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.

Another anti-imperial voice lost

Chalmers Johnson, the historian and political scientist/economist, died Saturday. His death, an obvious personal loss for his family and friends, is also a blow to what is left of the American anti-imperial cause.

Johnson, in his most recent work, has demonstrated the designs on international power that drive our foreign policy. Basically, his work — along with books by historians like Andrew Bacevich — make it clear that we no longer rely on our military for defense, but use it offensively to project power and impose our will on distant nations and have been for decades.

It already has resulted in blowback (the title of one of his books) and will again. And when that blowback occurs, it will give the national security state all the justification it needs to shred the Bill of Rights.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Drink coffee? Buy local

I dislike Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee. I know that, for many, I’m speaking a slur against the coffee gods. But I find it to have a burnt taste and to be very bitter.

It is OK in a pinch, but not for real coffee drinking.

Starbucks is good, but there is better. I’ll drink Starbucks without complaint _- I think it’s probably the best of the national coffee chains — but give me a local coffee shop every time and I’m a happy guy.

Today, I met with my Patch staff at Grover’s Mill Coffee Roasting Co., in the Southfield Shopping Center in West Windsor. The coffee was quite good — strong with the proper bite — and the chicken salad sandwich was fabulous. So, add Grover’s Mill to the list of good local shops in the Central Jersey area.

My incomplete list:

Small World Coffee, Witherspoon Street, Princeton
Rockn’ Joe, Route 27, Kendall Park (small franchise)
It’s a Grind, Schalks Crossing Road, Plainsboro (small franchise)
Grover’s Mill, Princeton Hightstown Road, West Windsor

There are plenty more, of course, so add your two cents. What do you think the best independent coffee shops are in Mercer and Middlesex counties?

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

Terry Collins, the new man in charge

According to an NY Times report, Terry Collins will be named the new manager of the New York Mets. He is fiery, for sure, but this lifetime .500 manager is not exactly the guy I expect to drag the organization out of the dumps.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.

The wrong debate

The debate over yesterday’s verdict in the terrorism trial of Ahmed Ghailani, which resulted in the Guantanamo detainee being convicted on only one of nearly 300 charges, is ignoring a basic precept of American democracy. The conviction on a charge related to a 1998 bombing of the American embassy in Africa — a conviction that has Ghailani facing between 20 years and life in prison — has conservatives renewing their call for those facing terror charges to be tried by a military tribunal and not in civilian criminal courts.

The verdict has been discussed within a context of effectiveness, using the assumption that failure to convict is a conviction of the system itself, one that requires us to suspend the basic rule of law and to move to an extra-judiciary measure.

“This is a tragic wake-up call to the Obama Administration to immediately abandon its ill-advised plan to try Guantánamo terrorists” in federal civilian courts, said Representative Peter King, Republican of New York. “We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantánamo.”

No one, however, is asking the question that needs to be asked. Were the acquittals due to the system itself, which is designed to defend the rights of the accused (a goal at which the system too often fails, but that is a topic for another post), an indictment of the system or did they occur because of a failure to collect the necessary evidence?

There is something more than a little disturbing about a mindset that demands we change the rules for a subset of people because we did not get the result we want, a mindset that endangers all of us because it chips away at the rights not only of Guantanamo detainees, but of everyone accused of a crime. It flips the basic premise of American justice — everyone is presumed not guilty until proven otherwise — and allows the presumption of guilt to become the standard.

This is far more of a threat to our country than anything threat we face from terrorism.

Knicks should not be this bad

The Knicks should not be 3-8. There is a better balance of talent than in recent years, though not enough to offset those nights when the shots do not fall. They need to play better defense and go hard to the hoop.

Send me an e-mail.
Read poetry at The Subterranean.
Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.