Signs of the Economic Times in Belmont Shore, CA

There are signs of the Great Recession everywhere you look these days in Belmont Shore (Long Beach), Calif. During the 15 or so years I have lived on and off in Belmont Shore, I have never seen so many apartment rental, leasing and home sale signs. While walking through my neighborhood for the past five months, I have tried to capture this change through pictures. Yet amidst the numerous rental and for sale signs there are indications of hope and renewal with new bars and restaurants popping up on the Shore. Like all economic downturns -- this is painful, but also offers new opportunities.

You can check out my photo essay on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2038238&id=1371962471&ref=mf

GP

RE: Ruminations on the aftermath of Apollo 11: A Child of the Future

On the 40th year anniversary of the first Moon landing, I am still very much in awe of the Apollo 11 mission and what was accomplished.
But I am also saddened that in the ensuing years we didn't build on our Moon explorations.
It seems to me at times that we have lost our wonder and joy of exploration of worlds beyond our own. Space exploration it seems has become mundane to us or too costly.
We'd rather spend billions on weapons than space missions.

We are easily landlocked and lost in petty differences and have times turned our hearts and souls away from the promise of the universe...the stars.

I wrote this following poem about this feeling of lost mystery in our space journeys.
Seems appropriate on this historic day.

GP
--



A CHILD OF THE FUTURE

I am a child of
future shock.

I was stillborn with electronic eyes,
one of the TV lot.
Raised in suburban rot.
Never knowing quite what I've got.

I am infected with a spirit eating disease
for which it seems there is no cure.
Puzzled by an emptiness,
a boredom that haunts.

Once I dreamed along with the astronauts.
The world,
the universe seemed endless
and the possibilities limitless
like the stars.

Now, the astronauts are gone,
just memories floating in the
spaces
of my mind.

Leaving me to deal with
the shock
of a future
where it seems the stars
have dropped from the sky
and disappeared from our eyes.

It is then I realize,
I am beyond shock,
beyond tears.

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

MANAGED CARE -- 2 Poems about the sham of healthcare or Why we need healthcare reform NOW

Will President Obama and Congress have the guts to pass REAL healthcare reform with a public insurance option? I remain hopeful, but I have my doubts. So many others have tried before and failed.

Healthcare should not be a partisan issue -- it reaches all of us regardless of our political views. Disease and illness shows no favorites

Half measures and half-hearted attempts to reform healthcare will leave us with a continued broken system and escalating healthcare costs that takes us beyond the brink of moral and economic bankruptcy.

That will be NO change that we can't believe in.

A public health insurance option is the best way to force insurance companies to lower rates.
Some half-baked co-op non-profit option by the GOP won't work.

Sorry, GOP and blue dog democrats -- we need a sweeping FDR like solution to our health problem involving the government.

It is up to us to hold President Obama, the Democrats and Republicans accountable for delivering healthcare reform that makes a difference. That means a plan where everyone can receive real healthcare services regardless of their insurance or financial situation. Forty-sx million uninsured and many more underinsured in this country deserve better.

The movie "Sicko"....left me with such outrage....at our health system choking on greed while so many of us suffer....
You can't put a price on health, on life...on suffering...on healing...it so crazy..beyond words...
This movie shows healthcare in this country for the sham it is..
While in countries...that are supposed be our inferior (what a joke?!) they take care of their cititzens with no regard to cost. There is no turning back the sick, the injured...the poor...who need care...because of cost...because of greed.

In the late 1990s, I worked as publicist for a firm that specialized in healthcare PR...and now I am realize the tales we were spinning....especially in supporting huge insurance and healthcare institutions...

Why does this country -- especially the politicians -- still think it is OK to profit off people's heath and illness? It is a disgrace.

Now, is the time to truly CHANGE it. Our health and future as a country depends on it.

I wrote these poems a while back about my feelings about our so called modern healthcare system.

GP

*******************************

MANAGED CARE?

Modern medicine
is on the operating table
suffering from heart failure.

Is it too late
to resuscitate?
or has medicine sealed its fate
with rampant greed and lies?

Managed Care.
One of the most insidious phrases
in the English language.
A contradiction in terms.

Care
managed
is no care at all.

Just an excuse to steal hope from
our lives
as the value of each one of
our breaths,
our heartbeats
is measured on a
balance sheet.

Doctor,
take my temperature
my blood is boiling
and spilling over.
My heart is about to burst.

This is one cardiac arrest
you won't be able to manage.

A CHECK UP?

Doctor, I am in need of a check up,
but who checks on you?

What does M.D. really mean?
More dollars?

What does HMO stand for?
How much owed?

Does your stethoscope only hear
the sound of cash registers clanging
instead of hearts beating?

Doctor, you're backed by slick public relations machines
and riding in the back of stretch limousines.

When did the Hippocratic Oath
become only a means to greed?

When did you take a scalpel to the heart of medicine
and let it bleed....
green?

Doctor, doctor,
do you have what I need?

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

A Poem for Father's Day: My Father's Photos

Today is Father's Day and I've been thinking a lot about my father's life. One thing (among many) I've learned from him is how you have to seize your dreams.

He was a great photographer and yet never pursued it. He took the safe route as an accountant for the IRS,

In some ways I am grateful...but then I wonder...

