The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from
the White House, arriving at his Crawford ranch in the evening to clear
brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some
outside-the-Beltway politics. By historical standards, it is the
longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

Two Yemeni men say they were held in solitary confinement in secret,
underground U.S. detention facilities in an unknown country and
interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being
charged or allowed any contact with the outside world, Amnesty
International charged Wednesday.

The Madcity No-Limit Poker Invitational is taking place again this
coming Saturday. If you played at the last one, call me on my cell to
reserve a spot.

"To my knowledge, no one by the name of Karl Rove works for this president, his staff, or for that matter, anyone on earth, since he is not a real person," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Monday.

Today, on Marfa's main street, tony art galleries and wine shops are driving away traditional cafes and shops, whose local owners can't afford the new sky-high rents. Everywhere you go the townsfolk, independent Texans to the core, lament the changes to their community. The term "ChiNazi" is used locally to describe anyone from out of town who arrives with artistic ambitions and a superior attitude. Observes one local cattle rancher, who asked to remain anonymous: "We're filling up with triple A's -- artists, assholes and attorneys."

I’m not some unschooled savage, so I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I take a breath, try to become one with the universe, and…go for it.

I'll be the first to admit that there are whole areas of the world of music that I'm pretty ignorant about, mostly having to do with mash ups. It just sounded like a genre that wasn't going to do it for me. I pictured a bunch of nerds trying to out-clever each other by combining unlikely tracks into unlistenable music.

One of the coolest people that I know has just restarted her blog, and it's still great.

1.
    "Are you saying my mom is a skank?"
    "It could be your grandmother."
    "What?" Richard Wilson thought of his sweet grandma getting it on with somebody other than grandpa. "Chuck, I'm gonna be sick here."
    "No. It's your mom. She's the skank."

A few months ago, Erica O., one of my fellow former Wisconsin Institute Fellows sent me an article that she had recently had published. The writing, of course, was lovely, and one sentence really jumped out at me. I knew immediately that I wanted to use that sentence as a basis for a poem.