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I've been away from blogging, away in in meat space doing stuff with family and friends. After a few days off, I lose the habit of bowing to the computer.

But as 2010 peters out, I need to close the year with something. So I paste in here a poem, because that's what I do when I have nothing else to say. It's not a year-change poem particularly, but I like it because of the hope that it ends with.

All you can say about 2010 is that it was pretty shit, and 2011 is going to be shitter if the UK and/or global economy goes into a slump again.

So we need to bathe in the river of Hope.

This is addressed to Rudy Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement who edits Chickenbones, and was working on a shed when I wrote it, in 2006.

My poem goes goes like this:

The Shed
To Rudolph Lewis
I hope that you, old friend, toiling away
to fix the roof of your store shed
all day for days in overwhelming heat,
the sweat of natural Florida,
that makes this too-warm English summer
seem temperate again,
I hope you win. I hope your father’s store
Is gloried with the roof that it deserves.

I hope that you don’t fall.

I want my friends in Africa
pinned down in Mogadishu
by flying lead, not nails,
to know about your shed.

I want as many people now
to know about your shed
as stand to learn from it,
because it’s more than shed
we talking here.

Fine as it no doubt is as shed,
this one is more than timber,
more than tar paper and sweat,
more than determination,
more than a health and safety risk,
more than some slabs of wood
arranged with more or less regard
to canons of structural integrity:

It is a thing of spirit,
creation of a living poet.

Architecture. Frozen blues, maybe.
Cathedrals come to mind.

Not that they should come
en masse to make a pilgrimage,
although in fact when you have gone
they might well come,
for few are famous while they breathe,

And of the ones that are,
it would be better for us all
that they were not,
maybe.

The point is that this shed
is getting built.

Trees are our brothers.
They live and die
just like John Barleycorn,
and willingly give up the sap
to win new life in service to their family.

This shed was once alive,
bi-placentate in form,
a joiner-up of earth and sky
the fusion point in its green sap
to all four elements.

Like Shiva’s locks that broke the flood
Its leaves gave shade from blazing sun.
Trees give us unconditional love,
like dogs and gods;

some gods.

Sadly not all.

It died to find itself becoming shed.

Frozen blues? In Florida now
the only frozen things
are found in white machines
humming beneath their breath
just while the juice is on.

Not frozen: solid blues
from far away, blown out by Buddy Bolden,
crossing a river wider, deeper, cooler than
Pontchartrain to celebrate one poet’s work.

It’s up there with the wolf and owl
and in the end, I dare say
up there with
Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani,
if all the Truth be known.

The point is this:
this is a shed that’s going up.
Rudy is in the business of building sheds,
not breaking them.

He does not use his strength to knock down sheds.
He does not bulldoze structures.
He brings no lethal force to bear on others’ work.
There are no bombs in Rudy’s bag.

That’s all. That’s good. That’s all we need.

President Ben Ali, who was toppled by the CIA and Mossad? Some weeks ago, BEN ALI REITERATED HIS SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIANS. In 2000, Ben Ali decided to break all diplomatic ties with Israel. Wikileaks, the voice of the CIA and Mossad, tells us that the Ben Ali family is a "Quasi Mafia"s

Did the CIA plan the coup in Tunisia?

Tunisia is one of the most prosperous of Arab countries, and one of the best educated.

Tunisia has been successful at creating an industrial-base; for example, it has an Airbus plant, a textile industry and the manufacture of car parts.

Perhaps the CIA and Mossad would prefer a more backward Tunisia, run by the CIA's Moslem Brotherhood.

On 30 December 2010, we read that Police opened fire as protests spread in Tunisia

When the CIA carries out a coup it reportedly gets its assets within the security services of that country to carry out shootings.

Tunisia is a success story compared to its neighbours.

The CIA and Mossad appear, through Wikileaks, to have expressed their wish to topple Tunisia's president, Ben Ali.

Wikileaks published a US government cable which described Tunisia as a 'police state', and, not sufficiently friendly to the USA.

Tunisia's tourism industry is said to be suffering from stiff competition from Israel. (LOL)

So, we have people power demonstrations, organised by friends of the CIA?

UPDATES HERE: CIA WRECKS ANOTHER COUNTRY?
BIG CHANGES- SAUDI ARABIA TO TUNISIA
CIA PSY-OP IN TUNISIA?
CIA-NATO COUP IN TUNISIA?
MOSSAD MAYHEM IN MAGHREB MEDINAS?

Ben Ali fell out with Israel and the Council on Foreign Relations. So some shootings had to be arranged by CIA assets within the Tunisian security services?

Obama toppled Tunisia's President Ben Ali?

On 24 December 2010, an important Washington think tank (Institute for Policy Studiesa) had an article about a possible change of regime in Tunisia (Foreign Policy In Focus.):

"It would do Tunisians, even (Tunisian President) Ben Ali, well to recall how many US allies different American administrations have discarded…

"The list is long and I will only mention a few: the Diem regime in the 1960s, Noriega of Panama... Marcos of the Philippines...

