Clockwise Cat Issue 42

ZENSURREALIST RANTZ AND REVIEWZ/ INVECTIVE AND ASSEsSMENT/ RAVEZ AND TIRADEZ/SCREEDS AND CREEDS

Forest Defenders Reoccupy Weelaunee to Stop Cop City By Gloria Tatum After Christmas 2022, Ryan Millsap, the Hollywood grifter, destroyed the parking lot of Weelaunee People Park (WPP) (formerly Intrenchment Creek Park), the bike and walking path, and cut down dozens of trees in violation of a stop-work order. Millsap is the guy who conned the DeKalb County Commissioners into swapping 40-plus acres in beautiful wooded Intrenchment Creek Park for a pile of red dirt. In December 2022, January, and February 2023, the police raided Intrenchment Creek Park, now called Weelaunee People Park (WPP), three times and arrested 19 people charged with domestic terrorism. On February 18, the police entered WCC for the third time in military and SWAT gear with assault weapons to remove the 50-plus forest defenders peacefully camping in the public park. Manuel Teran, called “Tortuguita,” an environmental activist, was shot 13 times by several Georgia State Parole officers who were not wearing body cameras. The police said Teran shot first. Teran’s family has demanded an independent investigation into what happened. On Saturday, March 4, thousands answered that call and marched into Weelaunee People Park to take back the public park that the police violently ran them out of and killed Tortuguita. Sunday, March 5, about a thousand people camped in WPP to attend a family-friendly music festival. Children jumped up and down in a bouncy house, and dogs played in the grass. Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Code Pink and the international human rights organization Global Exchange was in Atlanta promoting her new book “War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless

Conflict.” Benjamin wanted to visit the Atlanta forest that she read about in the New York Times and the forest defender’s efforts to stop cop city. “I admire the people here, especially after all of these oppressive police sweeps, the killing of Manuel Teran, and the charging of people with domestic terrorism, which is insane. These people are trying to save the forest and the planet’s future. They are trying to stop the militarization happening in all our communities. The young people in the forest are the heart and soul of this country. They are good people,” Benjamin said on a forest tour. “It looks and feels like Standing Rock.”. Meanwhile, across Intrenchment Creek on the Old Prison Farm land next to Key Road, about 100 people dressed in black and camouflage set fire to two construction buildings, a bulldozer, and other equipment used to destroy the forest. They threw fireworks at the police to keep them away. Then they disappeared as quickly as they appeared. It is on the Old Prison Farm property that Atlanta City Council gave the Atlanta Police Foundation 85 acres to build Cop City. Since it was next to impossible to identify the people in black, the police ran over to the WPP’s music festival to retaliate by randomly arresting people. The police arrived unexpectedly at the music festival and gave everyone 10 minutes to leave. Hundreds ran in terror of the police, but others held their ground and stayed.   Police detained 35 people at the festival and arrested 23 – reports from the ground suggest that Georgia residents were filtered out to continue the state’s “outside agitator’ narrative, according to a Stop Cop City tweet. The people haphazardly arrested were charged with domestic terrorism. Most of those arrested, if not all, were not involved in the burning of equipment at the Cop City site far from the music festival. Witnesses said police pointed rifles in the children’s bouncy house, tased concertgoers trying to leave, tacked people to the ground, and threatened others with lethal force. Other eyewitnesses said a police officer said, “I swear to God I will kill you” to civilians in WPP and other reports that tear gas was used on people. Unicorn Riot filmed the police raid. At one point, you could hear a police officer tell people that the forest was private property and they had to get out. That was a lie. It is a public park. Marlon Kautz, an organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, told Unicorn Riot that the police response was consistent throughout this movement. “When

something happens that police don’t like, they respond with a blanket attack on anybody they see as associated with the movement, regardless of whether they are responsible for some criminal action.” The forest defenders have not killed anyone, but the police killed Tortuguita and said he shot first and hit an officer. They have no proof of that, which is under independent investigation. On a released body cam video, you can hear a police officer saying, “they fucked up one of their own.” ATLANTA’S FAITH COMMUNITY SPEAKS OUT TO STOP COP CITY The next day Atlanta’s Faith Community held a press conference at City Hall. They passed out a letter from 200 faith leaders representing thousands of people of faith calling on Mayor Dickens and the Atlanta City Council to stop the destruction of the South River Forest and cancel the lease to the Atlanta Police Foundation. They also call for dropping all domestic terrorism charges against forest defenders and an independent investigation into the killing of Manuel Paez Teran, “Tortuguita.” “Ignoring the cries of the residents, the City of Atlanta moves to destroy the nation’s largest urban forest and replace it with the largest militarized police training facility in North America. We are troubled by leadership that stops acting on the will of the people and aligns itself instead with corporate money as a dominant power structure,” Rev. Leo Seyij Allen said. Mekko Chebon Kernell, a Muskogee Creek Chef and a clergyperson with the United Methodist Church, spoke. “Our people lived on this land for over 13,000 years before we were forced to walk the “Trail of Tears.” The Muskogees respected Mother Earth, unlike the Europeans, who treat Mother Earth like an ATM. Michael Johnson, Executive Director of the Beloved Community Ministries, said he witnessed a police officer tackle an indigenous man, put him in a headlock, and taser him. The man said he could not breathe. It was Johnson and others that helped de-escalate this situation. The man’s crime was running from the officer. “The police want us to believe that crime will disappear if they have more weapons. The police are creating violence to justify their presence and increased militarization,” Johnson said at a press conference at City Hall. All the TV stations report how the police are being attacked and how dangerous these out-of-state terrorists are destroying property.

Faith leaders are dispelling the false narrative that it is outside agitators who don’t want Cop City and that they are violent.   In 17 hours of testimony to the Atlanta City Council, the people overwhelmingly said they did not want Cop City. For two years, people in Fulton and DeKalb Counties have been protesting, lobbying, marching, writing letters, canvassing neighborhoods, and attending meetings to say they don’t want Cop City, but political leaders will not listen. Elected officials’ decision to give away the forest was undemocratic. Now the younger generations of Atlanta and the nation are taking action to save the forest, the lungs of Atlanta, and the planet from destruction by stopping the bulldozers used to destroy the forest. Young people know they will not have a future unless they stop the destruction of forests and the militarization of the police, terrorizing and killing people of color. Desperate times call for desperate actions. “It is the police who are engaging in violence and terrorism against the people who are standing against this illegal land swap. It is the police who have put so many young people in jail this year and charged them with domestic terrorism without any proof and killed Tortuguita,” Rev. Kiana Jones said. “As clergy and community members, Cop City is not what we want. The Atlanta Police Department has a history of being trained by the Israelis. We see the injustice that happens in Palestine year after year. Repression is not singular; it spreads like cancer, and if we don’t stand up to repression here, how can we stand up to repression anywhere else? That is why Cop City is dangerous, and we must stand against it,” Rev. Jones told the Streets of Atlanta. Activists claim that Cop City is not a facility to fight crime. It is a militarized army of the rich to repress movements that challenge police violence and repression of poor and working-class communities. Cop City will train police from other states to learn how to dominate and control populations like the Israelis treat Palestinians. On Wednesday, March 8, Mvskoko Ceremonial leaders entered the Atlanta Regional Commission, where ARC Board Members and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens were present. Mayor Dickens flees the room when Mvskoke leaders try to deliver an eviction notice and call for an end to the Cop City project on Msvokoke land. Not only is Mayor Dickens a “Sell Out’, but he is also a coward. COMMUNITY MOVEMENT BUILDERS MARCH TO STOP COP CITY Hundreds of people marched with the Black-led Community Movement Builders (CMB) from the Martin Luther King Center to the Atlanta Police Foundation to

prove to Mayor Dickens that Fulton residents and Black people don’t want Cop City. Kamau Franklin, the founder of CMB, said, “Mayor Dickens, is this enough black person for you? is this enough Atlanta residents for you? Black people don’t want Cop City; nobody wants Cop City.” Mayor Dickens ignores students, black residents, residents, and neighborhood groups when they come out against Cop City. He wants the public to believe that it is only white out-of-state agitators and not local people in this movement to Stop Cop City. Marchers chanted “Vive Tortuguita, Mayor Dickens Got to Go, Stop Cop City, Cop City Will Never Be Built” in Atlanta Thursday night. When the march reached the Atlanta Police Foundation, it was boarded up, with dozens of police guarding the building with guns of war. They were there to protect and serve their masters – the corporate executives that fund Cop City. Atlanta has a housing crisis, with hundreds of homeless and mentally ill people living outside. Many complained about $90 million going to build Cop City when people needed housing, healthcare, food, jobs, funds for education, hospitals, social services, and repair road potholes. But politicians have unlimited money for a resort playground to militarize the police for urban warfare and for more jails to hold America’s youth that opposes police violence. Our elected officials in Atlanta are spiritually dead when they have money for guns, jails, and police but crumbs for human needs. Destiny, an activist, explained that the continued militarization of the police is not just happening in Atlanta. It is happening in Chicago, the west coast, and the United States. Over 38 cities have planned public events to support the forest defenders in Atlanta and oppose the building of Cop City. This is not a local issue; it is supported by national and international environmental groups and people worldwide who oppose police violence and repression. Written and photos by Gloria Tatum

