Friday, October 10, 2014

Poetry Under Oath




















This Document Dump Friday seems a good time to look back at the best literary treatment of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which was a volume of 'found poetry' (this sort of thing) taken from Clinton's and Lewinsky's sworn testimony and called Poetry Under Oath.

A sample:

'In the Context of Her Desire'

She raised the issue with me
In the context of her desire
To avoid testifying

Which I certainly understood

Not only because there were
Some embarrassing facts
About our relationship

That were inappropriate

But also because a whole lot
Of innocent people were
Being traumatized
And dragged
Through the mud
By these Jones
Lawyers
With their
Dragnet
Strategy


Now, that is emotionally evocative literature.

19 comments:

James said...

Haiku run amok, destroying civilization left and right.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I was going to predict that nobody would comment on this post...well, nobody's perfect... so instead I will predict KC wins World Series and hardly anybody watches. gwb

TSB said...

What?? The whole thing of Found Poetry isn't interesting all by itself, but needs to be made more comment-worthy by a mention of Baseball?

Well, to each his own. But for me, the old story of how the Clintons committed perjury and obstruction of justice plus other felonies (such as the DOD spokesman giving the news media tidbits from Linda Tripp's security clearance background investigation), and both smeared Lewinsky (the 'nuts and sluts' defense) and then - after the blue dress appeared - bribed her with job offers (the UN Ambassador, Gov. Richardson, went to Lewinsky's home to personally make her an offer to work on his staff) is way more entertaining than professional sports. Then again, that stuff could be called Inside the Beltway Baseball.

Anonymous said...

TSB: After all the destruction wrought on our 'Republic' by the Clintons is added up baseball might be one of the few momentos we have left. Our neighborhood ISIS watch is so afraid of Hillary that some of them have been instinctively hiding behind Bushes and ordering Bunnie Suits! gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: And don't forget what Hillary did to the Yanks by declaring herself a fan. Now they can't even make the playoffs with a half billion $ payroll.
gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB, James: Happy 'Indigenous People's Day' from Washington and 'Go Redskins'!
gwb

Anonymous said...

James: Speaking of 'Haiku run amuck'..
Now that Ebola is 'here' and an LPN has caught it the 'CDC Chief' throws her under the bus for not wearing a hazmat suit.(which was not available to her.

Of course if Chief Frieden wasn't just spouting 'don't panic propaganda' she wouldn't have been sent in to clean up the guy's shit without a space suit. I hope she sues his ass off. gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Kudos to the ER doc who showed up at the airport last week in a bunny suit to warn the traveling public of the CDC lies! That was gutsy! gwb

James said...

It's my understanding she was wearing a full suit, but has been accused of breaching protocol on it's usage. Unfortunately the all knowing CDC critic declines to specify how she broke protocol.

TSB said...

James: Apparently there is a big learning curve involved with the isolation/decontamination protocol. I read a nurse reporting that no one in her work unit got all the steps right in training; she called for the use of a second person with a checklist to oversee each nurse when she removed her protective gear. Makes sense to me.

Anonymous said...

James: 1.No respirator, probably just a surgical mask. 2. No exit spray with bleach to kill the virus on her protection suit. and No buddy to make sure she didn't touch her face with hands or the clothes she took off. That virus lives for 45 minutes in tiny droplets. Medicines Sans Frontiers has avoided infections by spraying everyone down after contact with pts.
gwb (CDC protocol is inadequate and they know it.)

James said...

Oh I believe that TSB. The process would have to be very similar to deconning when exiting a very hot asbestos site. I also know something of human nature in these situations and how stupid people can be initially (re: Dallas judge). One thing I wonder about is what are they doing with the decon waste.

TSB said...

GWB: It seems that was exactly what happened with the Spanish nurse who was infected. She accidently contaminated her inner layers of clothing when removing the outer layer, plus she thinks she touched her face. No one monitored her while she removed and disposed of her protective gear.

Anonymous said...

Correctamundo TSB! And I saw a picture of the outfit she was using. Just a plastic face shield over a surgical mask so aerosol drops could go under the bottom of visor directly to her face. gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Our ISIS neighborhood watch has been funding itself with a hot selling T-shirt that says "My girl friend has Ebola" but evidently we have run afoul of the 1st amendment. gwb

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-metro-bus-ebola-20141013-story.html

TSB said...

GWB: Regarding Decon waste, I saw a story today about the harassment Emory University's special containment ward got when they had two Ebola patients. The city threatened to disconnect the hospital from the city sewage system if any contaminated waste got flushed (not that that containment facility would do any such thing, but the city officials were frightened).

James said...

There's going to more than just the waste disposal. You'll have all the protective garments, all the ICU linens, all bio wastes. Then what about the lab samples that must go to outside labs? How will that be handled? You also must consider how much just one patient can tie up ICU room and resources. The Dallas hospital had 70+ people treating that guy who died. What if you got just 4 or 5 more hot patients. I realize that after experience the number could be cut down, but still at half you would have up to 175 people devoted to just 5 patients, plus an ICU unavailable for anything else. If we had just 100 confirmed cases essentially at once it make things very tough.

TSB said...

Dutch bikers rumblin' with ISIS. Once upon a time that would have seemed unusual.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/biden-youngest-son-discharged-navy-reserve-testing-positive-cocaine-report-article-1.1977323

TSB: Very busy family! gwb