Email forward

My mom, whom I love, sent me this very long email (mostly made up of the addresses to which it had been forwarded before it reached me).
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PHOTOS TOO GRAPHIC FOR ABC, CBS, CNN AND NBC
Pictures From Iraq That Are Too Shocking & Graphic for The Mainstream Media
Photos that will never make the news....

Please pass the pictures on. Sometimes in our everyday lives we tend to forget what's going on elsewhere in the world and that the brave men and women of the service are just like you and I. They have the family and friends back home who love them very much and are praying for their safe return.


PLEASE KEEP THIS GOING EVEN IF YOU HAVE PASSED IT ON BEFORE

When you receive this, please stop for a moment and say a prayer for our troops (land, air, and sea) in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, and around the world. There is nothing attached....... This can be very powerful...... Just send this to people in your address book. Do not stop the wheel, please....

Of all the gifts you could give the US Military, Prayer is the very best one.....

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The photo's, schocking photo's, are of US soldiers playing with kids, a kitten, Iraqis holding up signs saying "Thank you, Mr Bush", and such. Also a prayer huddle.

My reply:

Mom,

The best gift you could give our troops is to bring them home and give them the mental and physical care they need.

There is a lady on one of our baby boards who posted these some months ago. She is a military wife and at the time I was given the impression that one of the people is her husband. I am not so sure.

While the pictures surely do depict something different from what we see on the news, they in no way negate the carnage that people - even the ones so gently treating folks in these photo's- are bringing to that country. In fact, seeing that these men are so capable of kindness compounds the horror. What are *they* being turned into by being required to follow orders and kill?

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Thousands, I am sure, of blogs have been dedicated to email forwards. How annoying and etc. I wonder if many have been dedicated to the uses of email as spreader of propaganda.

Bad Poet

Stan Rice. He was the husband of Ann Rice, now he's dead. He was the head of the creative writing department at San Francisco State University, and published before she did, so it was not a matter of coat-tails-riding.

Some of his poetry is so close to really good, then he'll throw in a line like :

The Zodiac in Haemoraging.

Or he'll write something like:

In Heaven
the roach
is a jewel....

...Which is almost good. But not quite. I have bought every one of his books. Partly to make myself feel better, partly to make myself mad. Mostly to write counter-poems in the margins.