Free All Stop Cop City Political Prisoners June 1, 2023 by Gloria Tatum Stop the harassment, intimidation, lies, trumped-up false charges, arrests, and even murder of citizens who support Defend the Forest and Stop Cop City. Now, the GBI and Atlanta police have arrested three organizers of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a seven-year-old, non-profit Atlanta fund that provides bail and legal support for arrested protesters. Organizers of the fund, Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean, and Savannah Patterson, were accused of cooked-up ridiculous charges of money laundering and charity fraud with very weak to no real evidence. Adele has been feeding the hungry and homeless for twenty years or longer. Marlon is part of Cop Watch; both are wellknown and respected activists in Atlanta. This is not the first time police have arrested people and lied about their charges. Activists have said for two years that Cop City will set up a private militarized police state to destroy social justice movements. So far, police actions have not disproved this belief. “Bailing out protestors exercising their constitutionally protected rights is not a crime. It is a historical tradition in Atlanta….the civil rights activists in the ’60s were bailed out,” Lauren Regan, Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, said at a press conference in front of the DeKalb County Jail. “Bail funds have been around since the 1920s. Dr. King was bailed out of jail when he was arrested in southern cities. Bail funds are part of the organizational structure of movements, and there is nothing nefarious or criminal about them. Only now has the state, city, and country tried to criminalize cop city protesters in an attempt to criminalize the movement,” Kamau Franklin with Community Movement Builders said at the press conference with over one hundred supporters. The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), composed of some of Atlanta’s wealthiest and biggest corporations, wants a Public Safety Training Center. However, the citizens of Fulton and DeKalb counties do not want a militarized police force controlled by APF. The Atlanta Police Foundation is in a land, and money grab for the old Prison Farm’s 300-plus acres in southeast Atlanta to build the largest militarized police

force in the country. In contrast, citizens want green spaces and trees to protect against climate change, no more police violence against people of color, or environmental racism in a predominantly black neighborhood. APF lied about what it would cost taxpayers to build Cop City. First, it was $30 million, then the Atlanta Community Press Collective, through open records, discovered it was $60 million, and with the second phase of construction, more like $85 million. Who knows what the final cost will be? Multiple police agencies raided Intrenchment Creek Park to remove everyone from camping in the public park. They came in one morning like an army going to war. People fled in fear, and the police ripped up tents left behind. When Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran would not come out of the tent, they shot pepper balls into the tent and then shot Tortuguita 57 times while sitting down with hands up. They accused Teran of shooting first, but that has never been proven. Teran was the first environmental activist to be killed in the United States.   Over several months 42 young people were arrested and charged with concocted domestic terrorism charges and received huge unrealistic bonds. The average bond was around $20 thousand dollars, some more and some less. Mayor Andre Dickens’s office released “Key Facts on the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.” Alex Ip, a Georgia Tech environmental engineer, fact-checked the city’s claims on Cop City and found most to be false or mostly false. Georgia Tech took down his post for being a truthteller. https://www.thexylom.com/post/ fact-checking-the-city-of-atlanta-s-claims-on-cop-city On May 15, 300 people, most from Fulton and DeKalb counties, attended the Atlanta City Council meeting and spoke out against Cop City putting an end to the cops outside agitator lie. Not one person spoke for Cop City. It is time for everyone who supports democracy, Defend the Forest, and Stop Cop City to attend the next Atlanta City Council meeting on Monday, June 5. Tell ACC we need communities funded, not more jails, guns, and cops. We need politicians to stop flooding the streets with guns of war like the AR-15s that are creating all the mass shootings and crime in the nation. We need police reform and accountability. We need funds for community needs, not more jails, cops, and guns. We need to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere, not cut down forests.

Vasectomy is the Obvious Requirement By Terry Trowbridge The news from America is that state governments and high courts are preparing legislation for banning birth control technologies for women. Others will pass legislation to enable birth control technologies for women. You missed the Third Way! Being a person with male gonads, I used my religious freedom to get a vasectomy and thereby sidestep birth control and abortion laws altogether. I am securely living the life of a reproductive outlaw, unaffected by jurisdiction or jurisprudence. Now I just have to wait for stem cell research to be able to grow a clone from my hair follicles. I have so many hairs growing from my back that I plan to spend my far-future retirement years pregnant like one of those egg-carrying toads. I will pop a little zit-embedded bundle of joy every once in a while. I will put them in a little plastic sphere and leave them under bushes, like Pokeballs, and watch the neighbourhood kids collect them and make them fight. My retirement is going to be awesome entertainment. Vasectomies are entirely reversible in our current decade. And even so, reversions are only worth considering if several major components of lifetime planning simultaneously change (which is not unlikely but also not easily accomplished in the shadow of other economic limiters such as credit ratings and real estate budgets). The onus of legal responsibility is incumbent upon those of us with external, easily reached and disrupted, fertility. There are no more binary choices, no more horns of a dilemma. We can scissor those two-pronged choices shut. As for clonal technologies, their ethical parameters are only as limited as a government’s desire to regulate the evolutionary abilities of homunculus gnomes hidden by pugilistic Easter Bunnies like me. Author bio: Terry Trowbridge’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, Carousel, subTerrain, paperplates, The Dalhousie Review, untethered, Quail Bell, The Nashwaak Review, Orbis, Snakeskin Poetry, M58, CV2, Brittle Star, Bombfire, American Mathematical Monthly, The Academy of Heart and Mind, Canadian Woman Studies, The Mathematical Intelligencer, The Canadian Journal of Family and Youth, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, The Beatnik Cowboy, Borderless, Literary Veganism, and more. His lit crit has appeared in Ariel, Hamilton Arts & Letters, Episteme, Studies in Social Justice, Rampike, and The /t3mz/ Review.

Bearing Witness to What I Saw on TV By Jon Wesick Portland, Oregon – Hellhole of the Pacific The sound of helicopters echoed in the night as a flare hung in the sky illuminating the smoking wrecks of coffee shops and vegan restaurants. Periodically, klieg lights swept the rotting corpses of Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. They’d slumped over the barbed wire for a week but police cowered in their bunker, too afraid to venture out into the merciless Quaker gunfire. Without a strong police presence, hoodlums, hooligans, desperados, jailbirds, lawbreakers, scofflaws, and wrongdoers ran amuck. In Slabtown, four thugs surrounded young Timmy Martin as he walked his collie. “Nice dog! Mind if I pet it?” Resting a hand on the butt of his pistol, a dreadlocked thug grabbed Lassie’s collar. “Cruella De Vil will pay top dollar for this bitch.” “Lassie, no!” Timmy cried as the thugs hustled his canine friend into the backseat of a welfare Cadillac. A punch to the gut doubled Timmy over and the thugs dumped his unconscious body into a nearby well. Wearing sharkskin suits, black shirts, and white ties, Dino and Luigi Vercotti dialed into the Emma Goldman Elementary School’s PTA meeting using Zoom. Despite the northwest gloom, sunglasses hid both their eyes. “Nice school you’ve got here, principal. Be a shame if it broke.” Hijacking Share Screen, Luigi showed a picture of a broken coffee cup. “Things break all the time,” Dino added. “How many students do you have here, principal?” “Two hundred fifty-three.” “You wouldn’t want one of them to catch fire.” Dino took a matchstick from his mouth and lit it on his molars. “Are you threatening me?” the principal asked.

