General

His broken body crushed into the soil so closely resembled a tiny green human, he gave me cause to reflect upon my dirty deed.  Those dying remains matched perfectly the leaves of the newly planted Valencia Orange tree, upon which he had been happily feeding, only moments before the sole of my sandal abruptly ended his short life.  Tiny legs still contracting in his final death throes, the three inch long grasshopper no longer posed a threat to my future orange crop.  A wave of guilt and remorse swept over me, causing momentary nausea and light-headedness.  Poor little guy was only doing wh

Earth Day & Capitalism Like Vinegar and Oil?
Continuously, discussions focusing on degraded ecosystems and tipping points forcing climate change to ramp up to chaos many times center around the “C” word.
Not “c” as in “cancer.”
“Capitalism is destroying the planet,” said Pat DeLaquil, an energy policy expert working with various governments, NGO’s and the private sector to “help achieve economic development and combating climate change.”

Slaves, let us not curse life.
— Rimbaud

V S Balakrishnan is 28 years old from Tamil Nadu, India, and has completed a BA in English Literature.  He enjoys writing poetry and short stories, both in English and in his mother tongue, Tamil, in which he is currently writing his first book.  V S can be reached at
<a href=”mailto:moc.liamgnull@1991kbsv”>moc.liamgnull@1991kbsv</a>
 
 

I’m watching the Pacific heave up a king tide in the tiny town of Waldport on the Oregon Coast. Houses right above the beach line are now soaked, their back and front yards littered with driftwood, logs and tree stumps.

Everyone wants the man who is still searching to have already reached his conclusions.  A thousand voices are already telling him what he has found, and yet he knows he hasn’t found anything. Should he search on and let them talk?  Of course.
— Albert Camus, “The Enigma” in Lyrical and Critical Essays, First published October 28, 1968

From the far distance sounded the muffled howling of a family of monkeys, monos gritones, passing the night in the crowns of the mighty trees. It echoed through the jungle like the roar of an angry mountain lion. Gruesome and terrifying, it seemed to tear the night apart, but it did not disturb the jungle. It sang and fiddled, chirped and whistled, whined and whimpered, rejoiced and lamented its ever-unchanging song with the constancy of the roaring sea.

Los Dias de los Muertos are highly stylized rituals grounded in Aztec mythology when those who had passed on during the year migrate to the darkness of Mictlan in the north – the 1st is reserved for the innocents, the children, and the 2nd for the rest of us poor sinners. Traditional altars, garnished with cempaxeutl (a kind of marigold), photographs of the “difuntos” (deceased ones), jugs of tequila and mezcal, the favorite cigarettes of the dead, steaming bowls of turkey mole, and spun sugar “cranios” (skulls) blanket the land from border to border.

Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron is a spiv, a first class spiv. Yet Emmanuel Macron is President of the French Republic, which is a worry.
The stamp of the man could have been readily gauged from his curious appointment and period as Economy Minister, August 2014 to August 2016, under President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

Faction: A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community
— James Madison, The Federalist No. 10, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection”
The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie