Outhouses and Holes We Dig
Back in the day,
Mom and Uncle Tom
went out back in the outhouse
Puncture the earth
Dig a big hole
Set the wood frame over it
When it’s full, throw on dirt
Cover the crap
Dig a new hole
Scott Walker’s Wisconsin
operates using much the same
“Business” model
Puncture the prairie
Extract tar sands
Sell to frackers
Puncture the unions
Extract core values
Sell out labor
Puncture public schools
Extract their funding
Sell out low-income students
Puncture The Wisconsin Idea*
Extract the principles
Cripple our prized universities
Puncture our values
Extract choice and hope
Call it free enterprise
Call it Right to Work (for less)
Dig a big pit
Call it a rabbit hole
Scott the Bunny says,
Follow me down
to a world of fantasy follies
Follow me to Washington
I’ll share my vision
with the whole country
and the world
Yo, Scott, that’s not a rabbit hole
It’s where the outhouse stood
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Wrote this a day before Walker’s incredibly awkward press debacle, now making headlines across the US. Roger Green sent me a link; click HERE to see the funniest response by Wisconsinites regarding the “I handled protesters, I can handle ISIS” yuckfest. Clicking HERE for dverse Open Mic!
*From Wikipedia, a reason we moved to Wisconsin was this:
The Wisconsin Idea is the policy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities’ contributions to the state: “to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill, and to the citizens in the forms of doing research directed at solving problems that are important to the state and conducting outreach activities.” A second facet of the philosophy is the effort “to ensure well-constructed legislation aimed at benefiting the greatest number of people.” During the Progressive Era, proponents of the Wisconsin Idea saw the state as “the laboratory for democracy,” resulting in legislation that served as a model for other states and the federal government. Walker proposed changing the wording (I kid you not). According to the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:
… the governor made the UW System’s mission to “meet the state’s workforce needs.” He also proposed striking language about public service and improving the human condition, and deleting the phrase: “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.”
Since he never even graduated college (take that, GWB and your “gentleman’s C” MBA!), he seems to care nothing about the University of Wisconsin, a gem of a college system.
MEANER THAN REAGAN.
DUMBER THEN BUSH.
Now you all understand Wisconsin’s pain. Amy
“Duuhmm…” (heavy breath) “…well, it’s about jobs and…” (sigh)
Wisconsin’s Burden (Stale Pale Male Scott Walker)
Scott Walker for Prez?
Vote for him at your peril
He’s blind to injustice
His heart has gone sterile
Dim, inarticulate,
slack-jawed mouth-breather
If he ran for dogcatcher,
wouldn’t vote for him either
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons by Gage Skidmore; attribution HERE.
People on FOX talk about Scott Walker like he’s the new Ronald Reagan.
I rest my case. The “trickle down” from those policies requires toilet paper… from a company owned (as are Walker and Paul Ryan) by the Koch Brothers.
He (along with equally optimistic Paul “Mr. Schu on Glee” Ryan) are BOTH from Wisconsin. Walker has never worked a job in his life, other than nursing off the taxpayer teat since forever. Walker is running for another term as governor (remember 100,000 protestors at the Capitol Dome in 2011? Yeah, let’s do that again.), and he fully intends to ABANDON that position (or at least totally neglect it) to try for the White House. Even if he still sucks, he won’t be there.
Mary Burke is my choice for governor. Mary Burke ran her family’s business, Trek Bicycle, a nationally known concern that turns out quality bikes. She knows budgets; she understands the need for women to have reproductive care (oh, you don’t favor poor and low-income getting advice from Planned Parenthood? No free condoms? No free birth control pills? Then shut the hell up about “too many babies,” unless you’re willing to adopt them ALL). She knows how to balance a budget. She doesn’t LIE about job creation, and she donated a bunch of money to The Road Home, a path for families from homelessness to housing. YOU GO, GIRL!