“No. No. We’re trying to look out for you,” Dino said. “Think of our services like insurance. For just fifteen hundred a week, we can prevent this from happening to you.” Luigi showed a picture of a mushroom cloud over Share Screen. Detective John McClane peered over the sandbags as a muezzin’s call to morning prayer drowned out “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After a suitable interlude, an army of zombies in facemasks rose from their trenches and began carrying protest signs inexorably through no-man’s land. “Poor bastards! Brainwashed by the liberal media.” McClane shot a dozen troublemakers in the head but they kept coming. The scream of hybrid engines shook him out of his reverie. Dozens of Toyota Priuses driven by Dracula, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Hans Gruber, Humbert Humbert, Anderson Cooper, Kaiser Sōze, the Grinch, and others raced at the speed of a glacier on Ketamine toward police lines. It looked like the cops were done for. Then, despite the gunfire and RPGs coming from the Mennonite sector, three heroes sauntered past the barbed-wire fence. “I heard you could use a little help,” Green Beret Colonel Mike Kirby, fresh from battling North Vietnamese on a Hollywood sound set, said. “Let me introduce my friends, Dirty Harry Callahan and Johnny Rambo.” “Hold on.” Dirty Harry drew his .44 magnum and fired a shot, singlehanded. An MSNBC drone dropped from the sky one hundred yards away. Not to be outdone, Rambo flexed a bicep and a terrorist clutched his chest and fell dead from a sniper’s nest. A horse whinnied and the group turned to find a shirtless Vladimir Putin dismounting a white stallion. “Vlad!” Rambo greeted the Russian with a bear hug and kiss on the cheek. “Haven’t seen you since you tortured me Vietnam.” “Let’s get to work, comrades.” Author bio: Jon Wesick is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual. He’s published hundreds of poems and stories in journals such as the Atlanta Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Clockwise Cat, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Pearl, Pirene’s Fountain, Slipstream, Space and Time, and Tales of the Talisman. His most recent books are The Shaman in the Library and The Prague Deception. http://jonwesick.com

QAnon Crumb: The Christmas Story -- A Jewish Conspiracy Did Kyrie Irving, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tweeter Trump II Retweet It? By: Ken Hogarty WWG1WGA MAGAGA Jews lurk behind most conspiracies. Small wonder history’s greatest conspiracy, the Christmas Story, was initiated and perpetuated by Jews. Counter-intuitive that Jews, allegedly vilified and persecuted by Christians, plotted the Christmas Story conspiracy? Follow, unawake, the White Rabbit, putting together clues: Judaism would have remained a historical footnote if it hadn’t morphed its story, victimization history, money-making obsession, and blood libel values into the Christ story. Q Allegiant Patriots, the Christmas Story, as traditionally propagated, is a Black Hat, Deep State lie. This two millennia old conspiracy, initiated by an original hook-nosed cabal, today is extended by Jewish complotters fronted by the Degenerate Clintons, Spawned-in-Africa Obama, Hammerhead Pelosi and his Bitch, Asleep-at-the-Wheel Biden, Mr. Hostile-WorkEnvironment Bezos, and other Red Hatted pedophiles, progressives, and perverts. Like most, the nascent Christmas Story conspiracy was financed and controlled by cabalistic Jews, evolved today to include the Rothschilds and their ilk. Historically, Herod Antipas and selected Jewish scribes and Pharisees, along with his wife and her daughter Salome (the accepted narrative hints about that pedophile relationship; she clearly liked receiving head), nefariously plotted with co-conspirator Caesar Augustus, who had named Herod Tetrarch. That cabal embedded stooges, including tax collector Matthew, Judas Iscariot, and later Joseph of Arimathea, among the followers of the real Jesus, the one fomenting rebellion rather than espousing the wimpy, pacifist agenda the cabal gifted to history. Bending the story of Jesus from a revolutionary/seditionist (“an eye for an eye’) to his New Testament portrayal as champion of foreigners and the marginalized (healing the lame, lepers, insane, and even swine), selective miracle worker, and philosopher preaching “turning the other cheek in this life to gain a heavenly award” is exactly what the Deep State originated. Deep States thrive in a passive ethos in which “giving Caesar” (and his coconspirators) “what belongs to Caesar” – symbolically all their gold, Frankincense, and myrrh -- is entrenched in Western civilization.

The real narrative, with glimpses emerging from the fabricated story, found an irate Jesus upturning tables at the Temple Courts to subvert the money changer agenda which financed the cabal of his time. Today’s Proud Boys, and other Red Pill Patriots, modeled that real-Jesus when they stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, standing up for true American Christian values in attempting to overturn the subverted 2020 Presidential election. They acted in accord with the cabal-free Jesus, who prophesied the Temple’s destruction, agitated for an end of Roman rule (and its Deep State), and asserted a “New Law.” Later, Jesus renamed his lead disciple “the Rock”; he called James and John the “Sons of Thunder.” Clearly, Jesus was setting up an occupational force to claim his kingdom before the Cabal cut him down on Good (for the Jewish cabal) Friday, enabling them to change his narrative to cement a future Judeo-Christian tradition that would also branch into Judeo- Masonism and Judeo-Bolshevism -- a most unblessed trinity. Promote the Great Awakening! Trust the Plan! Onward, true Christian Soldiers! Herein, Q crumbs to research analytically this Jewish Christmas Story Conspiracy: 1) Why has the anachronistic Jewish Old Testament been read and referenced in Christian churches since the Deep State Constantinian (have you heard the stories about Monica?) 4th Century merging of Judeo-Christian missions? 2) Why did Jewish financing of corrupt Vatican co-conspirators (Babylon II, with Borgiatype perversions) proceed from age to age? 3) Why do contemporary Jewish entrepreneurs, merchandisers, media moguls, and moneylenders make a shitload of money off Christian holidays, primarily, the one celebrating the Christmas Story? 4) Why do Deep State Jewish cabalists, concerned about their financial pursuits, not protest loudly when fellow religionists need sacrificing (unlike the story of Abraham, the Biblical God did not stop his own son’s sacrifice, sanctioning future purges as the cabalcreated story took hold) as a sop to blood-libel fearing Christians, whether in the Middle Ages or the so-called 20th Century holocaust? 5) Why did cabalists Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene steal away the person of Jesus? Like Lazarus, was he “resurrected” through Egyptian magic remedies? Look to other crumbs: *Historian Robert Graves claimed Jesus was the illegitimate son of Herod. *Herod’s court debaucheries were infamous; did he costume himself in wings (Archangel Gabriel) to prey on the barely teenaged Mary?

*The Jesus family flight to Egypt – what happens in Egypt, stays in Egypt? *Did J.C.’s untold teenage and young adult life cover up his revolutionary past? *Were characterizations of J.C.’s earthly story, including his improbable near-Solstice birthday (would the efficient Romans really have held a census in December, and would sheep have been grazing in winter?) “borrowed” from the Persian god-man Zoroaster (Jews steal ideas as well as possessions, and money)? *The cabalistic shepherds in the fields? Perversity (sheep?) among the sheeples? *Did Herod scheme to use Magi foreigners (euphemistically “paying homage”) to spur his blood-libel campaign, killing (sacrificing?) Jewish boys two years or younger? *Later, was Lazarus being raised from the dead a cabalist/perverse euphemism? Mary Magdalene, Martha, her sister Mary – party girls? *The Christmas Story’s Star of Bethlehem eventually became a negative fashion statement. *The Nativity Story venue? Like an Airbnb booking during a census: Bethlehem was a Jerusalem suburb. *Recently, Jews have invested in plant-based “meat” (Tofurkey for Christmas dinner?) in accord with their silly abhorrence of bacon and pork (unclean animals? no mirrors?). *J.C.’s casting devils out? Like a MAGA rally! *Q mirroring John the Baptist! *Sarah Palin’s speech on blood-libel! *The Franklin Prophecy and Protocols of Zion – Always enlightening! Marxists predicted Capitalistic Jews would sell the rope to hang themselves. On Calvary, the Jewish cabal sold the wood to hang three of their own. Don’t be a Mike Pence Pilate, and wash your hands of questioning the erroneous Christmas Story, or America’s Deep State it spawned. Just like the real-Jesus stood up to Satan’s (cabalist) temptation in the desert, you must resist the modern cabal and its proffered illegitimate Christmas Story temptations. Author bio: Dr. Ken Hogarty retired after a 46-year career as a high school teacher and principal. Since, he has had stories, essays, memoirs, and comedy pieces/satires published in Underwood, Sport Literate, Sequoia Speaks, Woman’s Way, Purpled Nails, McQ’s, Cobalt, the S.F. Chronicle, Points in Case, Glossy News, The Satirist, and Good Old Days.

