CONFESSION ZERO

British PM: Bush owed 'a huge debt of gratitude' Listen there are children whose breath’s been cleaved, mothers and fathers split like lumber, hatred boiling… Huge debt’s an understatement. Pope Meets with Victims of Clergy Sex Abuse Pale, dry hands of sacrament to fall upon the children, pouring harshly over and over their naked souls, unprepared to return the desire. Embassy in Baghdad Is Ready The rain now falling, comforting the beheaded grass. The monstrous structure, dwarfing all that came before, stands complete. The second hand begins to move. Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger The lyricists are going home now, receding to the unforgiving landscape. Breathless, music surrendered. Suicide Bomber Kills 50 at Iraq Funeral The music makers have returned, red-faced, staring, stunned at death’s rapid tempo, panicked, cheerless, reprised. Elderly US Ladies, age 77 and 75, Kill 2 Homeless Men for Insurance Money Had even they, at their age, not lived...

Iraq’s Free Ride may be Over Sand. Rivers. Palm trees. Iraq. The freedom ride’s come to an end. What have you been doing these last five years? When you’re occupied you do not lollygag about! You ignore the dead and dying, you tough it out and get back to work! Sand. Rivers. Palm Trees. China ‘Now Top Carbon Polluter’ Black air finally has found the ashen lungs of another's living to fill in the shadows. Wal-Mart to Film Gun Sales in Bid to Fight Crime The mammoth’s face grins over the interstate. Made of brick with a sightless gape it drains us of its plans. Retailing Chains Caught in a Wave of Bankruptcies Behind the smiling clerk’s teeth, like the noise of a rodent in a trash can, the words hide in the bottom of the mouth, "For God’s sake! Buy something!” Mass Grave Found South of Baghdad This news doesn’t really matter in the end. Fourteen bodies buried in a field won’t compute, the abacus beads were used up long ago. GOP Lawmaker Apologizes for Referring t...

Israel Declines Security Help for Carter The Fox is loose in the Barnyard and Peace comes to visit. Armed with The Nobel and the Audacity of Truth, it strides up to the Heavily Armed gate. Sadr Demands Forces be Reinstated Someone demands something in occupied Iraq, knows the price of thunder, a rocket is fired, a bomb explodes, America plunders, a child walks home from school. Hamas Cleric Predicts 'Rome Will Be Conquered by Islam' If you listen closely you’ll hear. Perch your ears upon the air. Can you hear it now? It is not a US fighter jet rescue or even the droning lips of angels. It is the maddened blow-back of madness marching on the wind. White House: Bush Concerned About Food Shortages The lack of sustenance boils and splatters. Two point one billion in 2007 was given this. Imagine what one day, one measly day out of Iraq could nourish? Nobel Laureate Refuses Olympic Torch When a dog is beaten by its master and hobbled from neglect it cowers away from the...

Clinton Accuses Rival of Elitism After Obama Says Some Voters are Bitter Stewards of prosperity narrow their eyes at our despair, a wrinkled desire for our failure folded under their brows. It is with harsh certainty that they will pawn our dreams. No. Failure’s not purchased like bread. Deadly Blast Strikes Iran Mosque And with its isolation comes human surrender hovering near the crater left by religion’s perplexity, war's clarity. Regional Leaders Urge Fast Zimbabwe Poll Result Yes. Hastily now, for her people, heirs to South Africa’s grief, her soul’s expedience. Secret Iraqi Deal Shows Problems in Arms Orders What can we learn from history? The hue of deception? The burnish of truth? Yes. Britain Warns Terror Threat is Worsening Hatred comes from fearing. Death from living. Terror comes not at all, unless something brings its giving. HUD Chief Inattentive to Crisis, Critics Say And who are they, living in that place all these years, waging war on shadows, purch...

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama, an Illinois senator, said. "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," he said. Obama under Fire after Fundraiser Remarks The car alarm wakens me from my dream. Slowly, like hot wax tracing the skin, I open my eyes to two words I cannot set free, dried before I noticed them burning- “They cling”. Film Traces Man’s Journey to Track His Family’s Roots in Slavery We know we come into this world naked. Too many are indifferent to history. Most of us just listen to others tell tales and don't grasp our connection. Even the Whales Have Their Predators: Ships O Balaena ! Your lone patches caught their e...

GE Shocks Market with Profit Drop, Shares Tumble The rumbled air pulls at the unyielding floor. It owns our unfilled pockets, hauls in lifetimes of anguish- the richness of shock and awe. American air Cancels More Flights By way of the vanishing road and rail we cross the skies as the mist of a morning river would climb a cliff ...We’ve always dreaded the sudden drop. 15-month Iraq Tours Test Soldiers and Families March along now warrior. March along. The hue of occupation strokes these burnt homes and your occasion grows shorter, smaller, weaker, 12. Chinese Anger and Terror Warnings Cloud Olympics What bruised communion of hope and dread has slinked into this beautiful world? Everyone seems blind and numb, deaf and dumb, searching frantically for peace and human kindness in a contest of nations.

China says it Foiled Terrorist Plot to Kidnap Olympians Ginkgo trees wrap their arms `round the Middle Kingdom like a great-grandfather’s bear hug, a massive grip, a balmy embrace. They’ve seen things…then the winter… Candidates Respond to Voters Economic Fears Rattled by rising debts, looking for a savior, fair queen, black knight, old man of the air to whisk away despair… A modern day folk tale. Military Strained by Suicides, Long Deployments Have we failed along the way? Are we no more than this, an arrangement of cubicles beset on all sides by wretchedness? The grand experiment’s gone awry, the bogey men we seek have our face. Two Camps Trying to Influence McCain on foreign Policy When we entrench ourselves, warriors on one side, pragmatic schemers the other and naught behind or ahead, save torture and war, where will the peacemaker stand?