“Two of the highest-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in American custody have told the C.I.A. in separate interrogations that the terrorist organization did not work jointly with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, according to several intelligence officials.” Osama bin Laden apparently did not want to be beholden in any way to the likes of Saddam Hussein. NY Times

ePatriots is a collaboration between the daily Kos weblog and the Democratic National Committee “to help narrow the GOP’s massive cash advantage.”

“Our nominee will emerge from the primaries bloodied and broke, only to run smack head into $200 million in GOP attack ads. The DNC recognizes the increasing power of the blogosphere, and was receptive when I approached them with a request — give us the tools to help the party and our nominee defeat Bush. The end result? ePatriots. So donate now and help us retake our nation from Bush and his cabal. Your donations will be crucial to this effort.”

Kos’ Markos Moulitsas adds at his site,

“I worked with the DNC in setting up ePatriots. As such, I am essentially test driving it to ensure everything works as advertised. Once we are certain the system is solid the DNC will make this system available to all bloggers and webmasters.”

I must admit that it sticks in my craw to donate to any party machine, especially without knowing where the Democrats are going in the 2004 campaign, and with whom. And I am not so sure that the weblogging community has the numbers and the reach to be influential in grassroots politics, especially of the progressive variety, in the sense that it may be a phenomenon in its own mind more than anywhere else. But I could be wrong, which might ultimately mean that the contributions of netizens could help shape the Dems into a responsive, grassroots, 21st-century organization that might function as the effective opposition party it has never been and which we need so desperately. It is a sort of Pascal’s Wager — there seems to be no harm in beginning to link to this effort from the get-go. If for no reason other than as a social experiment, spread the word. And even moreso if you believe there is enough of a difference between even the most vapid ‘Dixiecrat’ least-common-denominator of a potential Democratic candidate and our unelected Resident Bush to make it worthwhile to begin to build the warchest now. I am thinking of joining the ABBA Party…

Evelyn Nieves, the Washington Post‘s west coast correspondent best known for covering the opposition to the invasion of Iraq, extolls the Beat bookstore on the occasion of its fifthieth birthday. I make a pilgrimmage there every time I travel to San Francisco, as I did last month to find it beneath a fresh coat of paint for the occasion, and lucky enough to have just finished the novel with which I was travelling and being in a book-buying mood (but, then again, I’m usually in a book-buying mood…); ended up with an obscure Iain Sinclair and a Denis Johnson I hadn’t already read.

In honor of the occasion, what say we have a little Michael McClure?

        BABY'S IN BLACK

             Michael McClure



THE NIGHT HYMNS BRIGHT THOUGHTS in Baby's contemplation.

His fists beat and toes clench. His voice

wails terror of the crocodiles

         beneath the bed

         but he's in silence.     Screaming is

         only in his head while moths

         die at the windowsill.  The ice wagon

         loads up and the horse is harnessed

         for the daily trudge through

                North Seattle



                    --like

                    the smell of cinnamon

                    and nutmeg

                it never goes away!



                  I

                am



           this hungry thing



               DESPITE

            the collapse

          of six dimensions,



      lying by the fire and smelling

          granpa's snuff and cedar kindling,

          listening

          to the crackle,



      DON'T TELL ME THIS IS REAL!

Related:<img align=”left” src=”LastGathering.jpg” border=”0″ width=”110″ height=”144″ alt=”[Image ‘LastGathering.jpg’ cannot be displayed]” title=”The Last Gathering of Beat Poets &Artists, City Lights Books

North Beach, San Francisco 1965″>The Last Gathering of Beat Poets & Artists, City Lights Books

North Beach, San Francisco 1965 [scroll down the page for a larger image and identifying caption]: “Lawrence Ferlinghetti wanted to document the 1965 Beat scene in San Francisco in the spirit of the early 20th century classic photographs of the Bohemian artists & writers in Paris…”