Executive Power Curtailed

Per the New York Times

"President Bush’s top advisers must honor subpoenas issued by Congress, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a case that involves the firings of several United States attorneys but has much wider constitutional implications for the two branches of government.

“The executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law,” Judge John D. Bates ruled in United States District Court here."

Finally some restoration of the power of the Constitution!

Even though there is always a struggle over the balance of power between our three branches of government, the past eight years have been especially damaging to the system of checks and balances. President Bush's use of signing statements to circumvent certain aspects of bills brought to his desk has eroded the rule of law governing all citizens, including those in the executive branch.

Going further than the signing statements and invoking Richard Nixon, the Bush White House has repeatedly used executive privilege as a way out of answering to the deeds they have committed. This ruling by Judge Bates, a 2001 Bush appointee, re-establishes, albeit "very limited," an important detail to the system of checks and balances and allocates lost power back to Congress.

While the history of power struggle amongst the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the U.S. government has been raging since the United States' founding, seeing such people as Karl Rove, Josh Bolten, and Harriet Miers brought in front of a Congressional committee to answer for their disregard of the rule of law will be particularly satisfying.

people friendly san fran

poem

sent with me, letters
make their date.
i am on time,
on fog,
i roll spokes.
you ain't a saint.
green is your color.
july is alive in
our street shadow.
breathless i am left,
your breasts are letters,
q and z,
hidden until adjectives,
shyly,
reveal them.
you've conquered stoops
and fire escapes.
i walk.
and i walk.

seeing

I have seen.
so have many.
animals see me.
a white skunk aims to be seen.
the blind possum has never seen so many things
and never will see me.
forget me and this poem.
I am a wavering leaf
in thunderstorm wind,
a frantic observer of you.
you who have seen,
do not see me.
see the wind that stands me outright;
an independence day flag.

people will be seen there
and it will be alright.
pride fills every belly of every beer-bellied man,
and this will be no exception.
see the shadowed sky.
feel and taste and smell and hear it too,
but please make it seen.

see each other as nothing, everything,
as yourself.
see me in my blue jeans and feathered hat;
I will see you in yours.
if you visit a zoo,
stop to see the animals.
do not touch though.

you as a paint palette

I.

your typical eyes are not mirrors here.
if you were true blue you'd be gray.
color however is an ankle-deep pond.
(I've spent whole summers fishing it!)

II.

you may be more than the sum of your colors
if I were calculating
or accomplished at arithmetic.

III.

when the air is brown
my face is red—
color is not as shallow
as I once said.



-spring 2008

touch

do you know the tender touch?
did you know that touch is touch
(and it feels good?)
I did not know either.
I did not know myself.
myself is not of touch;
myself, tender like a razor,
feels good.
I did not know that
neither sight nor touch
knows not one,
but all.
there is no good,
just is.
I did not know that rivers flow
uphill sometimes.
some they ripple, some decay,
in others nothing sinks.
the water, unstill, one can touch;
cannot hold.
they told me the brink of war is not of touch.
that death is not of touch.
the brink of war one cannot feel.
death, I do not feel you,
but touch, there you are.


-june 2008