Chris Magazine

It has been quite some time since the words last tumbled from my brain to paper and much has happened in the meanwhile. I have been away from writing for a long time now, years in fact. For reasons, I'll not disclose, my energy has been sapped, that once boundless imagination had been firmly locked away and the urge to pick up a pen had never been so distant.
Time though is quickly running away from me. I see the world now passing as if I was on the TGV. A future which had once been so expansive is now not so much. The time has come for me to do that which I was supposed. It's time to unlock that door and see what's left inside.
It can not wait any longer.
It is now.

it was taken from me
though I never had it
feels as if it was torn from my very fabric
i can feel myself bleeding out
with no urge to stop it
the cold comes soon
a now welcome old friend
all that mattered
now lies elsewhere
never again to be
within my reach

My heart stopped beating last night

It had only begun truly beating not so long ago

But I had become accustomed to the familiar patter

Now it has gone quiet

I continue to breathe

I still feel the need to eat

But there’s no passion behind it

I can still walk

And see

But even as I write this

There’s a cold washing over me

A darkness descending

The colors, so recently revealed to me

Are returning to gray

Yet within that dire world

There is refuge

From that which stopped my heart

So I'm a little pissed. Dick Cheney is spouting bullshit again and I've had it. When does someone step up and slap him down? "Congress is undermining the troops."
Seriously? That's the problem in Iraq....not the fact that we shouldn't have gone in the first place (that's not just on Cheney and Bush, but also the democrats and republicans who fearfully gave the President carte blanche after 9/11 and the press which neglected for three years to ask a significant follow up question of anyone in government)...not the fact that we had no plan for occupation....not that we had too few soldiers to do the job...not that we've created a haven for terrorists, a training ground for new ones and a lost generation in Iraq that, ultimately will grow up with little infrastructure and looking for someone to be angry at...the problem clearly isn't that we're fighting a war against a group of insurgents, in their own country (which you cannot win) or that we're fighting two groups (Sunni/Shiite) that are also busy fighting each other (and who, other than the Kurds, are big fans of the Kurds in the region?)...the problem is clearly Congress.
If only the Democrats would walk goose step with the administration, then those bullets shot by snipers would harmlessly pass over our soldiers heads...if only Congress would embrace the flawed plans of our President the IEDs would implode never wounding, never killing....if only Congress could understand how their doubt was responsible for putting tens of billions of U-S taxpayer dollars in the hands of the terrorists we were there to fight...if only Congress would stop thinking for themselves our soldiers would be getting the treatment they deserve when they return.
Wow...guess I turned myself around there. Our problems in Iraq are all the fault of Congress, just as the Vice-President says. I'm going to go have a talk with my neighbor...he's foolish enough to think the soldiers would be safer if they just came home. I'll tell him that it's talk like that that's getting them killed over there. What a bastard.

Swiss Accidentally Invade Liechtenstein

ZURICH, Switzerland (March 2) - What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered 1.2 miles across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.

A spokesman for the Swiss army confirmed the story but said that there were unlikely to be any serious repercussions for the mistaken invasion.

"We've spoken to the authorities in Liechtenstein and it's not a problem," Daniel Reist told The Associated Press.

Officials in Liechtenstein also played down the incident.

Interior ministry spokesman Markus Amman said nobody in Liechtenstein had even noticed the soldiers, who were carrying assault rifles but no ammunition. "It's not like they stormed over here with attack helicopters or something," he said.

Liechtenstein, which has about 34,000 inhabitants and is slightly smaller than Washington D.C., doesn't have an army.

Haven't forgotten any of you...just been a bit preoccupied of late. Read a book. I'll be right back.

tough year for my sports teams....Eagles lose in the playoffs....Phillies just aren't there...sixers suck...Flyers suck more... I'm so depressed I feel like buying a Nickelback album.....aww..I'm kidding...I can't imagine I'd ever be that depressed.

The new Sloan....Never Hear the End of It
Highly recommend it....30 songs...many just a minute to two minutes long....not all great, but some very close to that...especially Listen to the Radio and the Beatle inspired Fading into Obscurity. Go. Buy it. Don't be a dumbass.

It will be interesting to see just what President Bush offers in his new way forward. Whether he'll stick to his stubborn guns (as has been his administration's pattern in the past) or if he'll truly offer some decent options? I suspect it will lean much more towards the first with plenty of rhetoric and catch phrases, but very short on a real tangible plan. There will be some very fun, hardline statements of expectations of the Iraqi government, but no real repercussions should they not fulfill their end of the bargin.
Then again, maybe he'll prove me wrong. Kidding. I'll watch it just the same.

Good on the Eagles. New Orleans next week.