Peace, Amy
C’mon. Don’t tell me you didn’t see a rant coming this week! Politically yours, Amy
Naked at the Tea Party
Morning mist lifts over Madison
yet a cloud remains
following the foolish victor who
occupies a solid gold throne
furnished by a Faustian family
from a land far, far away
As he breaths through his mouth
he complains his crown
is bulky, unwieldly (gotcha! He doesn’t know that word)
adored as it is with spangles, sparkles
the spoils of ill-gotten gains
and still – ill repute remains
He resigns himself to another day
of allowing teachers to go home (forever)
Freeing children from pesky doctor visits
Yet his doom looms: HE IS JOHN DOE
Jump one hurdle, slam into a wall
The drumbeat grows: Indict “Koch Lite”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday: Bulky, Mist, Reign.
Also at my poetic soapbox, the ever-trusty Poets United (not a PAC, incidentally!).
Image courtesy of the magazine named for my patron saint: Mother Jones.
Wild in the Streets
Those crazy Wisconsinites
From Madison to Green Bay
They’re getting ready
The signs are up; protests continue
Bikers now pump their tires full
Those who walk are re-Scholling their shoes
Unions are getting out the vote
Churches are getting out the vote
Raging Grannies are getting out the vote
College students are getting out the vote
The handicapped are all accessible:
Teachers, farmers, union rank and file
Families on public assistance
People whose jobs were cut to give fat cats tax breaks
Women in general
(Hell, he doesn’t discriminate, he hates ALL of us)
Governor Doofus. Dumber than a sack of rocks.
We’re jumping in the pool
We’re jamming the polling places
We’re ready to make our stand
We’re gonna tell the Koch Brothers that
WISCONSIN IS NOT FOR SALE.
And when we’re done, we’ll meet
on State Street for some local brew
Scott Walker, start packing now
Save us the embarrassment of evicting you
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings (‘wild’) and for Poetic Bloomings, asking for poems based on a movie title.
“Wild in the Streets” is a cult classic about a pop star who eventually gets into politics. Once he’s president, he mandates things like putting people in nursing homes on LSD. It’s a true stinker, but the title was perfect for how some Tea Party members from other state view us, as we strive to get the incompetent man pictured above out of our everyday lives. Teabaggers still don’t get that they have been co-opted by the Brothers Koch, who pull all the strings and want to privatize schools and end reproductive freedoms. Silver-spoon trust fund babies; never really had to work because Daddy left them everything!
First, an apology for not being up to date answering your comments – I promise to catch up by the end of the week!
Three Word Wednesday asked for poems containing these words: Might, Passive, and Flag. Took some liberties with those words… let me know what you think, especially after you decode the definition below (if you’re not a Wisconsinite, that is!) Amy
Dragon’s Breath
A Dragon’s breath is rancid
Stifling, smells like hemlock that’s
been brewing too long
Dragons hate Badgers, tough little guys
who burrow so fast their escape routes
to dodge the Dragon’s flames
Badgers have claws so long and hard,
rodent talons that can scrape Dragon’s tongue
into ribbons of blood and leathery flesh
One particular Dragon, draggin’ in riches
from Wizard Brothers, shows off his
shiny scales and mighty bearing
Badgers are not passive. They have seen
Dragon burn through other Badgers’ lives
like fodder, trying to scare the rest
back into holes, to render them unnoticed,
inconsequential. But Badgers’ tenacity
will stand to fight as one:
They will chase the Dragon from
their own flagged castle, as the Golden Lady
points the way to a better future
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
NOTE: For non-Wisconsinites, our state is engaged in an effort to recall the current governor, Scott Walker. The Dragon is obvious; the hemlock, well, you can draw your own references, although the Wizards are the Brothers Koch, who funded the Tea Party, then helped them look like a grassroots effort, when in fact it’s more like a perfectly manicured lawn. The Badgers are the namesake of many sports teams, including our UW College team, and also refer to everyday, six-pack Wisconsinites. The Golden Lady is “Miss Forward,” a statue atop our “castle,” the Capitol Dome here in Madison. She bravely points the way forward… wearing a helmet that has a BADGER on it! How cool is that?
Sharp Little Pencil 