#gail mcconnell

[poem-today]

A poem by Gail McConnell

Worm

Burrowing in your allotted patch you     move through the dark, muscles contracting one by one

in every part, lengthening and shortening     the slick segmented tube of you, furrows in your wake.

Devising passages for water, air,     you plot the gaps that keep the structure from collapse.

Dead things you know. Plants and creatures both.     Your grooves shift matter, sifting as you go.

Eyeless, your appetite aerates.     Eating the world, you open it.

You ingest to differentiate.     Under the foot-stamped earth, you eat into a clot

of leaf mould, clay and mildew, and express what you can     part with, as self-possessed as when you started.

Your secretions bind the soil,     your shit enriches it. How things lie

now will be undone, will reoccur. You, a surface-level archivist     sensing all there is

can be gone through. The body borne     within its plot.

Gail McConnell

Listen to Gail McConnell read her poem.

[maartenbuser]

Van Gail McConnell verscheen vorig jaar de prachtbundel The Sun is Open: een persoonlijke zoektocht naar een overleden vader, tegen de achtergrond van The Troubles. Ik had de eer om een zestal gedichten daaruit te vertalen voor Tirade #489 en ze in te leiden.

[tomorrowusa]

Think about this, people. The U.S. Senate is going to conduct business in the middle of a pandemic that is already sweeping through the Capitol. Republicans are going to do it because they feel compelled to ram through the Supreme Court nomination of a woman whose views do not reflect most of American society’s, just days before a presidential election in which the nation can make it very clear what kind of president and Senate it prefers. Do you think it’s possible that certain Republicans don’t think that’s going to go their way?

Gail Collins at the New York Times on the GOP’s rush to confirm hard right Judge Amy Coney Barrett for a seat on the Supreme Court. 

Republicans are self-destructively begging Democrats to pack the Supreme Court next year. And by rushing the nomination through the Senate during election season they are getting Democratic voters fired up about Senate races; that is driving up estimates of how many seats the GOP will lose. 

BTW, you don’t have to be in a state with a competitive Senate race to demote Moscow Mitch McConnell to minority leader. Support the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).

[wine-porn]

Gale-Force

Foolin around in the *affordable Cab* sweepstakes today… this is 20-ish bucks and I suppose on some level it could compel. Just not me, honestly. Dark staining ruby with a minuscule pink rim, a nose far more cloying than I prefer in a Cab–even at this PP. Dreary and roasted, a candied-burnt cherry the main event, with a glycerine-y sweetness the foundation. Really no complexity or layers of…

[outsidetheknow]

President Mitch McConnell He’s in charge of everything but shooting at Iran.. via NYT Opinion

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson:

June 2, 2020 (Tuesday)

Last evening, the White House ordered Lafayette Square cleared of protesters so Trump could walk from the building to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church and back, to try to override images of him hiding in the White House bunker with pictures of him walking outside. To clear the square, National Guard units attacked the peaceful protesters there with teargas, rubber bullets, and flash-bang explosives. Once the protesters had fled, the president strode across the square to the church and back, accompanied by Attorney General William Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in battle fatigues, and various advisors.

The stunt has drawn a significant backlash. Former CIA officials called out the behavior as that of a budding dictator. Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst who is now a professor of political science, told Washington Post reporter Greg Miller, “I’ve seen this kind of violence…. This is what autocrats do. This is what happens in countries before a collapse. It really does unnerve me.”

White House officials tried to escape blame for the attack on peaceful protesters by saying that the park should have been cleared hours before. Advisor Kellyanne Conway told reporters that the president did not know how law enforcement would clear the area for him to proceed.

James N. Miller, former undersecretary of defense for policy from 2012 to 2014, accused Esper of betraying his oath of office as Miller resigned from the Defense Science Board today. “Law-abiding protesters just outside the White House were dispersed using tear gas and rubber bullets — not for the sake of safety, but to clear a path for a presidential photo op,” Miller wrote. “You then accompanied President Trump in walking from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for that photo…. You may not have been able to stop President Trump from directing this appalling use of force, but you could have chosen to oppose it. Instead, you visibly supported it.” He urged Esper to think about where he would draw the line.