Disaster Capitalists Try Ending the Teacher Exodus by Erasing Experienced Educators By Stephen Singer “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” –Rahm Emanuel, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama (Later Chicago Mayor); Nov. 19, 2008 Experienced teachers always have been the biggest obstacle to privatizing public schools and expanding standardized testing. That’s why replacing them with new educators has been one of the highest priorities of corporate education reform. After all, it’s much harder to try to indoctrinate seasoned educators with propaganda that goes against everything they learned to be true about their students and profession in a lifetime of classroom practice than to encourage those with no practical experience to just drink the Kool-Aid. So it should come as no surprise that supply side policymakers are using the current teacher exodus as an excuse to remake the profession in their own image. Schools are facing a shortage of 300,000 teachers and staff, according to the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number closer to 567,000 fewer educators in America’s public schools today than there were before the pandemic. That’s 0.57 new hires for every open position – completely unsustainable. This was exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, but the slow march of teachers out of the classroom has been going on for at least a decade. The federal government and most states have been either unwilling or unable to act – until now. But it’s instructive to see exactly what it is they’re doing. They haven’t even attempted to turn the tide. Nor have they simply tried to stop losing more educators. Instead they’ve taken steps to recruit new teachers while doing nothing to stop the loss of experienced professionals running for the exits. In my home state of Pennsylvania, the state Department of Education (PDE) put forward a plan with the help of Teach Plus, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to select and train teachers to push its political agenda. That agenda includes:

1) Embracing the practice of widespread staff firings as a strategy for school improvement. 2) Mandating that test scores be a significant part of teacher evaluation. 3) Advocating against seniority and pushing the false narrative that unions stifle innovation. Unsurprisingly, Teach Plus has received more than $27 million from the Gates Foundation and substantial donations from the Walton Family Foundation. And so we see nothing but policies to bring in new blood to the Commonwealth’s teaching force with no help to the veterans already in the field. The minimum teacher salary in the Commonwealth stands at $18,500 — and has since 1989. Newly elected Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposed a tax credit in his budget of $24.7 million in its first year for police, nurses and teachers. If approved by the legislature, newly certified members of those three professions would be eligible to receive up to $2,500 off their state income taxes. However, the credit would be nonrefundable — recipients would save only the amount of tax they would have paid rather than also receiving the unused portion of the credit as a refund. According to an Associated Press analysis in March, to receive the full $2,500 annual benefit with the state’s 3.07 flat income tax rate, a teacher (nurse or police officer) would have to make almost $82,000 — far above the normal starting wage for those professions. The proposal, which seems unpopular on both sides of the aisle, doesn’t even do much to increase recruitment. It should have been used to raise the base salary of teachers instead of focusing on just newbies. But its intent was clear – get more teachers in the door. We see the same concerns in the state’s new guidelines for antiracist teacher training programs. PDE is putting forward a new program starting in July called Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education (CRSE) which includes 49 cultural competence standards to encourage teachers to be more aware of racial issues in our schools. They were created by the previous Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration with help from The New America Foundation. In fact, most of these guidelines come directly from the foundation by use of a creative commons attribution.   This is a left-leaning DC think tank with ties to President Barack Obama’s administration. Why does that matter? Look at who funds the organization – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Family Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, etc.

These are the architects of the most dominant education policies of the last two decades – high stakes standardized testing, charter schools, etc. The impetus behind enacting these standards is to help recruit more new teachers of color. It’s a worthy goal considering how few teachers are non-white in the Commonwealth. However, increased salary, prestige and autonomy would go a lot farther than this kind of whitewashing. After all, if the state, the New America Foundation or the billionaire philanthropists backing them actually wanted to decrease racism, they’d be much more successful attacking racist structures than random interactions – reversing the neoliberal policies (charter schools, high stakes testing, etc.) that they, themselves, promote. However, new teachers won’t know any of this context. They’ll be perfectly happy trying to change the world, themselves, while many of those responsible for it cheer them on safely hidden behind their performative group of standards. The excuse constantly given for such an emphasis on recruiting new teachers is that so few graduates are entering the profession. A decade ago, roughly 20,000 new teachers entered the workforce each year in the Commonwealth, while last year only 6,000 did so, according to the state Department of Education (PDE). However, recruitment is only part of the picture. Nationally, our teaching workforce is already more inexperienced than in the past. In 2008, more than one in four of America’s teachers – 28 percent – had less than five years of experience. This is especially true in underprivileged areas where schools often have much higher proportions of novices in the classroom. According to the NEA, educators quitting is driving a significant part of the current educator shortage. More teachers quit the job than those who retire, are laid off, are transferred to other locations, go on disability or die. And this has remained true almost every year for the last decade with few exceptions. If our government really wanted to solve the problem, it would spend at least as much time keeping the experienced teachers we have as trying to get new ones to join their ranks. Research shows that teacher experience matters. “The common refrain that teaching experience does not matter after the first few years in the classroom is no longer supported by the preponderance of the research,” Tara Kini and Anne Podolsky write in Does Teaching Experience Increase Teacher Effectiveness? “We find that teaching experience is, on average, positively associated with student achievement gains throughout a teacher’s career.” Their analysis is based on 30 studies published over the past 15 years and concludes: 1) Experienced teachers on average are more effective in raising student achievement (both test scores and classroom grades) than less experienced ones.

2) Teachers do better as they gain experience. Researchers have long documented that teachers improve dramatically during their first few years on the job. However, teachers make even further gains in subsequent years. 3) Experienced teachers also reduce student absences, encourage students to read for recreational purposes outside of the classroom, serve as mentors for young teachers and help to create and maintain a strong school community. The road to keeping experienced teachers isn’t exactly mysterious. First, there must be an increase in salary. Teacher pay must at least be adequate including the expectation that as educators gain experience, their salaries will rise in line with what college graduates earn in comparable professions. This is not happening now. In addition, something must be done to improve teachers working conditions. Lack of proper support and supportive administrators is one of the main reasons experienced teachers leave a building or the profession. And perhaps most obviously, politicians have to stop scapegoating educators for all of society’s problems and even for all of the problems of the school system. Teachers don’t get to make policy. They are rarely even allowed a voice, but they are blamed for everything that happens in and around education. If we want teachers to work with socially disadvantaged students, they must be provided with the institutional supports needed to be effective and steadily advance their skills. But this requires making education a priority and not a political football. As it is now, the same disaster capitalist shenanigans echo over-and-over again in the halls of our country’s education history with disastrous consequences for students. Perhaps the most obvious example is in New Orleans. In 2005, the state and federal government didn’t rebuild the city’s public schools following Hurricane Katrina. Instead, they ushered out as many of the local teachers of color as possible so they could create an entirely new system of charter schools without opposition from the grassroots educators who would oppose such a grand experiment on poor and minority children. The disaster took place under George W. Bush, but Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan certainly approved, even going so far as to say, ”I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.” Republicans, Democrats – it doesn’t matter. They both champion nearly the same education policies of standardized testing and school privatization. Thus it should come as no surprise that our contemporary policy makers are using the current crisis – an ongoing teacher exodus – as an excuse to remodel the education workforce into a more ignorant and malleable one. When will they ever learn? When will we ever learn not to trust them?

