As of June 16, 2008, 4,101 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the war began on March 19, 2003, and at least 30,000 have been wounded. Last year, USA Today claimed that of those who’ve lost their lives in the war, one in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays. One percent were named Smith.

Unfortunately, coverage of the war in Iraq has declined precipitously, to about one-fifth of what it was last summer, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “Five years later, the United States remains at war in Iraq, but there are days when it would be hard to tell from a quick look at television news, newspapers and the Internet,” Richard Perez-Pena writes in today’s New York Times. “Iraq accounted for 18 percent of [broadcast television networks] prominent news coverage in the first nine months of 2007, but only 9 percent in the following three months, and 3 percent so far this year,” Perez-Pena notes, citing figures from PEJ.

The Fallacies of War

Ad Hominem. Against the man
and why not, he started it?
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque. He is false.
Most people are.
Appeal to Authority. Misuse of Politics
fascinates the opiated masses.
Appeal to Belief. God must exist
ask most people.
Appeal to Common Practice. We’re in a hurry.
Speeding isn’t that wrong.
Appeal to Emotion. I love you
when you wear nothing underneath.
Appeal to Fear. If you do
you’ll go to hell.
Appeal to Flattery. You may have
a singularly brilliant idea there.
Appeal to Novelty. You’re so yesterday
I’m new and improved.
Appeal to Pity. I need this job,
I’m a Jew.
Appeal to Popularity. As you know
these are dangerous times.
I have in my office thousands of letters from people
who heartily endorse killing you.
Appeal to Ridicule. Those tree huggers think
my Hummer is melting their ice.
Appeal to Spite. You never
did anything for me.
Appeal to Tradition. Of course I’m right,
it’s in the Constitution.
Get on the Bandwagon. If your friends
bash gay marriage, avoid the ridicule.
Begging the Question. Since pigs don’t vote
God must mean for us to fight.
Biased Sample. Our polls show 90%
blame Iraq and believe TV.
Burdon of Proof. Torture for truth
but destroy the tapes.
Circumstantial ad Hominem. Just ignore his child abuse
views, he’s a priest for Christ’s sake.
Composition. Atoms are colorless. You are made of atoms.
You are colorless.
False Dilemma. You must accept
the Patriot Act or live in fear.
Gambler's Fallacy. He’s been wrong so long
He’s bound to get something right.
Genetic Fallacy. His father was a fuck up.
Guilt by Association. Cheney
and Satan, well…, the friends you keep.
Hasty Generalization. Those sexist pigs
all hate your big fat ass.
Personal Attack. You’re a known
lesbian feminist, what could you possibly have to say?
Poisoning the Well. Don't listen to me,
I’m a liar.
Red Herring. If you want peace
we’ll need to kill these people.
Slippery Slope. First, it’s just a few troops.
Next, let’s burn some books.
Straw Man. You don’t believe we should be in Iraq?
How could you want us so defenseless?
Two Wrongs Make a Right. Rights? I’ll take yours.
You would’ve taken mine.

- m.r.kidd

Masters Of War (mp3) Bob Dylan

River In Reverse (mp3) Elvis Costello

How Long (mp3) Keeny White

Girl In The War (mp3) Josh Ritter

I live in Washington, DC. There are a lot of fancy words and acronyms continually churned into hot air here. Most of it rises out of Capitol Hill and from a specific residence on Pennsylvania Avenue and gets blown up our rear ends. Twice this week (and it’s only Tuesday) I’ve heard young congressional staffers assert that ending the war in Iraq is not a relevant 2008 presidential campaign issue anymore as the “Surge” has been a success. The economic condition is the focus of the country’s political attention; the need to ease the American family’s suffering over mortgage shock and from the ever so prevalent pain of putting gas in the SUV. I agree that our economic condition is critical. However, I don’t know, and may be it’s only me being me, but I think getting your ass blown off would prove a lot more painful than getting stupidly over-extended on a bad loan or having to walk a little more and drive a little less.