Esper apparently already wishes he had drawn it further back than he did. He told a reporter, ““I didn’t know where I was going … I thought I was going to do two things: to see some damage and to talk to the troops.” Pentagon officials told reporters that neither Esper nor the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley knew they were going to be part of a photo-op, and did not intend to participate.

Notably, although former presidents try to stay out of the business of criticizing their successors, former President George W. Bush made a statement saying that he and Mrs. Bush “are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country.” He called for ending “systemic racism in our society,” and called out “the doctrine and habits of racial superiority.” Without explicitly criticizing Trump, he called for “empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice.”

Even televangelist Pat Robertson told Trump that his response to the protests “isn’t cool.”

Some Republican leaders also objected. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican Senator, said “If your question is, ‘Should you use tear gas to clear a path so the president can go have a photo op,’ the answer is no.” Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska said: “There is no right to riot, no right to destroy others’ property, and no right to throw rocks at police. But there is a fundamental — a Constitutional — right to protest, and I’m against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop."

They were lone voices. Other Republican leaders in Congress tried to pretend they were largely unaware of an event that has roiled the nation. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah said “I didn’t watch it closely enough to know.” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he “didn’t really see it.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said “I’m not going to critique other people’s performances.” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said he’d seen “conflicting reports” about what happened.

Still others cheered Trump on. When asked if he believed there was an abuse of power yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said: “By the protesters, yes.” Today McConnell blocked a resolution that would have condemned the event.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden gave his first formal public speech since the pandemic forced a halt to his campaigning in mid-March. Speaking in front of American flags at Philadelphia’s City Hall, he said “Donald Trump has turned this country into a battlefield riven by old resentments and fresh fears…. Is this who we are? Is this who we want to be? Is this what we want to pass on to our children and our grandchildren? Fear, anger, finger pointing, rather than the pursuit of happiness? Incompetence and anxiety, self-absorption, selfishness?”

"We are in a battle for the soul of this nation," Biden said. "Who we are. What we believe. And maybe most important — who we want to be."

Martha Raddatz of ABC News illustrated that question tonight in a photograph of soldiers standing on the steps of Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial.

[cppsheffield]

Centre for Poetry an Poetics Presents:

Clare Fisher and Gail Mc Connell

Clare Fisher is a prose writer and Lecturer in Creative Writing. They are the author of the novel, All the Good Things (Viking, 2017), and the short story collections, How the Light Gets In (Influx Press, 2018) and The Moon is Trending (forthcoming, Salt, 2023). Their work has been published in six territories worldwide, won a Betty Trask Award and been longlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. They have taught at Goldsmiths College and Queen Mary University London, Leeds University and Leeds Arts University. They live in Leeds. Gail McConnell is from Belfast. She is interested in the living and the dead, violence, creatureliness, queerness and the possibilities and politics of language and form. Her debut poetry book, The Sun is Open (Penned in the Margins, 2021), won the  The John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Award  and The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. She has also published Northern Irish Poetry and Theology and two poetry pamphlets: Fothermather and Fourteen. Gail has made two arts features based on her poetry for BBC Radio 4: Fothermather and The Open Box. Gail is Reader in English at Queen’s University Belfast.

The Sun is Open: http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/.../08/the-sun-is-open/Web: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/gail-mcconnellTwitter: @Gail_McConnell_Instagram: @Gail_McConnell_

[javierpenadea]

"Should We Blame Mitch McConnell or Brad Pitt?" by BY GAIL COLLINS via NYT Opinion https://ift.tt/5wODFCM

[poem-today]

A poem by Michael Longley

Sappho

for Gail McConnell

I

How much of what we scribble down survives – Sappho’s miraculous bits and pieces, Dialect words for kitchen utensils, See-through dresses, moonbeams – somebody At a busy street corner advising Where to shop for chickpeas and mascara.

