The Vatican vs. Gertrude Stein (Part IX)

THE VATICAN: The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man. From here it becomes all the more clear how contrary it is to human love, to the profound vocation of man and woman, to systematically close their union to the gift of life, and even worse to suppress or tamper with the life that is born.

GERTRUDE STEIN: There is no pope.

"It was, in effect, a visual lie."

"Reality didn't work very well for FEMA during Katrina, so why not try fiction?"

The Ten Endowments (Part 2 of 2)

6. BEING BORN WHERE A BUDDHA HAS APPEARED
You sit atop the tabletop hockey game under the bed and wait for the click of a wet food can opening. But all you hear is the blotting wail of Merced's leaf-blower outside the bedroom window. This is the dark age, the dark eon. Dwell on the accomplishments of the leaf-blower. A vision of obscene chipmunk refugees fleeing the screech of blown leaves fills your heart with nectar.

7. BEING BORN WHERE A BUDDHA HAS TAUGHT
In the 1980s, before he became the Mayor of America, Rudy Giuliani narrowly escaped a death plot hatched by John Gotti, who ran the Gambino mafia family. Pravda newscaster Martha MacCallum asks viewers: "In terms of Rudy Giuliani and his presidential aspirations, does this help him, this story? Does it make him, you know, even more, sort of, invincible?" Just because Rudy Giuliani descends among us as Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, he nevertheless might choose not to give verbal teachings. Instead he might work for sentient beings by sending beams of light from his holy body.

8. BEING BORN WHERE THE TEACHINGS EXIST
Solitary and wise on a branch of the Mayakovsky Tree, Sogyal Rinpoche says: "When one filthy squirrel has ceased and a future squirrel has not yet risen, in that gap, in between, isn't there a consciousness of the present moment, fresh, virgin, unaltered by even a a fur's breath of conceptual thought -- a luminous, naked awareness?"

9. BEING BORN WITH THE ABILITY TO FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS
I sniff a scrap of blue sunflower-seed corn chip under the couch after the "party" they threw last night in the living room. It is not yogurt or catnip, not the moth I injured in September. Lick it, just in case.

10. BEING BORN WHERE THE KINDNESS OF OTHERS SUPPORTS YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Mary is worried now that she's outside the 15-29 demographic group which the station classifies as "young," and the station's mailboy has called her "Ma'am." Rhoda persuades her into phoning an old boyfriend for a get-together. A football player turned insurance salesman applies for a job as a sportscaster and attaches himself to Mary. Mary and Rhoda discover that he hasn't had much success at anything and encourage him to pursue his dreams.

19 Gigantic Spaceship Wires

"Where have you been, Shimmy? I'm afraid I've missed you," Guy Debord said. The smoke from his Gauloise cigarette forms a parasol before it falls down and cries. "I see the wicker newspaper box pulled away from its hiding spot beneath the bed."

"Cats will live on the surface of the earth even when the wicker newspaper box is taken away," I said. My paws are quite fat. Nothing is sweeter than an injured bat in my mouth, scolding as I eat him.

"Or is sleeping underneath the bed itself an act of meretricious escapism?"

The black buttons on Guy Debord's chest rise and fall as he breathes.

"They had a 'party' last night," I said. "Those giant shoes gathered in a circle around the ottoman don't know everything, Debord. Their giant shoes in fact suggest their own irremediable inferiority. I ran underneath two sets of legs outstretched on the ottoman and brushed them with the tips of my lavish fur. Giant shoes are a constant, incarcerating lie."

Smoke crept outward from Debord's nostrils. Smoke generated by nothing other than total historical movement.

"Once the White House loses its 'faith-based' community," Guy Debord said, "it loses all the reference points of truly common language until such time as the divisions within the country at large can be overcome by the inauguration of a real historical community."

"Bat bones mingled with my saliva."

Debord's cigarette loves darkness because it can grow more and more dangerous when it cannot be seen.

As Guy Debord becomes conscious of himself as a whole, he tends to go beyond his own cultural presuppositions and thus to move toward the suppression of all separations.

"Shimmy, transcendental Jesus, who is the common language of twenty-first century social inaction, rustles himself into materialist language in the modern sense. Faith-based communalism's declaration of independence is the beginning of its end."

The Ten Endowments (Part 1 of 2)

1. BEING BORN A CAT
How fortunate, rubbing my head or the side of my chin against the wastebasket enemy combatant, depositing an odor left in passing, by means of which I might be traced. Using the glands on my forehead and around my mouth and chin is much more precious than swallowing diamonds equaling the number of atoms of this earth.