MOVIE MUSINGS: THE CRIMINAL CLASSES By ALISON ROSS The various versions of the adage about youth being more inherently liberal and older people being more naturally conservative just doesn’t ring true for me. The older I get and the more epiphanies I accumulate about the horrific nature of governments and corporations, the more I want to subvert the system in the most radical way possible. Of course, I have too many health problems to want to risk jail (see: being older), and I’m also lazy as hell (also see: being older). I may also have a touch of bourgeoise complacency. Suffice it to say, I am a Couch-Potato Revolutionary (TM). That doesn’t mean I don’t want to cheer on the younger, fitter, less leisurely radicals. Indeed, I want to fund their efforts. But, since I am lazy, I have no money to do that. However, I did get plenty of satisfaction watching and cheering on the younger, fitter, less leisurely radicals in the movie, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” And hell, they are not really radical, anyway - just sensical. Let’s stop calling people who want to save the world radical, shall we? That’s the whole problem - labelling people who care about the planet as radical, and therefore conveniently dismissing their life-saving efforts - the efforts they put their lives on the line for, saving OUR lard asses as we sit licking Cheeto dust off our fat fingers while watching “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Speaking of that show, one of the reasons I like it is because of its own subversive scenarios. And I keep watching it because I can’t turn away from the cringe-inducing plot lines that keep popping up. It’s like watching a really gory train wreck and enjoying it. Anyway, I seem to like subversive things, which is why I was drawn to the movie ostensibly under discussion, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.” I was initially drawn to the title alone, because I could not believe such a title eluded and evaded censors. I know it was based on a book by the same title, of course. But the title and the contents of the book and movie risk encouraging “illicit” behavior. Wouldn’t the powers-that-be want to squash such “dubious art” in the name of “protecting society”? So, the movie itself, you ask, exasperated by endless digressions? Lengthy tangential preamble aside, I did appreciate the movie on many levels, but felt it was too “skeletal” in its clear attempt to streamline the story. I felt the plot lines could have been fleshed out, focusing much more on the intriguing backstories of the characters and how they came to want to blow up a pipeline. I could especially appreciate the way the character backstories were woven into the movie, appearing just as something climactic was about

to happen. I could also appreciate that the flashbacks starkly showed how a pipeline affected lives in many intersectional ways: Health-wise, economically, environmentally, and so on. What we do to others and to the earth we do to ourselves. Naturally, it’s the rich fucks who always get away with literal murder, and the billionaires who foster such a sick system mostly escape unscathed from the horrors they inflict on the world. BUT their dastardly deeds may indeed come back to haunt them in this lifetime: I not only believe in karmic comeuppance, I relish in it. For assholes, that is. Let’s blow up ALL damn pipelines! Without hurting the innocent, of course. And speaking of innocent people, the movie does wrestle with some of the ethics of blowing up a pipeline - such as the risk to harming the economy for lower-income people. It doesn’t wrestle enough, in my view, with those ethics, because we as readers and viewers need to be informed of the potential problems generated by blowing up pipelines. After all, there are those of us who want to cheer on, from the cozy comforts of our couch, the younger, fitter, less lazy revolutionaries, as we gorge on cheesy chemicals masquerading as food, and we should be fully aware of the dangers those younger, fitter, cooler revolutionaries are voluntarily risking on our behalf. Viva La Revolution! “Emily the Criminal” just might be the perfect movie. Well, not quite as perfect as “She Said,” but we will get to that in another review, later. The point is, the pleasing pacing of the plot, as well as the plot twists and turns, ace acting and the pointed political critique, all serve to make “Emily the Criminal" one of the more “criminally” underrated movies of 2021. Or was it 2022? It doesn’t matter, because in neither year was it nominated for any special prizes, and it should have been, because it’s amazing. But I suspect it was not nominated because it hits too close to home for the capitalistic sociopaths (including Hollywood) who run this country/world. Anyway, Aubrey Plaza, she of “Parks and Rec” fame, adds another dimension to her stoic-sardonic persona as the titular character in this film. She plays Emily as a downtroddenbut-tough-as-nails low-wage worker who nonetheless possesses artistic talents that could be put to better use - or any use at all - if it weren’t for being so, well, downtrodden by oppressive forces. At the same time, her assertiveness is what saves her. She decides to buck the system by going underground and doing illegal work that will bring in the dollars she deserves. No, she’s not a prostitute, but the work is potentially dangerous, and actually does land her in boiling water, to where she is pushed toward extremes she likely never fathomed. She becomes entangled with a well-meaning immigrant who also

is just trying to make ends meet, but can only resort to illicit jobs because that’s where the real money is. Neither of these characters are bad people, nor do they seem to relish ungodly affluence. They just want to make a living, but low-wage work in late-stage capitalistic AmeriKKKa prevails. The movie is a brash commentary on how a rigged economy forces people into unethical behaviors, and then criminalizes them for it. The real criminals, after all, are the bazillionaires and their evil enablers. The movie humanizes “criminals” and implicitly exposes the ruling class for who they really are. The movie also doubles as a thrilling thriller, which manages to mitigate, not the message itself, but the brutal impact of the message - because otherwise, audiences might feel suicidal at the heartbreaking outrageousness of it all. LITERARY LINGERINGS BY ALISON ROSS Right-handed Illuminations by Alison Ross I savor many fiction genres, magical realism being my favorite, but literary science fiction comes in a close second. I enjoy, of course, Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein. But over time, Ursula K. Le Guin evolved into a favored scribe of mine. Her work would best be termed "cerebral fantasy,” from my point of view. I have not sampled the staggering entirety of Le Guin's oeuvre, to be sure, but I have read a lot of her works, and I consider her Lathe of Heaven a masterwork of the sci-fi/fantasy genres. And I would rank Left Hand of Darkness as another similar masterwork, even as it is denser and more convoluted than Lathe of Heaven. But of course, that is what makes Left Hand of Darkness such an intriguing read - that, and its reliance on sociopolitical themes and subversion of sexual stereotypes. The characters in Left Hand are hermaphroditic, you see, and they live on a planet called Winter (Gethen). Winter's forbidding freeze renders belligerent conflict nearly implausible. But when a representative from the Galactic Federation of Worlds, Ekumen, visits, he learns that Winter is on the verge of civil war. Genly Ai, the representative, has come to Winter in order to entice the leaders to bring the planet into the federation fold. Initially the leaders are fiercely reluctant, but through many adventures and mishaps, which permit him to ascertain Gethen's cultural quirks, Ai is able to convince them to join.

The most arresting aspect of the tale is the way that Le Guin treats the motifs of sexuality and gender. As mentioned, the characters (with the exception of Genly Ai), are mostly hermaphroditic, and then during their two-day sexual phase (kemmer), they assume either the male or female role, depending on their partner's gender proclivities. Le Guin's focus on these gender-benders and their ingrained sexual schedule of kemmer give us a fascinating window into what a less orthodoxly genderized culture might be like. There is no sexual hierarchy power-struggle since the people androgynously inhabit both male and female traits. Furthermore, the sexual impulse is not the driving force for the characters' activities. Terrestial humans like ourselves could be considered to be "in kemmer" constantly, which could be construed as both a curse and a blessing. Rigid repression of the sexual drive and promiscuous indulgence of it can be equally detrimental, and so humans seek to strike a balance. When that equilibrium is not attained, humans can lash out in unhealthy ways. Many societal ills can likely be traced to these polarities of sexual expression. So, Le Guin seems to be saying, it's likely healthier if we simply merge the genders and genetically impose some sort of sexual structure so as to assuage sexually-compelled tensions and conflicts. That way, the gender energies still exist but in hybrid form, and sex retains a pleasure-aspect but is sans its danger-dimension. There is a mystical facet to Left Hand as well, a sort of oracle that nonetheless turns the Greek version on its head. The Foretellers in Karhide (the main nation of Gethen) consider questions asked to them, but their sometimes cryptic answers are designed to manifest the salience of posing the precise inquiry. By the end of the story, Genly Ai has become fully acclimated to the harsh weather and terrain of Gethen, as well as to the verbal and psychological idiosyncrasies of its inhabitants. Of course, he had to endure a bit of baptism by fire first. However, his trials and tribulations bear fruit, since the leaders of Winter agree to join Ekumen, which promises to be a mutually profitable undertaking. I don’t pretend to fully discern all of the rich nuances of Le Guin’s sly allegory about the politics of sex and social interactions, but the Left Hand of Darkness is a dynamic read nonetheless. Since the concept of the left hand of darkness ends up being “light,” I would say the story illuminates the subtle complexities of our own world in unfathomable, fascinating ways.