II

Let blank spaces between parentheses Be annotated thus by me and you Who loiter in the margin, Sapphic souls – Silence that has lasted a thousand years Is poetry of a kind, Gail, poetry Like a brain-child impatient to be born.

III

O suburban parthenogenesis, I eavesdrop on a holy family – Sappho would have fallen for Beth and you – Two mothers, two wives, a baby boy’s Thumb-sucking bliss, glistening eyelids, Hazel-nuts safe beneath a Lesbos sky.

Michael Longley

Image: A page from Anne Carson’s If not, winter : Fragments of Sappho (Knopf, 2003).

[leanpick]

Opinion | Mitch McConnell Is Part of the Cowardly Lion Wing of the G.O.P.

Opinion | Mitch McConnell Is Part of the Cowardly Lion Wing of the G.O.P.

But back to valentines, I might send a teeny sliver of a valentine to Mitch McConnell for calling the events of Jan. 6 an “insurrection” and standing up to the insane, fascistic, demented, self-important and self-destructive censure by the Republican National Committee of G.O.P. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. I’m guessing you are not so charitably inclined …. Gail: Well, hey, hard…

[julius12345678910]

in discussing the poem the podcaster muses on how he realized lately he has been drawn to poems about material things because they make him feel grounded in the world and in his body.

Really relating to that right now, I’ve been prioritizing engagements that ground me in my body, sewing, crocheting, this poem about a worm.

[jesters-armed]

#im glad people are starting to wake up to  the fact that bill gates is just as much of an asshole as all the other billionaires

#people in the 90s knew

#people used to make fun of him like they make fun of jeff besos today

#but then he retired and got into philanthropy

#and suddenly everyone thought he was a kindly old grandpa type

#but hes still top 3 richest people in the world

#he hasn't given nearly as much away as he can and should

LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK! You’re right and you should say it - it’s not like the Gates Foundation has “donated” money to poorer countries in the past to enable them to develop/produce things for themselves. Like, just look at three of their major grants in the past years (particularly where the money went; emphasis mine):

Sweat-triggered vaccine delivery: Carlos Alberto Guzman of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Germany with Claus-Michael Lehr and Steffi Hansen of the Helmholtz-Institute for Pharmaceutical Research will develop nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst upon contact with human sweat to release vaccines.

A “seek-and-destroy” laser vaccine: Owain Millington and Gail McConnell of University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom will use existing imaging systems to identify and destroy Leishmania parasites with a targeted laser;

Treating worm infections to improve vaccine effectiveness: Susanne Nylén Spoormaker of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden will research whether treating patients for worm infections prior to vaccinations can improve the ability of the immune system to respond effectively to vaccines.

(source) where they promptly forced the institutions inventing stuff, like Oxford with the Covid-vaccine, to team up with industry (Astra Zeneca in that case), which in turn let’s them again profit from the IP.

Which is why Europeans are trying (and seem to fail) to make IP for vaccines mandatory open source with an appeal to the EU commission - please help spread the word because it’s high time “philanthropy” of that shade comes to an end.

Asked to explain why not, Gates — whose massive fortune as founder of Microsoft relies largely on intellectual property laws that turned his software innovations into tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth — said: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel — it’s only because of our grants and expertise that that can happen at all.”

[tomorrowusa]

It's true that many Americans think of McConnell as turtle-like, due to his lack of anything resembling a chin. But this is wrong on two counts. First, you shouldn’t tackle people you disagree with by making fun of their looks. Second, it gives turtles a bad name. Turtles are great for the environment and everybody likes them. They sing to their children. You are never going to see a turtle killing gun control legislation.

Columnist Gail Collins writing about Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the New York Times.

