Dispatches is ready for a reading. This week, I write about political poetry.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
Washington punditsand the myth of extremes
The great flaw in this kind of thinking is that — once John McCain and his outsized personality are removed from the discussion — this new, allegedly centrist third party is unlikely to be a force at the polls.
Joe Lieberman lost not because of a demand for party purity, but because he lost touch, misreading the real anger out there over the direction in which the country is moving and the part he plays in it by lending bipartisan cover to the president’s bankrupt policies. It doesn’t necessarily signal a turn to the left or a mass movement to follow the teachings of AJ Muste, just a basic democratic craving that representatives actually represent.
Simple, basic truth: Lieberman’s fate proves that democracy can work, or as Josh Marshall wrote on Talking Points Memo:
That’s politics. And that’s accountability. And, really? It’s not that big a deal.
That Lieberman seems unwilling to accept his fate and play by the rules, proves that he no longer believes in democracy — and the fact that the Washington punditocracy agrees with him only proves how out of touch the folks inside the Beltway really are.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Warehouse sales
The council seems to have made the right call on this, recognizing that retail adds value to warehouses but that it also brings traffic. Limiting the warehouse stores to a small areas would seem to be a way to split the difference.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Terror in the skies?
It is hard to know how to react to this at this point, especially given the way the administration has manipulated this kind of information in the past. That this was a British arrest may lend it a bit more credence, though.
At the same time, I’m getting tired of hearing how this is part of a larger war when it remains unclear how these disparate groups are linked. Yes, they are “Islamo-fascists” in Chris Hitchens’ term, but to raise them to the same level as a national government with territorial aims on the United States seems foolish and dangerous.
More on this as I get a chance to digest what happened.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury PressThe Blog of South Brunswick
Poetry at the South Brunswick Library
The South Brunswick Arts Commission, in conjunction with the South Brunswick Public Library, will present a series of Sunday afternoon poetry readings featuring some of the region’s most highly regarded poets. The readings will take place monthly and will be followed by an open reading. All readings will be at 2 p.m.
The fall schedule is:
Sept. 10: Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Oct. 15: Emanuel di Pasquale, Sander Zulauf and Frank Finale
Nov. 19: Alicia Ostriker and Eliot Katz
Dec. 17: The Poets of South Brunswick – Hank Kalet, Shandy Walton, Adam Fitzgerald and others.
The schedule of spring readings will be released at a later date.
The readings are free, though a donation of a non-perishable food item to be given to the South Brunswick Food Pantry is encouraged.
For more information, including directions, contact the Arts Commission at (732) 329-4000, ext 635.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 