"Did the (US) ambassador 'decide' that Sakhi Materi 'should' replace his uncle Ben Ali…"

Materi, who 'feeds chickens to his tiger'. Pasha 'eats four live chickens a day'. (Africa ...) Is this CIA propaganda?

Sakhr El Materi, chairman of the Tunisia-US Parliamentary Friendship Group, is a top businessman and politician. (this page)

In October 2010, Materi had talks with top Americans in the Pentagon and the State Department.

In July 2009 the US ambassador visited Materi's home (Tunisia: Dinner With Sakher El Materi - TuniLeaks)

"The Ambassador raised economic liberalization, noting the importance of opening up to franchising.

"El Materi agreed, noting that he would be pleased to assist McDonald’s to enter Tunisia, suggesting they begin at the new cruise port in La Goulette."

The CIA may think Materi is too controversial a figure to be Tunisia's leader?

According to a certain blogger (Tunisia's Udau Hussein - Instablogs):

Materi "feigns piousness, but is a phony (I once saw him going out to party with two girls and a friend; his wife wasn’t there; and he was driving a Bentley).

"How did he afford such a car? Using his new connections to acquire state funds and companies.

"He recently bought a +$1 million home in Montreal. The home operates as a gateway house in case Ben Ali dies and a new political order takes place that would rightfully prosecute him and the Trabelsis and the Ben Alis for their theft."

Read more: http://marcovilla.instablogs.com/entry/tunisias-udau-hussein/#ixzz19ikjSwID

On 31 December 2010, we read that "A Tunisian protester has died of his injuries after police shot him in the town of Menzel Bouzaiene...

"Mohamed Ammari, a Tunisian teenager, had been killed by police bullets the same day..." (Another Tunisian protester dies)

When the CIA decides to topple a president, it uses its assets within that president's police and military.

In the run up to the CIA's toppling of Indonesia's President Suharto in 1998, certain members of the military shot and killed some important students.

The objective was to undermine Suharto. (STAGED BY SPOOKS.)

Suharto, perhaps like Tunisia's Ben Ali, was seen as getting too old, seen as not giving enough contracts to the USA, and seen as not being sufficiently subservient to Washington and Tel Aviv.

Tunisia's tourism industry is said to be suffering from stiff competition from Israel. (LOL)

So, we have people power demonstrations, perhaps organised by friends of the CIA?

Expect to be told by the mainstream media that Ben Ali is horribly corrupt and had to go.

Synagogue entrance through which fuel tanker truck drove. From Flickr, El-Ghriba Synagogue. Author upyernoz

Reportedly, the CIA runs a secret prison near Bizerte, 65km north of Tunis, in Tunisia. (CIA facility in Tunisia?)

Back in 2002, Mossad and its friends took an interest in Djerba, in Tunisia, where Jews, Muslims and Christians normally live in harmony.

In 2002, in Tunisia, the Djerba bombing took place.

According to the official version, Nizar Nauar (Nawar), a native of Tunisia, drove a fuel tanker up to a synagogue.

The fuel tanker then exploded.

Nizar may have been a patsy. Nizar's brother, Walid, was jailed for 12 years for 'having supplied Nizar with false papers and a satellite telephone'.

Of course, no Jews were killed.

(Djerba)

The bombing caused no real damage to the synagogue or its holy books.

Perez Trabelsi, head of Djerba’s large Jewish community, had left the synagogue for coffee just before the blast.

The people who died were 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals.

The bombing was blamed on al-Qaeda, which is believed to be part of the CIA.

Christian

In 2003, Christian Ganczarski, who prosecutors believe had links to al-Qaeda, was arrested in connection with the bombing.

He has now been given a long prison sentence by a Paris court for his alleged part in the bombing. (Two jailed over Tunisia bombing)

Is Christian a double agent or a patsy?

Christian was born in Poland to devout Catholic parents. He moved to Germany. Reportedly he became "one of bin Laden's personal couriers."

The alleged financier of the Djerba bombing is a Spanish Catholic called Enrique Cerda Ibanez.

The Djerba bombing was on 11 April 2002.

The New York attack was on 11 September 2001.

The Madrid bombings were on 11 March 2004.

The number 11 is seen by some numerologists to signify "Israel."

Israel has attacked Tunisia in the past.

In 1985, Israel bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunis. - Mossad

In 1988 a small fleet of Israeli Sa'ar 4 Fast Missile Boats arrived in the waters just off the coast of Tunis. The Palestinian Abu Jihad, Arafat's deputy, living in the exclusive Sidi Bou Said suburb of Tunis, was then murdered byIsraeli special forces. - Tunis Raid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Djerba's chief rabbi, Haiem Maddar, has said that Jews in Djerba have more in common with their fellow Tunisians than they do with the Europeans, Russians and Americans who control Israel today.

Before 1948, Jews and Arabs coexisted together for centuries in Palestine. Now everyone in the world helps fuel the conflict so they can sell weapons to both sides, the rabbi complained. -(Tunisian Jews Enjoy Religious Tolerance and Peace in Djerba)

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