The Anvil Of The Sun

My head splits in two
On the anvil of the sun;
Waters of the desert
Belong to all and yet to none.

Godard's "Week End" was full of speechifiers

Some mornings you wake up and you just want to kill somebody.

Homeless man arrested in three Dallas shootings

DALLAS - Three convenience store workers were shot Wednesday afternoon. Police believe they were victims of homeless man who was angry about money.

"The number of people who can help me is the same number of people who could help Jesus on the cross."

Tony was a speechifier, as I call his species. They got a truth to tell you and by God you better listen! Usually it involves some unfair aspect of society the speaker is unable to overcome - and it's killing them. But with every passing speech the lecturer finds a world either too crippled or too bribed to give a damn. At that point, some people go quietly in the night. Others go out blazing, like Tony.

It's amazing how an unexpressed truth can swallow up a life. It's like being tied to a gigantic boulder pulling you down a hill. You can make a superhuman effort and stop the inevitable slide for a while, maybe telling yourself you have won "victory" and "the future is yours" and other fashionable deceptions but time is not an ally as the pull becomes too much once again and your grip starts to slip anew. And no matter how outrageous or how horrific your fate, the boulder does not hear your cries as it finally slides off the cliff, taking you with it.

Sort of like the American economy.

Tony's life ended long before the shooting. He was a man being ripped in two. The woman in the store said she never thought Tony would do something like this. If so, she must be one of those who profess blindness to be an asset. To me, the only shocking thing was why it took so long. Anyone who cared to could see this coming. Tony was the most dangerous of all creatures: a man with a gun intent on doing what's deemed the "right thing".

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Enron Traders Caught On Tape

(CBS) When a forest fire shut down a major transmission line into California, cutting power supplies and raising prices, Enron energy traders celebrated, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports.

"Burn, baby, burn. That's a beautiful thing," a trader sang about the massive fire.

Four years after California's disastrous experiment with energy deregulation, Enron energy traders can be heard – on audiotapes obtained by CBS News – gloating and praising each other as they helped bring on, and cash-in on, the Western power crisis.

"He just f---s California," says one Enron employee. "He steals money from California to the tune of about a million."

"Will you rephrase that?" asks a second employee.

"OK, he, um, he arbitrages the California market to the tune of a million bucks or two a day," replies the first.

The tapes, from Enron's West Coast trading desk, also confirm what CBS reported years ago: that in secret deals with power producers, traders deliberately drove up prices by ordering power plants shut down.

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"This shit ain't gonna work."

That was Tony's tip off line. For me, it meant leaving because I didn't want to hear Tony's shit one more time. He's a part timer at the shelter like I am, depending on his circumstance, but it took only one listen to him for me to know he was headed off his rocker. What bothered me, though, is that he would often use the same words I use because, yeah, I'm always saying in so many words "this shit ain't gonna work" too. It's what everyone without hope says.

And I can't say I don't understand his urge to shoot someone as he was always threatening to do. In Texas, we have a hard time believing anything involving a gun can be a bad thing - until, of course, that bad thing happens. So remarks about shooting people and whatnot pretty much go unnoticed, to think of them otherwise considered some form of Yankee liberal heresy. But I gotta tell ya it's tough when you see a volcano about to blow and no one cares to listen.

What split Tony in two was his wrestling to survive without living. On one hand he'd mightily shoehorn himself into some low paying menial labor to get by but his soul unbearably demanded more. But satisfying his soul put him back on the streets again. He would often argue out of both sides of his mouth. If someone complained about their miserable job he'd jump all over them for not "doing what you have to do." But if someone tried to ram a job down his throat, Tony demanded he "had to be free."

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"Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out" is a common
phrase I hear. The boy was 15, picked at random.

The Kill Team: How U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Murdered Innocent Civilians

Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.

Among the men of Bravo Company, the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging "savages" and debated the probability of getting caught. Some of them agonized over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start. But not long after the New Year, as winter descended on the arid plains of Kandahar Province, they agreed to stop talking and actually pull the trigger.

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Tony said his one wish was to "punch God right in the goddam mouth."

I can understand that too. Who is left to help us? Tony actually had some dead-on insights on how "our system is fucked up more than you know", not honest like we claim, and is not viable and careening out of control onto doom. I wonder if he lived out his life just like that to prove his point - because that is also a dead-on description of himself. Like I said, the power of an unexpressed truth is amazing. The words of the prophets are indeed written on the subway walls.

Some people will say, "if only he couldn't have gotten a gun". But that sidesteps both the problem and the solution. Just like with Tony, it's obvious America is on a death trip. Some say to admit that is to make it so, but the reality is just the opposite. Tony was always claiming someone was "fucking him" and in the article he says that's why he had to shoot. As I look around me, I see a disintegrating nation full of Tonys, shooting everyone (with all types of bullets) who's "fucking them" - whether real or imagined.

Is anyone listening? It's the cry for love.