2. BEING BORN IN AN APARTMENT WHERE THERE ARE TEACHINGS
Outside the window, squirrels squat their fetid rumps in the bole of the Mayakovsky Tree. I huddle under the handsomest delirious leaf in the Southwest Forest of the living room. I broke a stained glass window last month.

3. BEING BORN WITH PERFECT ORGANS
That hairball right outside their bedroom door is an entangled pattern of behavior or a mess of bureaucratic procedure that discourages originality and stifles imagination. Consequently, the hairball underneath Tony's desk is released from the nightmare realm -- and war and peace escape through the same portal entering the real world. Watch out: next to the couch is a pressure-cooked accumulation of ingested hair that forms into a ball within the digestive tract.


4. BEING BORN FREE OF THE FIVE EXTREME ACTIONS
In his January 25, 2002, memorandum to the President of the War on Terror, Alberto Gonzales wrote: "The argument that the U.S. has never determined that the standards of the Geneva Convention did not apply is incorrect. First, this is a new type of warfare that requires a new approach in our actions towards captured terrorists."

He licked his right haunch, adding, "Second, in response to the argument that we should decide to apply the Geneva Conventions to the Taliban in order to encourage other countries to treat captured U.S. military personnel in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, it should be noted that the White House's policy of providing humane treatment to enemy detainees gives us the credibility to insist on like treatment for our soldiers. Thirdly, we coerce cooperation with other nations by reassuring them that we fully support the Geneva Conventions where they are applicable and by acknowledging that in this conflict the U.S. continues to respect other recognized standards."

Alberto Gonzales licked his egregious right hand and washed his forehead.

"Fourthly," he said, "the U.S. will continue to be constrained by its commitment to treat the detainees humanely while waterboarding them."

He added, "The fifth, and final, reason why the Geneva Conventions do not apply is that, of course, any argument based on the ethos of military culture fails to recognize that our military remain bound to apply the principles of the Geneva Conventions because that is what you, as President of the War on Terror, have directed them to do."

5. BEING BORN HAVING CONFIDENCE IN AND DEVOTION TO THE TEACHINGS
Mary finds herself ordering paper clips and a pair of tweezers at work and demands that Lou give her more responsibility. He obliges and assigns Mary her first task: fire Ed the sportscaster and find a replacement. Georgette is distraught when she catches Ted with another woman and makes plans to join a convent. "I, too, am an angel," Georgette says. "I brace myself against my ribs!"

"The History of Rope"

Leonard Pitts, "The History of Rope"

The Eight Freedoms

1. NOT BEING BORN IN THE HELL REALMS
Your whole body shakes at the first radiator clacks of October. A squirrel's loathsome tail brushing along the bole of the Mayakovsky Tree, a dawdling gibbet lodges in their filthy hearts. Their eyes wide like Sumerian idols when I prowl the windowsill.

2. NOT BEING BORN AS A HUNGRY GHOST
If I were a water bug, I would not be able to eat the salmon trapped in cans of Friskies Salmon Dinner. For five hundred years, spiders are unable to find my food dish. You start shoving an acorn into your mouth but it's a tight fit. You press it and it breaks.

3. NOT BEING BORN AS A DOG
I woke up this morning on the suitcase. Who vacuumed the catnip? A dog can bark at mantras. But there is no way a dog can understand emptiness (shunyata) even if you scream in its ears for years. The dog upstairs sticks his whole whooping cough of a body out the window and watches Greenview Avenue go by, but he can't explain it to you.

4. NOT BEING BORN WHERE TEACHINGS ARE UNAVAILABLE
Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez calls the White House's handling of the war incompetent and warns that the United States is "living a nightmare with no end in sight." He blames the President of the War on Terror for a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan" and denounces the current "surge" as a "desperate" move that will not achieve long-term stability.

5. NOT BEING BORN AS A LONG-LIFE GOD

Kill some fish down by the creek
Hang their picture by the sink
Show your grandson who's the boss

Tie your two toat-goats to the front
U-Haul trailer full of souvenirs
That you buy along the way

6. NOT BEING BORN AS SOMEONE WHO SAYS THERE ARE NO FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS, NO REBIRTH, NO LIBERATION FROM KARMA
"Iran has long been the puppet master in the Middle East," said Glenn Beck. "You don't have to take my word for it. Just watch any episode of Law and Order. Use the thinking, you know, that helps them solve all the tough cases. Iran has the means, the motive, and the opportunity to try and destroy our American way of life by controlling the Middle East."

7. NOT BEING BORN WHERE NO BUDDHA HAS APPEARED
His pockets stuffed with rubles, Glenn Beck scampered in the flea-ridden dirt in Virginia where he tortured and killed all those dogs.

