From reading & writing:

‘…a reaction to my reading of the news about the “American aid workers” who have escaped from the Taliban. I’m glad they were not harmed. That said, the Taliban were right about them–they were whacko Christians from Waco, Texas who were caught with video & audio tapes that could have only one purpose: to convert Afghans to Christianity… I grew up among people like this, people who believe A) that there is a literal hell & B) You are going there if you don’t accept their religious beliefs. (Remind you of certain other people in the news recently?) Missionaries have done as much damage in the world in the last 200 years as armies–indeed, they are often the thin end of the wedge, the fat end of the wedge being colonial armies of occupation. So I have no sympathy for these “young women” & even less for their sanctimonious pastor in Waco who said on NPR this evening that they “were not afraid of death” because they believed in Jesus. Last night on NPR there was a story that quoted a young Muslim man as saying that his friend, who had died while on jihad in Afghanistan, was “already in Paradise with seventy black-eyed virgins.” He hadn’t been afraid of death either, nor was the speaker, unless it was mere bravado. I don’t see much of a difference between these two world views myself. None of these people have an irony organ. How about a crack team of secular humanists for Afghanistan? Ah, that wouldn’t work either, even with irony, as we should have learned in Vietnam & Iran with our self-serving attempts at “nation building.” ‘

Magical Thinking is forthcoming poetry from reading & writing‘s Joseph Duemer. An example:

Abandoned Bluetick Bitch



Numbed with self-loathing,

we abandon the emissaries

of grace. Chained to a tree



beside the empty rental

she hollowed out a den

for herself & her young.



By the time we found her

the water they'd left her

was a couple of days gone.



When it was gone she would have

slept, not dreaming, letting the pups

nurse her sparse milk



& when the smallest died

she ate it to keep

her strength & cleanse the den,



depriving coy dogs & foxes

an expedient scent.

It's likely there were two more



before we found her.

Ribs covered by a tissue of dry skin,

she was nothing -- a shadow



on the dirt & was just able

to raise her head & take

a little water from my hand



before turning to nose

her three live pups awake.

Reader, it is true, there is



horror everywhere worse

than this & cruelty that beggars

imagination, but this



is my horror, local & particular;

these were my neighbors did this,

who, without even the excuse



of racial or religious psychosis,

committed this wrong. Who live

in this same light & shadow I live in.



Let us kill one another

with heedless abandon -- we deserve it --

but not these poor relations



whose lives are without malice

& whose motives are transparent.

Let us kill one another.