Blood Upon The Risers(Sung to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic) He was just a cherry trooper and he surely shook with fright as he checked all his equipment and made sure his pack was tight He had to sit and listen to the awful engines roar, And he ain't gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. "Is everybody happy?" cried the Sergeant, looking up. Our hero feebly answered "yes," and then they stood him up. He leaped right out into the blast, his static line unhooked. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. He counted long, he counted loud, he waited for the shock; He felt the wind, he felt the clouds, he felt the awful drop; He jerked his cord, the silk spilled out and wrapped around his legs. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. The risers wrapped around his neck, connectors cracked his dome; The lines were snarled and tied in knots, around his skinny bones; The canopy became his shroud, he hurtled to the ground. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. The days he’d lived and loved and laughed kept running through his mind; He thought about the girl back home, the one he’d left behind; He thought about the medics and wondered what they’ed find. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. The ambulance was on the spot, the jeeps were running wild; The medics jumped and screamed with glee, they rolled their sleeves and smiled; For it had been a week or more since last a chute had failed. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. He hit the ground, the sound was splat, his blood went spurting high; His comrades were then heard to say, "A helluve way to die"; He lay there rolling ‘round in the welter of his gore. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more. There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon the chute; Intestines were a-dangling from this paratrooper’s boots; They picked him up, still in his chute and poured him from his boots. He ain’t gonna jump no more. CHORUS: Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die He ain’t gonna jump no more

a summer marked by an overdose of NPR and not enough sex drugs and rock and roll induce the following:

so to simply say fuck bush only gets me in trouble from the friendly cornell authorities. so maybe there is more to be said of this single evil conservative. as i may refer to him as Our Infantile Bastard and thus leave out any chance of the proverbial pubic connotations. he is just that, a bastard. I'l first make some unfair assumptions so you can all jump on me and call me unfair but i would postulate that OIB walked around middle and high school calling unjust things "gay". like man, that spoon is gay, *dumb snicker, shoulderchuckle*, or i cant believe how gay my grades are here at yale... on to more agreeable language. OIB's evocation of democracy and spreading this marvelous, fully calibrated demos-oriented style of governance to combat the idealogues in the region...hmm....with the (in order of most important to least...) human, psycholigical, monetary cost putting deficits not only in US currency but more importanly iraqi health if you are still alive, civic stability, and absolute resentment of the predominantly not culturally savvy American. one must only delve into the scorn rate of say American and Canadian tourists to see what we mean here. Surely the Canadians would not shoot Iraqi farmers in the name of enduring freedom but that is another story. when this infantile bastard thug evokes democracy, and the US' as the best and most admirable and free blah blah, what we see, objectively is an evocation of its founding fathers right? now you may think wigs and slaveowning indiankillers but youd be wrong... i was thinking of the founding pederasts from ancient greece. Demos, a greek word meaning people...hmm, democracy..ok, so when OIB rants about democracy, then funds excursion to invade on its behalf, then switches to gaybashing, all i can think of is the subtle yet astounding irony of it all. to those who belive in war...i ask when the last time you had shells blazing your home? i recall the shock and awe commencement to this tragic step in world history. i wish halliburton representatives could sit in the terrorized iraqi homes and praise the work they do for the soldiers...id love to see democracytoting congressmen or military families sitting in those Terrorized iraqi homes praising the Blasting spread of democrazy. freedomlover id call the man run over by tanks in tieneman square, not the conservative gaybashing bastard sitting in the the white house...yeah, that house will match the skin color of it inhabitants never its past servants, thats for sure. terrorism was not born on september eleventh, the world does not revolve around that date... we do september 11th body counts but not iraqi body counts? that is ill if you ask me. the post 9-11 term is so so american, so uncanadian, so historically ethnocentric... Sudan...what if this was our frame of reference? this IS wishful thinking... but that is massive tragedy.. we cannot speak of a post-polio world in africa, a post-malaria world..these are mosre important frames but again, ive digressed from a digression. howard zinn inaugurates the notion that todays miliitary force wishes to emulate the greatest generation of WWII fighters... we find that even in that war, the very first americans (abraham lincoln brigade) and 60+ country coalition of soldiers to fight fascism in europe, in spain to be precise, were NOT backed by the US. arms were soviet and Franco took spain because of the anti-commi rants on american airwaves..this again, is another Rafie-rant.. i think my point is in the footsteps of this prose, and youll see insurgency as a more noble cause than invasion in the frame.

prediction: castro's heart better than dick's.

if this comes off as preachy i apologize. it is not meant to convert or anything of the sort. its just my rants intersect and blogs seem to be the venue for organized and in this case disorganized rants. my intention is ultimately to throw my heart at the screen; hearts which will seldomly splat ,um, in an orderly fashion...

pat on the back to frist for introducing SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH into the political arena. science in congress is tasty.

can i say, sid, you will be missed in risley and other dining halls.. have fun in the House!

sex=tennis.