SATIRICAL SCREED BY CLS Sandoval Author bio: CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches and rarely relaxes. She has three full-length literary collections: God Bless Paul, Soup Stories: A Reconstructed Memoir, and Writing Our Love Story, and three chapbooks: The Way We Were, Tumbleweed: Against All Odds, and The Villain Wore a Hero’s Face. She is raising her daughter and dog with her husband in California. An Open Rejection Letter to Any Poor Academic Who Dares to Submit to Our Highly Exclusive Journal Dear Author, As we are certain you have ascertained from the mere fact that you submitted your work to us, we are declining your article. It may have been perfectly written in every sense that lesser readers would have judged, but as you know, we are the very best in this sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field. In fact, we’re certain that we are actually the only journal which meets your particular topic and methodology needs. There are probably only three or four of you out there writing what we publish. But we cannot simply accept work that is perfectly written and perfect for us. That would be too easy. After all, our editors have been writing in this sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field for years now and we never had it so easy to have a journal that was interested in this sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field. So, we had to send our work off to much more general journals and be rejected because we were too specific or too adjacent to their topic for their taste.

So now, dear author, because we claim to review blindly, you know we had to have your work translated into Braille, and because we used an ablest euphemism rather than an accurate description, none of our readers understood your work at all. Well, one did, but that reader recognized you from an activity in our sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field. Maybe it was unprofessional for them to call you out by name in their response to your article, but as that reader said, you simply aren’t expert enough in our sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field yet to be writing such an article. Let’s be honest, your work is probably better than anything any of us could come up with, and at least one of our editors only skimmed it because as they say, “hell hath no fury like a tenured professor mildly inconvenienced,” and most of us are tenured. Still editing to keep from having to do committee work. There may be one of us still in the tenure process, maybe even empathetic to your plight, dear author. But they won’t speak up for you out of fear of the rest of us. That’s what academic work is in the end, isn’t it? Forced actions in reaction to fear of retribution. As we conclude our explanation of why we are declining your work, dear author, remember that you should keep writing. Keep sending out your perfect manuscripts that take years of work, many nights away from your family, frustration in the middle of office hours, and long lines waiting for IRB approval. Keep doing it. You won’t get paid. Authors of academic articles never do, only the press. You can, of course, submit an article to us again. We likely won’t accept it, but we do enjoy these rejection letters. We have to keep our acceptance rate miniscule. To keep this sub, sub, sub, sub field of a subfield of an offshoot of a sub field legitimate. We are the gatekeepers, of course. Sincerely, Senior Editor of Our Highly Exclusive Journal

Why Are People Homeless? By National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) Housing A lack of affordable housing and the limited scale of housing assistance programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and to homelessness. The 2017 Housing Wage is $21.21 per hour, exceeding the $16.38 hourly wage earned by the average renter by almost $5.00 an hour, and greatly exceeding wages earned by low income renter households. In fact, the hourly wage needed for renters hoping to afford a twobedroom rental home is $13.96 higher than the national minimum wage of $7.25.

Poverty Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be dropped. If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from living on the streets. According to the US Census, the national poverty rate in 2016 was 12.7%. There were 40.6 million people in poverty. A couple of factors account for continuing poverty: • Lack of Employment Opportunities – With unemployment rates remaining high, jobs are hard to find in the current economy. Even if people can find work, this does not automatically provide an escape from poverty.

• Decline in Available Public Assistance – The declining availability of public assistance is another source of increasing poverty and homelessness and many families leaving welfare struggle to get medical care, food, and housing as a result of loss of benefits, low wages, and unstable employment. Most states have not replaced the old welfare system with an alternative. Other major factors, which can contribute to homelessness, include: • Lack of Affordable Health Care – For families and individuals struggling to pay the rent, a serious illness or disability can start a downward spiral into homelessness, beginning with a lost job, depletion of savings to pay for care, and eventual eviction. • Domestic Violence – Battered women who live in poverty are often forced to

choose between abusive relationships and homelessness. • Mental Illness – Approximately 16% of the single adult homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness, • Addiction – The relationship between addiction and homelessness is complex and controversial. Many who are addicted to alcohol and drugs never become homeless, but people who are poor and addicted are at increased risk of homelessness.

Dear Mayor Adams: The National Coalition for the Homeless is alarmed by the subway safety plan released by your administration and are concerned that this will only escalate the issues facing those without stable housing in New York City. Our concern is this “plan” was tried by the previous administration in New York City and has been tried by other mayors on a smaller scale and every time it has failed because affordable housing is never attached to these plans. NCH and every homeless organization mourns the loss of life in the subways and the escalating amount of violence, but it is misguided to blame these issues on the unhoused. After 40 years if we have learned one thing it is that use of law enforcement to deal with a social service/housing issues will fail and will only extend the stay on the streets for many caught up in these sweeps. While we understand that the safety of every rider of the New York subway system (including those without housing) is paramount, our concern is that this plan will only exacerbate the violence. It also diverts law enforcement resources from solving real crimes to being reduced to crossing guards or curfew violation security officers. We have seen a number of videos over the last two weeks of encounters between law enforcement and those without housing and it seems as though these encounters are only agitating those who utilize the subway for shelter. We are worried that this subway plan is just going to lead to more and more volatile interactions and eventually people backed into a corner lash out. Where do these individuals go if they are not in the subway? Shelters are not an option to many of the individuals utilizing the subway. They describe unsafe, unsupervised and overcrowded conditions that make the streets a more attractive alternative. Unless you find safe spaces for those you are removing they will continue to utilize the subway, doorways, and bridges. The National Coalition for the Homeless has many ideas for how local communities can better address the crisis within the behavioral health system and the inability for the market to meet the housing needs of the service based economy we have created, but none of our proposals involve the use of law enforcement to be transformed into social workers. The individuals that you roust from the subways will still use the public transit system, but will be even more suspicious of law enforcement, transit officials, and outreach teams. Housing First, safe havens, hotel rooms, low barrier facilities all work and are proven to keep people from living on the streets. The behavioral health system that keeps individuals on a 24 hour hold and then sends them back to the streets; the housing system that takes years to process paperwork and complete inspections, the inability for doctors to prescribe housing as part of the treatment for their patient’s recovery plan; the pharmaceutical industry getting individuals hooked on opioid and keeping the price of other life sustaining medicine too high for many in our society; the vacant and abandoned housing sitting idle while so many sleep outside - we could go on, But the bottom line is that there is nowhere for these individuals to go and therefore they seek safety in the subways. Sincerely, NATional coalition for the homeless

LITERARY LINGERINGS PART DEUX The Heller Hinge is SURGING WITH LIFE By Alison Ross Last summer when Heller sent me his book, Jus’ Sayn’, to review (and I am always thrilled when Heller sends me anything, even just a random email missive about how he prefers storms to sunny weather, or how he doesn’t like to be dictated to by the meteorology autocrats, or something like that), I decided to update him on my reading progress through pictures. I would title the emails “Jus’ readin’ ” to temporally illustrate my adventures in "experiencing" his tome. I like to take time with Heller’s books, you see, because to digest them in one sitting, or even two or three sittings, would bend my brain too much, and, well, I need my brain not to be bent. Unbent brains are a sign of good health, after all. I mean, Heller’s cerebrum is of such quality caliber that really only Heller understands Heller. But that is not to say that his work is not accessible. Heller's work is accessible in a backdoor kind of way - in order to fully appreciate his work, you don't enter it through the front door, or even a side door. The House of Heller, with its solidly affixed door Hinges, can be accessed like you access a party you are intending to crash. Since you were not invited to the party, you have to access it surreptitiously, check it out in a clandestine way. Similarly, the House of Heller is an affair that you feel like is invitation-only, so rife it is with sometimes abstract, sometimes even confrontational language, and stuttering rhythms. It can be scary to navigate. But once you are inside the house, and become familiar with it, that's when you settle in, and start to see how the words and ideas depend so completely on each other they are, indeed, like well-oiled door hinges. And so once you get past your initial impression of impenetrability, the poems start to become portals, if you will, into the infinite potential of what poetry - and language - can do. The book is, according to Heller himself at publisher Black Widow Press: "Part epic poem, part social commentary, part jazz history, part instrument analysis, & very largely a cataclysmic whirlwind homage to John Coltrane’s tune ‘One Down, One Up.’ ' And I think this is what I like so much about Jus' Sayn': it transcends genre and

forges its own genre, which is to say, anti-genre. And if you wanted, you could say that his entire oeuvre is anti-genre and anti-poetry, even. Not in a nihilistic sense, but in the creative sense: Heller is generating a fresh dialect, or reviving the corpse of language: Stagnant speech-sounds sculpted by stagnant scribes. Heller also refers to his book as a "hybridic surge," and I think, YES! It's a hybrid of genres that floods forward ebulliently, flowing from one topic to another in idiosyncratic idioms, academic argo, jazzy jargon or even beatnik meters, veering in paradoxically logical fashion from philosophy to politics to music and so on. Here are some juicy Heller lines to sink your brain and soul into, which exalt Coltrane and music, and also diss capitalism’s corrosive influence on the arts: “Miles was a fashion connoisseur. Trane would wear the same boxy suit all week. Miles loved the women. Trane loved the saxophone. Jus’ sayn’”

