Dear Congress

If pizza is a vegetable, Congress is a fruit.

Doesn't this make Occupy Wall Street's point? In the final agricultural spending bill Congress released Monday, 2 tablespoons of pizza sauce is counted as a full serving of vegetables in the school lunch program. The USDA says that it clearly is not. Why is Congress perpetuating an untruth? But corporate interests want to continue making money selling pizzas to overweight school kids.

I think that the USDA should publish new school lunch rules that call for 2 additional servings of vegetables per lunch, and one less serving of goop and Congressional b.s.


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Preface

Preface from the play, The Trial of George W. Bush, recently published on a Kindle eBook.

Sometime in 2004 I was driving down the road, listening to a lecture on CD in my car. The U.S. had invaded Iraq the year before and it was becoming increasingly apparent to me that the reasons given for the invasion were hubristic lies. I was disappointed, angry, and bursting to do something.

The lecturer on the CD was talking about Aeschylus's Oresteia, a trilogy of Greek tragedies first performed in 458 B.C. In the first play, Agamemnon, the title character was murdered by Clytemnestra, his wife, in part as revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia, to the Greek goddess Artemis. Agamemnon had done this so he could go slaughter the people of Troy.

The second play, The Libation Bearers, concerned the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, her son, in revenge for her murder of his father.

In the third play, The Eumenides, the Furies, Greek spirits of vengeance, tormented Orestes for the murder of his mother. He sought relief from the gods and Athena persuaded the Furies to accept a trial to decide his fate. The Furies prosecuted, the sun god Apollo was the defense attorney, and Athena was the Judge (and a member of the jury!) Orestes was found innocent because of a hung jury and the Furies agreed to forgo seeking vengeance.

The lecturer explained that Aeschylus, the playwright, was arguing that Greece should give up its ancient system of justice based on "blood for blood." The plays presented the blatant horror of murder after murder ravaging a royal family. Aeschylus instead wanted the Greeks to adopt a system of justice based upon courts and litigation, a more civilized scheme.

I considered what Aeschylus would make of George W. Bush, the American President who had invaded Iraq at least in part in revenge for the attack on the World Trade Center. More than 2000 had died on September 11, 2001, but the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq had directly or indirectly resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands more. Would the Furies torment Bush relentlessly the way they had attacked Orestes? Who would defend him and what would the result of that trial be?

This then was the genesis of this play. Given that it is my wont to be satirical when it comes to politics, the play is peppered with satire, most at Dubya's expense.

But interestingly, as I was writing, the play began to take on a life of its own. Satire and funny courtroom scenes only went so far. There was something far more serious desperately trying to get out.

I reached back to the play's Greek origins and to characters throughout history to present the faces and horror of war, but that wasn't enough. There was little in the play for the audience to identify with. I needed to arouse the audience's sympathies.

So I added to the larger than life, historical characters ordinary people whose personal lives were irrevocably changed by the horrific event that began this century. Their lives became woven into the fabric of the play.

And that was when this became a ghost story.

- Charles S. Cooper, August, 2011

Link to e-Book page on Amazon.

Out of Tragedy comes redemption

More on my play, The Trial of George W. Bush, published as a Kindle e-Book.


Out of Tragedy comes redemption.

Part political satire, part theatrical drama and part ghost story, The Trial of George W. Bush is an emotional examination of the effect war has upon the innocent and not so innocent.

Inspired by the Greek play, The Eumenides, the stage play follows the prosecution of the American President, George W. Bush, by the Furies, Greek spirits of vengeance, for crimes against history. Interwoven with the courtroom drama is the story of an American family intimately affected by the events of September 11.

With it's roots in Greek mythology and Discordian absurdism, the play examines the rationales for war and the profound impact war's violence has on the human psyche. Characters out of history - a Roman soldier, a Greek king, a woman who worked at the World Trade Center - all give witness to what costs must be paid to wage violence, one peoples against another.

At the heart of the story is one man's quest for redemption after a lifetime of lies and deception, a man who may or may not be the President of the United States, on trial for waging war, for lying to the American people, and for... something else.

Link to e-Book page on Amazon.

The Trial of George W. Bush

I have taken the plunge into self publishing. (Yeah, I know. I am a few years late on this.)

I have placed my 2005 stage play, "The Trial of George W. Bush," on Amazon as a Kindle e-book. (Only 99 cents.) Part political satire, part historical drama, part ghost story, the play deals with war and responsibility.

If you are not too dogmatic in your political views you might like it. Guaranteed to offend Republicans and Democrats alike!

If you read it please leave a review, good or bad!

Link to e-Book page on Amazon.

The Wisdom of Richard Nixon

Christine O'Donnell walked out of an interview with Piers Morgan because he dared to ask her views on gay rights. She told him he was "borderline being a little rude."

Once again, following in the footsteps of Sarah Palin who quit her job as governor of Alaska, we find a Tea Party darling quitting when the going got tough.

In the words of Richard Nixon, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen." And he wasn't talking a Food Channel reality show here, folks.

Do these people really think being bumptious and huffy qualifies you for political office? Nixon would be ashamed to be a Republican.

A Brave New World

I am going mobile. See the mandatory tag below this entry. Well, okay, not mandatory. But doesn't it seem like the technology is running us and not the other way around. Or maybe the tech companies are just using us to market their products and display their ads. We are all involuntary tools.


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Facebook's Ambition

Exposing your inner most secrets in the most embarrassing way possible seems to be the goal of every Facebook profile.

In older cultures whole religions were centered around this practice. They called it flagellation back then.

Jobs?

The Tea Party has an answer for everything!