl the Web by night, call them what you will. They no longer buy into the corporate sponsored propaganda of either Republicans or Democrats and are, instead, looking for alternatives to their slash-and-burn philosophy. This is the home of one of them.
Let’s make one thing clear from the outset so you won't waste your time: Politically I’m somewhere to the left of Lenin (or Lennon, take your pick). I have no interest in a neocon/Fascist education, so if that’s your cup of tea, please move along. Any discourse we might have will simply be a waste of time, and I have none to squander.
That said, I rank the following among my heroes: my dad, my brothers, Thomas Jefferson, Joni Mitchell, Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale, Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata, Frida Kahlo, John Lennon (Mark David Chapman shot the wrong Beatle), Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Jimmy Carter, Gloria Steinem, James Dean, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, J.L. Moehring, Walt Whitman, Octavio Paz, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Danny Ortega, Studs Terkel, Richard Brautigan, Rembrandt, Bruce Cockburn, Carl Sandburg, any of the Baroque composers, Russell Means, Eddie Hinton, Mohandas Gandhi, the 1920s Lost Generation writers and artists, Miles Davis, Whoopie Goldberg and Alberts Einstein and Camus — and a cast of thousands more.