HULL’S HELL: DIATRIBES FROM DYSTOPIA (AKA THE DYSTOPIAN HELLSCAPE OF AMERICA) ON RAMPANT TEACHER ABUSE Education and school are such an important part of society, but like most other public goods, it's been not only commodified, but used as an insidious tool to keep certain power structures in place. It's unnecessarily abusive and I do believe it is, in many ways, an extension of historical misogyny, racism, and class struggle. The thing that sucks the most is this: most don't care. And, even though there are enough people who understand this, hate this, and want to change this (certainly enough to make a big difference), they mostly offer moral support or think voting or paying a union is sufficient. Many of the bolder ones who seem to have a better understanding of the the deeper problems with the DNC establishment and union bureaucracies seem to frequently be off on some sort of sectarian talk that scares people away. Beyond a final armageddon battle to replace capitalism, they offer few, if any, practical, avenues to effect change. So, even though you know you're in the right, and you know many millions of others know it's so wrong, the fact that it remains the same is definitely demoralizing and your attitude is 100% justified. There's nothing that can realistically be done so long as the aforementioned dynamics remain. A few willing martyrs, Facebook rants, and a couple articles aren't going to change things. Personally, I think we need a mass movement to amend the United States Constitution. Many of the problems in our country, including in education, are not actually problems, but successful business models. Get the dark money and bribery out, put antitrust in there, throw in FDR's Second Bill of Rights, and perhaps even do something about gerrymandering and the Electoral College. Then, you might have a realistic hope for this country. Liberal democracy is centered around laws and the rights of the people, and a Constitution is at the heart of it. The biggest changes in American history only came after amendments were made to that document. Always easier said than done, but it has happened before. ON SUPREME COURT EXPANSION Who else thinks we need to build a sustained, grassroots campaign that puts SUPREME COURT EXPANSION into the limelight? If there are existing groups working towards this, please point me to them. Not only could this strategy blunt

the assault on reproductive rights and the separation of church and state, but also the takeover of our government by special interests and lobbyists through precedents that turned corporations into "natural persons" and their money into "speech" (a source of so many of our woes). House Democrats recently introduced legislation to expand the Courts, but Speaker Pelosi and President Biden have indicated their disapproval. We should be infuriated and in the streets, not just against Republicans, but also against weak Democrats who refuse to aggressively fight back against Mitch McConnell's treachery. It's important to remember that leaders like LBJ and FDR had extreme pressure put on them before they adopted progressive policies. ON AMERICAN ROT The country was founded by an elite, landed aristocracy who didn't trust the rabble. Things like the Electoral College, two senators per state regardless of population, and gerrymandering make the rural conservatives and the procapitalist elements much stronger than they would be in a more parliamentary system. The propaganda here is top notch because it's based on decades of marketing research and experience. The state and corporations have fused, making our legacy media a state media that does a clever job masquerading as a free and independent press. Throw in campaign bribery and Citizens United and it really is a very grim outlook. America isn't the only fading empire that ever existed. It exhibits many similar traits other fallen hegemons - namely, corrupt internal elements and a sort of psychosis at home. See Chris Hedges' "America the Farewell Tour." He does a good job at examining the internal rot that's going on here. ON BIDEN Didn't pack the courts, didn't end the Senate filibuster, didn't make an effort to grant statehood to DC, Puerto Rico, etc., couldn't get a minimum wage increase because of (checks note) the parliamentarian, told us to take off the masks and put Covidiots on an honor system...It's like we don't have a real opposition to the alt Reich. I wonder if that has something to do with allowing lobbyists to rule over the political system and unlimited bribery of government officials? ON CAPITALISM The current state of affairs was never normal to the "radicals," i.e. reasonable people. Unfortunately, we are a minority it would appear. Americans have become so accustomed to the billionaires' economy dominating every aspect of civil society, we just seem to wallow anemically in a swamp of indifference or defeat. Some sedate themselves with various distractions or addictions while others convince themselves this is the greatest democracy on earth, despite having no meaningful say in it. Imagining something fundamentally new and better is much harder than imagining something stale and increasingly worse. As Americans, we have really internalized our own subjugation. I think they call this "capitalist realism.”

Author bio: Michael Hull is a public school teacher in San Antonio, Texas.

KLOX AND KATZ, INK

LITERARY LINGERINGS PART TROIS Cindy Hochman tells us everything - Finally! By Alison Ross Cindy Hochman is one of the most authentic writers I have ever read. Her writing is as much of a force of nature as she is. It helps that I know her, of course, but even before I knew Cindy, her words screamed authenticity. You see, years ago, she had submitted to an early incarnation of Clockwise Cat, and her poetry voice resonated with me, so I wanted to know more about her. And her latest book, Telling you Everything (published by Unleash Press) , definitely lets us know more about her. Deploying her trademark weaponry of sly wordplay and brash humor, Cindy splays out her life in 26 poetic pieces. In this collection, whose verses are rife with rhythm, there are abundant prose poems, while other pieces are more “typically” structured. But every poem is aggressively authentic, the voice vociferously genuine and the varying tones of sadness, sarcasm, meditativeness, ebullience, and so on, organic to each poem’s purpose, and not at all stilted. Because, after all, Cindy is “the girl who put the Cockney in your bollocks.” Each verse has such brazen radiance and so cleverly cultivates its own poetic universe. This is because, as we

suspected, Cindy has “basked in the glow of the glare of the spotlight” but has also “spit blood through gnashed teeth.” There are surrealistic touches throughout the collection (and even some imitative homages to Dada), and subtle and overt intimations of confessionalism, even, but not one style can pigeonhole Cindy’s work because, as she says, “you just have to let yourself flourish.” Indeed she does. Cindy is beholden to no style but her own - that of scintillating authenticity! DREAM of the WEAVE-KING A half-assed review of half the book By Alison Ross How does one write a review of John Olson? It’s almost better to just quote every word of every poem and let readers bask in his words that way, rather than attempt to simulate the experience through some half-assed review. But I am compelled to review John Olson anyway, because I want to share my absolute adoration of his book, The Weave of the Dream King (Black Widow Press, publisher), with

the world! Not that the entire world reads Clockwise Cat (or John Olson, for that matter) - after all, illiteracy is rampant, and some people are babies who can’t read yet. Anyway, truth be told, so far I have only read half of John’s book, because it’s over FIVE HUNDRED pages long, and the prose poems therein are also lengthy. Suffice to say it’s a dense as fuck book - and the poems are dense with ideas, provocations, ruminations, mysticisms, stream of consciousness meanderings, logical leaps, narrative tangents, anti-narrative tangents, dynamic imagery, dynamic anti-imagery, wacky wordplay, high humor, low humor, pop intellectualism, cerebral intellectualism, Surrealism, postSurrealism, Dadaism, post-Dadaism, post-postDadaism … and on and on. John Olson is possibly the world’s first post-punk poet, taking poetry, an inherently punk medium - one that distills life to its gritty core - and sculpting it into something we want to linger on, and play over and over again. If poetry is the Ramones, John Olson’s poetry is the Talking Heads. One is lean and mean, the other is artsy, Zen-like, showcasing multiple instruments and influences, and shot through with humor and heart.