Perhaps we should ask some of the veterans who have returned from Iraq with fewer body parts than they possessed before they were sent to fight for…I forget…what was it they were sent there to fight for? Oh yeah, they were supposed to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. No, no, no. That’s not what the war’s about. It’s about liberation. Whose liberation? No, no, no. That’s not the reason. It’s about our freedom. That’s what the spinners on ol’ Penn. Ave. keep blowing our way. We’re in Iraq fighting for the greatest and penultimate term used in the American doctrine; freedom. But this current, supposed reason for the war in Iraq – our freedom – that’s been declared an irrelevant issue in the 2008 campaign for what was once viewed as the highest seat in the “free” world.

I would say I can’t believe it, but I do. Of course it pisses me off. I want to kick a brick, punch a block, grab, squeeze and shake political necks until their lying eyes pop out of their bullshit spouting heads. But I am, like god, war and this country, inaccurate with my rage, and can only comment on how we need a change. Isn’t that the term Obama was saying just awhile ago; the language of change? If talking about the war and freedom is no longer relevant, perhaps we should start by changing the language of freedom.

As our country prepares to celebrate the anniversary of its declared liberation on July 4th, I have an acquaintance who will forgo the party, and instead, will mourn the 3rd July that has come since his daughter’s death in Iraq. I don’t know words that could ease the pain for American families like his. So, I’m going to work on developing some new language skills. I’m going to use old words like, peace, freedom, honesty, responsibility, and integrity, like they are new words, like they are relevant words that merit the foremost consideration and eloquent enunciation in the 2008 campaign for leader of the free world. And I am going to sing them as loud as I can until I am joined in harmony or I go hoarse from trying.

Newspeak

Do you know
I do not talk American?
I cannot speak American,
and therefore cannot answer
to this Tin Man’s war
chattering in stethoscopes
behind the Bush denying
all evidencing bodies
of our dying atmosphere.

Do you see
I have no tongue in American?
I cannot say in American
the wonk’s work is wicked,
and, therefore, must use my fingers
to point at what I mean to them
and such gestures are often misconstrued
for like: There he is. Shoot.
You missed a spot.

Do you care
I do not know American?
I cannot affect an American
accent. It makes my lips spout sores
when I respond, Hey, hombre,
your yard is finished,
we’ll take cash, your huddled masses
the wretched refuse teeming on your floor.

Do you get
I do not understand American?
I cannot parlez vous American
and cannot partake in sordid conversation
or ask permission to be excused
even though I am held in view
the un-better child seen who cannot say
I’d rather be left behind.

Do you follow
I cannot relate my past in American?
I cannot pretend a voice American
telling la nostra storia
my mother’s journey
flowing from the fountain Neapolitan diaspora
with just her soft tufo stone tongue
a shattered village effort
and a vine of hope.

Do you think
I could not hear a new American?
I could re-cipher an old code American,
be proud as a founding father
espousing how to adopt the words
we yearn to claim our own;
the science of panagglutinin,
the construction of quiggly holes,
schmusn on ye’ old musaphone.

And in turn transform the speech of sectarian speakers,
of obtuse deciders swinging their sticks
at little balls, huge white women humming
in trucks massively destructive
while giving 51 cents a day
so the last child in Somalia
can eat while reading
the fin on the un-detonated metal
protruding from his home.

There are so many who don’t understand that American,
and the American that twice asked for that American.
That American lickspit
uttering a boat of cloth,
weaving over a war
that isn’t yet composed,
that is the ultimate battle
between fact and fiction,
and the American that swallowed that boat
is as thick as rap in Latin.

Though it translates plainly into the universal of talking shit.
Even I, with so little language know the sound of that prattle.

Will you pardon
that I do not speak that American?
I refuse to learn that American.
Its horrid grammar lies
behind the reason I asked
“do you” instead of its “don’t you”
in the first six stanzas
of this verse.

- m.r. kidd

Our Song (mp3) Joe Henry

The War Was In Color (mp3) Carbon Leaf

Wall In Washington (mp3) Iris Dement

So Wrong (mp3) Eric Anders

I have been away far too long; I apologize. I appreciate the emails and the requests for more.

It's been a very busy six weeks for me as my oldest daughter is graduating from high school next week. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was wearing a cap and gown sitting through endless speeches waiting to have my name called by someone I had spent my high school career avoiding so he could hand me my diploma, which seemed to me at that time like a release form from servitude. It wasn’t.