"In common SM parlance, to do SM with someone is to "play" with them. This is not meant in any sort of diminishing or trivializing way, but rather in a manner similar to how one might "play" tennis or bridge with a partner."

- a random website

so i don't really have anything to say except that you're all wonderful.

also, i'm excruciatingly bored at home, and i don't have a car. which means that all of you should come visit me!! i have an extra bed.....you can sleep in it.....we can hang out....

no joke!

hope you have a wonderful summer, i'm working at a nature camp with little kiddies and hopefully (assuming i don't piss my summer away on law and order reruns) reading foucault and nabokov, among others.

-- alex

hey, lovely taspers: keep in mind that this or any summer, if you want room and board in Ithaca as well as the opportunity to mold 32 supple young minds, you could be the next Amina or Nathan. that is to say, potwash! there's a short application the office keeps pushing on housemembers, I think it probably can be found on the TA website under the members section.

or, of course, you could be a factotum. anybody want to factote with me sometime over the next three years?

we're done with freshman year of college? no way!

yo yo yo yo
hey people. I wonder how many of you read this thing anymore. I do it once in a while. I thought that I should share what I have been up to. In particular, I will tell you some of my travels.

-So, haruko and greg came down for the harvard-yale football game. I know that this is going way back, but it was nice. Haruko giggled a lot, and greg unfortunately lost his hat. But all in all, their visit was a huge success.

-Um ... a few months later, in late January, Isa and I took a long bus trip through nyc to cornell university, almost two years to the day when we all were busy finishing our tasplications and being really stressed highschoolers. Again, it was a huge sucess. Isa seemed to really enjoy himself (right Isa?), although I was a bit ill for the middle half of the four day trip. Also, I took a videocamera to document the experience. I now have the lovely faces of Linda, Keegan, Rima, Isa, Brendan, Sid, Alex, Rafie, and Patricia Catauro, a highschool friend who some of you may know, on video.

-Here in school, winter was unbearably long. I rowed crew for a while, quitting a few weeks ago because of too many injuries and not enough time. It was fun though, and very very intense. The harvard tasp crew is all here, including, but not limited to me, Nancy, Isa, CHRISTIAN STAYNER, Blaen, Miriam, Alexis, and Tina.I've gotten to meet a lot of fun and exciting people. As the weather has gotten nicer, I have spent less time doing class work, and more and more time exploring the sights and people of Boston and Cambridge.

-In a very related incident, Lina Louie recieved a note from me, written back in January, on a tasplication that I was reading and reviewing. I heard about the successful transmission through none other than Keegan Porter who...

-Visited Harvard last month, while on spring break. There was much excitement in the air, not just in my heart, but in the entire student body. Keegan had never visited Boston, so me and Miriam decided to show him around. In a tour entitiled, 'the march to the sea,' we led him from deep within the city to the shoreline. There were tremendous amounts of pillage and destruction, really quite expectedly, as we moved from Boston common, through the urban campus of emerson college, past chinatown, to the aquarium, and finally making in to the Italian northend, a charming and very safe neighborhood, where the three of us had a fine meal in a nice little italian restaurant. Thanks again keegan, not only for paying for the entire meal, but actually turing a profit in college. We salute you!

-I went to montreal last weekend. Again, i fell ill, but undetered, had a lot of fun. My sister lives there, so I visited here. She took me to a variety of her favorite restuarants and eateries, which nearly made her bankrupt. The culmination, some may even say the consumation, of the trip was an amazing concert that I attended with her and her two roomates. Quelle fete!

-Here on campus, prefrosh have arrived. Many parties to go to, and many events to visit. With that, I will hear from you soon. Waiting for the wind to pick up my lazy bones.

oh yeah:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~lesnikow