Seussian Sonetts By Alison ross The poetry of Dianne Seuss is a force to be reckoned with. I had heard rumblings about her verse before, but didn’t really explore it until one of her poems landed in my inbox from Poem-a-Day. That poem hit me in the gut, so I immediately ordered her Pulitzer-prize winning book, Frank: Sonnets. These are not traditional sonnets, of course; it turns out the sonnet can be a malleable form despite pretenses to the contrary, and anyway, these are more like prose poems, but with 14 lines. Her stream-of-consciousness style propels each poem forward with a fierce momentum. Perhaps, too, the title is somewhat ironic, and also bears a double-entendre: The title refers to her friend, Frank, but also alludes to her tone in these potent pieces. For Diane Seuss cannot help but be searingly honest in her scorching scribblings about about growing up in the blue-collar confines of rural Michigan, and about her forays into the dark underbellies of places like NYC but also of her own psyche. Her topics touch on drugs, AIDS, religion, music, motherhood. There is bleak beauty in Seuss’s poetic screeds that take the form of the sonnet and turn it on its head, leveling rhythm and rhyme and instead infusing a punk

bluntness and gritty sensory imagery. She also vacillates between colloquial language and more sophisticated turns of phrase, allowing her poems to be both accessible and cerebral.

A Timeline of State and Police Repression to Destroy the Movement to Stop Cop City by Gloria Tatum The powerful, corporate-funded Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) plans to build a Public Safety Facility to train police in urban warfare. Critics of the facility dubbed it Cop City. They fear it will allow more killing of people of color, repress social justice movements, and APF will have too much influence in law enforcement and be unaccountable to the public. The police that killed George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and hundreds of others were trained. The police don’t need more training. They need reform and accountability. In many violent raids to frighten people away from the Stop Cop City movement, police have arrested 42 people and charged them with domestic terrorism, and killed one person. They raided the Teardown house to shut down the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which provides bail and lawyers to people arrested while protesting. They arrested three well-known and respected mutual aid workers and Solidarity Fund organizers and charged them with money laundering and charity fraud. If they can arrest mutual aid workers, who distribute free food to hundreds of food-insecure families weekly, no one is safe from arrest and false charges. DECEMBER 13, 2022 -THE FIRST POLICE RAID Early Tuesday morning, dozens of militarized Atlanta and DeKalb police raided Intrenchment Creek Park, now called Weelaunee People Park (WPP), to remove forest defenders living in tree houses. They were sprayed with tear gas and pepper balls and removed from the tree houses at gunpoint. Next, all the big mature trees with tree houses were cut down. People camping in the park and neighbors walking their dogs were removed at gunpoint. All the camping equipment was slashed, and a makeshift kitchen was destroyed by police. Five tree sitters were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, and criminal trespass and initially denied bond.

JANUARY 18, 2023 - THE SECOND POLICE RAID Dave Wilkinson, CEO of the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), wanted all the people out of the forest so APF could start bulldozing down the trees on the Old Prison Farm property. To clear all forest defenders, a multi-agency militarized police force entered Weelaunee People's Park to remove activists trying to protect the forest. The heavily armed militarized law enforcement units looked like an army on a military operation to remove enemy forces and recapture the land. Some campers ran in fear, thinking they might be killed, leaving their tents and belongings behind to be slashed by police. Others were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism simply for camping in the forest and supporting Stop Cop City. Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran, an indigenous, queer, binary, non-violent environmentalist, used the pronouns "they, their, and them." Teran was in their tent when the police arrived and refused to leave the tent and told the police to go away. Six Georgia State Patrol (GSP) officers responded by shooting several chemical balls into the tent, quickly followed by 57 deadly shots to Tortuguita's body. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said Teran shot first and injured an officer. Other police in the area heard the shots and said, "They fucked up one of their own," because they knew the sound of police bullets. An independent autopsy by the family revealed Teran was sitting down with their hands up when they died. The autopsy said there was no gun power on Teran's hands. This was the first environmentalist murdered in the United States. MARCH 5, THE MUSIC FESTIVAL AND THE THIRD POLICE RAID Forest Defenders sent out a call to action to take back the Weelaunee forest, and about a thousand people answered the call to come party and spend the weekend in the forest. While everyone was singing and dancing, enjoying the music festival, dozens of unknown folks dressed in black from head to toe slipped over to Key Road, where all the bulldozers and equipment were located, set them on fire, and left. In an act of desperation and necessity, these brave young souls

burnt the bulldozers to save the trees that protect us from the worst effects of climate change. Not knowing who destroyed the equipment, the police ran to the music festival and started randomly arresting people. Witnesses said police tased concertgoers trying to leave, tackled people to the ground, threatened others with lethal force, and used tear gas on people. At the end of the chaos, 22 people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. APF said charges were justified because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security categorized the Stop Cop City and Defend the Forest as domestic terrorists. When contacted by a reporter, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said they do not classify people or organizations as domestic terrorists—the justification for charging these partygoers and activists as domestic terrorists was a lie.   Stanley Cohen, a New York lawyer, is challenging the constitutionality of the domestic terrorism statute used against forest defenders exercising their constitutionally protected rights to free speech. On May 2, 2023, three supporters of Stop Cop City were arrested and charged with felonies in Bartow County for passing out flyers identifying the six Georgia State Patrol officers that shot Tortuguita 57 times. The officers are Bryland Myers, Jerry Parrish, Jonathan Salcedo, Mark Lamb, Ranoldo Kegel, and Royce Zeh. They have not been arrested or charged with Teran's death. In the first part of May, Michael Thurmond, CEO of DeKalb County, closed Weelaunee Park allegedly because it was too dangerous and posted police so no one could enter. The only danger in the park was the police. They wanted everyone out because they were bulldozing all the trees on 85 acres of the Old Prison Farm land and did not want people still camping in Weelaunee to interfere. The forest is a pile of red dirt now. It was one of the four lungs of Atlanta, and those trees captured and stored carbon. Scientists tell us we are sliding into a global warming phase that we may not be able to return from for centuries. Climate Change is real and happening now. Trees can save us from climate change but can't if someone kills them.

MAY 15, ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL HEARS PUBLIC COMMENTS In the first Atlanta City Council (ACC) meeting to give Cop City 30 million dollars, 288 people signed up for public comment. Some people shared their two minutes to speak with others so that they could talk longer. All spoke in opposition to Cop City, which lasted nine hours. No one spoke for cop city. It was the largest turnout in the history of ACC and lasted nine hours.The original ordinance initially stated that the taxpayer’s part of the project was $30 million, but now it is $67 million, and it may continue to skyrocket upward in years to come. Also confusing is the size of Cop City. Is it 85 acres, as the ordinance initially stated? However, APF claims 171 acres. Which is it? It appears the size and price of Cop City can change like the weather. It should be clear to City Council members and Mayor Dickens that no one wants Cop City. After public comments, the legislation will go to the Finance Committee before the final vote on June 5. About a hundred citizens attended the finance meeting and spoke out against Cop City, but the ordinance passed and was sent back to ACC for a final vote on June 5. MAY 31, THE FOURTH POLICE RAID Wednesday morning, a heavily armed Atlanta Police SWAT team and the GBI raided the Teardown house where the Atlanta Solidarity Fund is located, which provides bail and lawyers for activists arrested while protesting in social justice movements. Marlon Kautz, Adele MacLean, and Savannah Patterson, organizers of the fund, were charged with money laundering and charity fraud. The arrests are an unprecedented attack on bail funds and legal support organizations. This is the latest police attack and persecution of the Stop Cop City movement with little proof of their claims. Judge John Altman said he was not impressed with the charges and said, "That bone does not have much meat on it." All three bailed out at 15 thousand each. All the police raids, arrests, and trumped-up charges were expected to stop the movement to Defend the Forest and Stop Cop City, but the opposite happened. The movement became more significant, more vital, and more diverse. The police thought cutting bail money would stop the movement, but the National Bail Fund kicked in and continued to bail people out. They may have thought their latest raid would give cover for the Atlanta City Council members to vote yes on the money necessary to build Cop City.