[goalhofer]

2020 Olympics Australia Roster

Archery

David Barnes (Adelaide)

Ryan Tyack (Nambour)

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Gymnastics

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Field Hockey

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Lachie Anderson (Kellyville)

Lewis Holland (Queanbeyan)

Lauren Brown (Gold Coast)

Rhiannon Byers (Pallamallawa)

Cassie Staples (Canberra)

Maddie Ashby (Sydney)

Charlotte Caslick (Brisbane)

Ellia Green (Melbourne)

Yasmin Meakes (Newcastle)

Sariah Paki (Parramatta)

Shannon Parry (Brisbane)

Evania Pelite (Brisbane)

Alicia Lucas (Wagga Wagga)

Emma Tonegato (Wollongong)

Sharni Williams (Batlow)

Lily Dick (Tugun)

Skateboarding

Keegan Palmer (Gold Coast)

Kieran Woolley (Kiama)

Shane O’Neill (Melbourne)

Poppy Olsen (Newcastle)

Hayley Wilson (Mansfield)

Softball

Tarni Stepto (Sydney)

Leah Parry (Perth)

Ellen Roberts (Westleigh)

Kaia Parnaby (Sydney)

Gabbie Plain (Sydney)

Belinda White (Adelaide)

Chelsea Forkin (Perth)

Taylah Tsitsikronis (Perth)

Clare Warwick (Hamilton)

Stacey McManus (Sydney)

Stacey Porter (Glenwood)

Rachel Lack (Sydney)

Jade Wall (Deagon)

Leigh Godfrey (Winthrop)

Michelle Cox (Belrose)

Tennis

James Duckworth (Sydney)

John Millman (Brisbane)

Max Purcell (Sydney)

Luke Saville (Cobdogla)

John Peers (Melbourne)

Ashleigh Barty (Ipswich)

Samantha Stosur (Gold Coast)

Ajla Tomljanović (Boca Raton, Florida)

Storm Sanders (Rockhampton)

Ellen Perez (Melbourne)

Triathlon

Jake Birthwhistle (Girona, Spain)

Matthew Hauser (Maryborough)

Aaron Royle (Waratah)

Ashleigh Gentle (Gold Coast)

Jaz Hedgeland (Perth)

Emma Jeffcoat (Collaroy)

Volleyball

Chris McHugh (Pambula)

Damien Schumann (Melbourne)

Mariafe Del Solar (Sydney)

Taliqua Clancy (Kingaroy)

Water Polo

Anthony Hrysanthos (Sydney)

Richie Campbell (Newcastle)

George Ford (Subiaco)

Goran Tomasevic (Sydney)

Nathan Power (Newcastle)

Lachlan Edwards (Melbourne)

A.J. Roach (Darlinghurst)

Aaron Younger (Attadale)

Andrew Ford (Perth)

Timothy Putt (Perth)

Rhys Howden (Brisbane)

Blake Edwards (Melbourne)

Joel Dennerley (Auburn)

Lea Yanitsas (Paddington)

Abby Andrews (Indooroopilly)

Keesja Gofers (Sydney)

Hannah Buckling (Sydney)

Bronte Hallingan (Sydney)

Elle Armit (Townsville)

Bronwen Knox (Brisbane)

Rowie Webster (Melbourne)

Amy Ridge (Sydney)

Zoe Arancini (Perth)

Lena Mihailović (Kirrawee)

Matilda Kearns (Sydney)

Gabi Palm (Brisbane)

[hummingzone]

Opinion | Joe Biden Is as Puzzled by the Senate as You Are

Opinion | Joe Biden Is as Puzzled by the Senate as You Are

Gail Collins: Bret, it’s been a while between conversations and although I’ve been on vacation I have noticed a lot of … stuff. Particularly the frozen Senate. Tell me, who’s your hero? Action-stopping Joe Manchin? Perpetually plotting Mitch McConnell? Let’s-all-get-along Mitt Romney? Bret Stephens: Welcome back from holiday, Gail. Years ago I won a minor journalism award on the strength of my…