One of the strange ironies of life is that parenting is assigned to young people with no parenting experience. Let’s face it; I didn’t know anything about raising a child. I was, in most ways, still a child myself. I barely knew how to take care of myself those early years, much less, act like I competently knew what to do for a baby girl. That part about figuring out what I want to be when I grow up seems to be taking an awfully long time. While I’ve been busy working on that puzzle, my daughter was busy just changing from a child to an amazing adult. It’s one of life’s cruelties that as children we wish to be older and when we’re older we wish we were children again. But as I was trying my best to manage the minute-by-minute, the days turned to years and the years zipped on by.

Here comes the major cliché: it seems like only yesterday that I sat with her in my hands and cried over how beautiful she was. I promised her then that I would protect her with my life. This is the first and most enduring oath I took as a parent: “I will always be there for you. I will always protect you.”

If I am allowed only one regret, and I don’t want to think of my life as one to regret, it is that I’ve spent so much of my life rushing around in search of things that proved to matter little, while I walked past the things that matter most; like spending more time with my daughters.

They are always in my thoughts. They possess so much of my heart.

To them, I will say it again: "I will always be there for you. I will always protect you."


Ask Me

I don't know what growing roses is like,
but I am a father.
Wild Mountain Thyme singing girls
tenuously seeking to soften the barren ground
of my heart seem sweet. They have so much color.
And from the way they talk, like orchids
drunk on steamy sub-tropic air;
they make me wonder
are all flowers so lovely?
I wouldn't know. But ask me
about smiles that bloom from a cry,
of fragile laughs minute and perfect,
that turn sour grapes to warm bouquets,
how all creation is buried beneath
their nurturing shroud,
and I'll tell you they're
God's blossoms in a world laid bare.
I'm a daughter's father, ask me about roses.

- m.r. kidd

Daughter (mp3) - Loudon Wainwright III

Daughters (mp3)- John Meyer

Wild Mountain Thyme (mp3) Al Petteway

How To Drink Single Malt Scotch

Dear Cable Company,
I was cracking a 12 year old
double wood Balvenie when the news arrived,
it’s digital tidings sheer and edgy as slit skin,
blasting twenty plus and still counting bodies into my family
room. Some were disgusted by the smoky appearance
and the peaty smell. Others babbled about
retirement planning and hair loss.
I told them to keep out
of my scotch, that I prefer to breath
it in from a tulip glass because it splashes the spirit
onto the tongue. Riedel and Glencairn make quality variations.
I said I didn’t need them,
to consolidate my credit card debt. But they stuck, staunchly
bleeding trails down my glass, some streamed out louder,
especially during station breaks, so I threw water
at them but they wouldn’t come out of the carpet
which made the dog bark a bunch and the neighbor yelled
to turn it fucking down. Yes, you should stick in your nose
and gently agitate the glass but
single malt drinking is more rewarding when free
of distractions. That it numbs the brain is a documented
desire but it’s smoother without little murders
floating in it. And suicide bombers, demanding religions,
teenage sex with guns, primaries on different dates, and all that
money? Granted, I like to pair up with a plump
cigar but these awful things might be better kept silent.
The evening news should not need washing down and those three kids
that were drowned and their mother are messing up my hot tub.
You must understand this isn’t what I ordered. I wanted Disney and MTV.
And someone else’s child is still missing. And I know it’s a lie
about not eating the sushi, oysters and dark chocolate I wanted
with my whiskey which is now oddly empty. Please
cancel my subscription. In the box you’ll find the body
pieces that remain, some toys made in China, a glass of rain
from the sunny weekend you promised, one emptied bottle of scotch
and those little dead bastards who claim they didn’t do it.
Please remit $70 for the scotch. I get giddy just thinking what my loss
in business will do to your day.
It almost makes one murder worth another.

m.r. kidd

Whiskey, Whiskey - Tim Hardin (mp3)


Whiskey Straight - Rocky Votolato (mp3)


All text, prose, poetry and written material are the legal copyright of "Michael R. Kidd" - © "Michael R. Kidd, ADG, LLC" 2007. All rights reserved. The poems posted here are copyrighted and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.