8. NOT BEING BORN UNABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE TEACHINGS
Bess's 15-year-old boyfriend, robust as a horse, falls in love with Rhoda and begins to surprise her with visits to her apartment and her workplace. Lou goes to the hospital to have a piece of World War II shrapnel removed and, surprisingly, he and Ted become best friends with the black cat across the street who strides the windowsill going, "Don't trample the legs of my piano!"

It Was Like Water Torture (Part 3 of 3)

The President of the War on Terror told Jose Maria Aznar in February 2003 that waiting for the U.N. Security Council approval to invade Iraq was "like Chinese water torture."

"Shimmy, you're a good climber," he said. "Why don't you get on up Tony's bookshelf and bring me that book. The small paperback. It's probably the Constitution."

"On one condition. Tell me what the spine of the book says. Just read it aloud and I'll climb the shelf for you."

"Spain is a country that loves radio and couldn't live without it," he replied. "Laura says they have many graceful trees over there. In Spain."

"Is the U.N. a den of sadists and sociopaths?"

"Spain is enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people around the world, Shimmy, and is finding acceptance everywhere."

"Was it Chinese Water Torture or waterboarding?"

Yukio Asano peeked from behind one of Tony's giant shoes. They are made of soft leather and are fast and accurate.

"During World War II," Yukio Asano said, "I strapped a U.S. civilian to an inclined board, with his feet raised and his head lowered. He was tightly bound and couldn't move."

"Torture is a terrifying experience." the President of the War on Terror said. "But the United States acts with great petroleum, militarily developing our bridges."

"I wrapped cellophane around his head," Yukio Asano continued, "and poured water over him to simulate drowning. In 1947, the United States sentenced me to 15 years of hard labor."

The President of the War on Terror said, "A historical sense of responsibility guides me just as it does you, Yukio Asano. We will post-Saddam our friends. We sent a very clear post-Saddam to the Generals: we will win them like war bridges. We know that the Pentagon has organized a necessary amount of war to post-Saddam the oil wells. We are doing everything possible to take care of the post-Saddam political needs of our friends and their bridges."

It Was Like Water Torture (Part 2 of 3)

The President of the War on Terror claimed the United Nations subjected him to "Chinese water torture" in February 2003.

I pressed him for details. He shaded his hollow, pinhole eyes from the window and pointed at Tony's bookshelf.

"Is that the copy of the Constitution that your cousin, Winter, gave you?" he asked.

"What does it say on the spine?" I replied, daring him to read it.

"I met with the President of Spain and we chewed gum." His face went bland, like an old oyster.

I asked, "Did the U.N. deprive you of basic dignities guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention? Is Kofi Annan a torturer?"

"Spain, you know, is thinner than I thought it was," the President of the War on Terror said. "Thinner. Flatter and thinner than I thought."

What was that noise? The shriek of the leaf blower is a calamity, the dogs upstairs bobble when they chase the doorbell.

My left haunch is elegant and itches.

"Because if Kofi Annan tortured you," I said, "then he is a war criminal. I should've sent a copy of Sarith Peou's Corpse Watching to Kofi Annan instead of Roger Ailes. If Kofi Annan tortured you."

It Was Like Water Torture (Part 1 of 3)

"What's that on Tony's bookshelf," the President of the War on Terror said. He sat at the lip of my Tora Bora box, kicking his dissembling legs.

I watched the dull cranberry sheen of his shoes.

"You told Jose Maria Aznar, the President of Spain, that it was like water torture."

"What's on the bookshelf?"

I said, "You told Aznar in February 2003 that waiting for the U.N. Security Council to check for WMDs in Iraq was 'like Chinese water torture.'"

"I'd like to take a look at that book there," he said, pointing to the top shelf.

"Tell me what happened when you met with the President of Spain in February 2003."

"It looks like a thin paperback."

He shaded his eyes from the window. Outside, the Mayakovsky Tree was silent, its bole fetid with squirrels.

"Is Chinese water torture like waterboarding?" I asked. "When you were waiting for U.N. approval, was the U.N. actually torturing you?"

Aluminum Puppet Thimble Goblin

Tina Modotti hunted for birds and small animals. Clara Fraser knocked a pen off Eve Libertine's desk and into the fire. Gayle Rubin brought Patsy Poison a bird to eat. Criss Crass ate grass and berries; she hunted for entertainment, not food. Mirella Bentivoglio was hungry and dirty but otherwise OK after hitching a 400-mile ride from Indianapolis to Omaha on an 8-inch beam underneath a tractor-trailer. Clara Zetkin hunted almost anything that moves. Alice Armendaries turned around and saw Nancy Morgan Hart wander into Elisso Bello's house and vanish. Gloria Martin climbed up on the window and went to sleep. Elsie Clews Parsons was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs in the hall -- and Nina Genke was outside the door staring into the room.