[timespakistan]

Trump says he will 'never concede' as Congress set to certify Biden win US President Donald Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. — AFP/Brendan Smialowski US President Donald Trump on Wednesday launched a furious last-minute bid on the streets of Washington to reverse his election defeat, announcing “he will never concede”. In a scene unprecedented in US democracy, Trump rallied thousands of supporters outside the White House moments before Congress meets to affirm Biden’s November election victory — traditionally a formality, but one which Trump hopes will overturn the results. Trump, rambling angrily with the occasional aside lauding his four-year tenure, warned “weak” Republicans not to certify Biden’s victory and put direct pressure on Vice President Mike Pence, who will preside over the session. “We will never give up. We will never concede,” Trump told the cheering crowd, few wearing masks despite a spike in Covid cases. “I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do,” Trump said, describing the US election as less honest than those of “Third World countries.” But as Trump was still speaking and Congress opened the session, Pence — dutifully loyal to Trump over four years and quiet since the election — said he would not intervene. “The Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence said in a statement. With political tensions running at fever pitch, there was a heavy police presence in downtown Washington and many business owners, fearing clashes, have boarded up doors and windows. “I can’t say I respect our election process anymore,” said Gail Shaw, 76, who drove down from New Jersey for the rally. “We will take our nation back.” Biden won more than seven million votes more than Trump in the November 3 election and leads him 306-232 in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines elections. Trump has repeatedly alleged without no evidence that there was vote-rigging but his team has not been able to prove a single case in court. There is little chance that Trump will succeed in reversing the certification as Democrats already controlled the House of Representatives. But more than 100 Republican members of the House of Representatives and at least a dozen Republican senators have vowed to object to certification — threatening to delay the proceedings late into the night — with lawmakers from Arizona filing a first objection as the joint session of Congress got underway. New mandate for Democrats The session of Congress comes one day after voters went to the polls in Georgia and appear to have handed a pair of stunning victories to the Democratic Senate candidates over Republican incumbents. A Democratic sweep would result in a 50-50 split in the Senate with Democrats holding the tie-breaking vote in Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden is due to be sworn in on January 20 and control of the Senate would give his Democrats the levers of power in the executive branch and both chambers of Congress and allow him to push through his legislative agenda. “After the past four years, after the election, and after today’s election certification proceedings on the Hill, it´s time to turn the page,” Biden said in a statement. “The American people demand action and they want unity. I am more optimistic than I ever have been that we can deliver both,” he said. Democrat Chuck Schumer, who is poised to take over from Mitch McConnell as majority leader, said his first priority will be to pass $2,000 Covid relief checks for most Americans. Democrats and Trump has supported the amount but McConnell killed the proposal in the Senate, saying $600 payouts approved last month were sufficient. Georgia has been reliably Republican but Biden also won the state, by about 12,000 votes, and his win there is one of the victories that Trump has been contesting. Trump’s unprecedented efforts to overturn the result have included making a call to Georgia’s secretary of state in which he said he wants to “find 11,780 votes” — one more than Biden’s margin of victory. Major upset In Georgia, Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, the pastor at the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King once preached, was projected to defeat Republican Kelly Loeffler, a 50-year-old businesswoman appointed to the Senate in December 2019. Warnock, 51, who would be just the third African-American to win a Senate seat from the South, was ahead by 53,430 votes out of nearly 4.4 million cast, or more than one percent. Loeffler however refused to concede. “We’re going to make sure every vote is counted,” she told supporters. In the other Georgia race, Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old video producer, claimed victory on Wednesday over Republican David Perdue. “Georgia, thank so much for the confidence you have placed in me,” Ossoff said. “I will look forward to serving you.” Perdue, 71, who was elected to the Senate in 2014, has also refused to concede. https://timespakistan.com/trump-says-he-will-never-concede-as-congress-set-to-certify-biden-win/8785/