Six and half years ago, when he was just about to get on with his life -- after years of a horrible marriage -- he was hit with an aneurysm that he has never fully recovered from. Even after all this time he is not the same man. It is like a stranger invaded his body. So in a way a large part of him has died -- his former self and personality -- but he is still alive.

I wrote this poem for him a while back to celebrate his talent and sacrifice.

GP

***

MY FATHER'S PHOTOS

My father
was an
accountant
for the
government.

Every day of his working life
he dealt with
cold
hard
figures
and
unbending
numbers.

But I believe deep in his
heart
he wanted
to be a photographer.

His love took seed
during his stint in the Navy.
He served as a photographer on an aircraft carrier
lovingly documenting
plane landings,
life at sea
and the exotic places they visited:
Japan,
Philippines,
Taiwan and
Hawaii.

Later he showed
the same care in documenting
our family's lives with thousand upon thousands
of photos.

Every step we took from the cradle,
every birthday,
every occasion,
my father was there
capturing snapshots.

The documents of our past,
the photos
now sit in boxes in
the closet of my father's den room
like forgotten artifacts
collecting dust.

The other day
I pulled one of the boxes out
and looked at the photos.
Faces of my youth
stared back at me
shot with such care and love.

I wondered why my dad shelved
our photos.
I asked him but he wouldn't say.

He's retired now
but still the photos sit untouched in the boxes.
I even bought him a photo album
but he just put it in one of the boxes.

I think the photos
remind him he put aside his true love
to crunch numbers.
They represent a picture of sadness and regrets.

His dream is languishing
piled in cardboard boxes
captured in pictures of our family's past.

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

A poem about the death of Dr. George Tiller & Religious Intolerance: Holy War?

I don't care whether you support abortion or not, but there's no justification for cowardly murder of Dr. George Tiller.

How can someone defend the rights of the unborn with murder? That shows no logic and reason.

Fortunately, abortion is still legal in this country despite an insidious domestic TERRORIST campaign that has gone on for years.

Yes, terrorism.

How can this campaign by the lunatic fringe of the anti-abortion movement be described as anything else.

If someone of Arab descent had done something like this against our government or individual officials, they would be branded as terrorists by the government and the media.

The definition of terrorism is as follows:

ter⋅ror⋅ism–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

These all fit the ongoing violent attacks on women's health physicians, nurses and clinics. The Obama Administration needs to aggressively enforce the law established during the Clinton's Administration making violent threats of intimidation, vandalism and attacks on abortion providers and clinics a felony.

Sure, anti-abortion activists can protest peacefully, but that is not what I am referring to. That kind of protest is protected under the constitution. Violent protest is not.

Yet this problem of religious intolerance is much wider than this issue.

As it is early Sunday morning or the Sabbath, I thought I'd share a poem about my disgust with the misuse of God and religion all over this precious globe we call Earth. So many commit unholy acts in the name of so called holy missions.

What can be holy about killing in the name of God? How can this ever be justified period? But using religion to justify such acts is the height of hypocrisy...and I mean ALL RELIGIONS.

I take no sides...I favor no religion.....I only take the side of the kind and the generous...and those who truly try to improve the lives of those around them..

Remember we are all in this thing together...and no one human is God...no matter how powerful we may think we are

GP

****************************************************


HOLY WAR?

In the name of God,
you
bomb abortion clinics,
shoot doctors,
murder nurses
to protect fetuses
not yet alive.

In the name of God,
you
bomb passenger trains,
down airplanes,
destroy buildings
torch villages,
toss bodies
of innocents
into ditches,
rob souls,
wage
war
after
war.

Using the God's word
like a club,
bludgeoning all your perceived foes,
vanquishing your so-called enemies.

Where's God's forgiveness and compassion in your actions?

You're killing the spirit of God
in the name of religion.

You're killing God
in the name of
smug,
twisted,
spiritual
perversion.

You're killing God
in the name of blind intolerance.

Your war is a holy war
anything but holy,
waged against everyone
except your own
deadened soul.

You're conducting
a modern day
crucifixion
of our souls and dreams
in the name of God.

What's holy about that?

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

A Poem about writing: Dream Security

Writing for me staves off despair,
spits back at death,
reconnects me with life's joys like nothing else.

As time goes on, I care less about what people think about my writing.
I have do it like breathing, like dreaming.
When I go too long without writing, I feel like something inside of me is dying...
It is my dream to obtain the writer's life, but it is never easy....
You have to listen to your own soul and follow your instincts while even those close to you (and others that pretend to be) fail to understand...

GP

***********

DREAM SECURITY

You must put a lid
on your hopes
and dreams.

Hide them away from
even those you trust
as they will try to
pry open your soul
and peer inside
with jaundiced,
bitter eyes
twisted up by
society's lies
and false expectations.

They will take out
their frustrations
and disappointments on you.
Thinly disguised rage over
having to conform
so completely
burying their secret imaginations
and hidden passions.

They won't be satisfied
until doubt creeps in
transforming your heart
also into a black pit of rage
and despair.

The only antidote to such a fate
is
wild laughter
and a strong dose of joy.

They may even think you're
a little crazy.

But what's crazier?

Chasing your dreams
or chasing an early death?

George Pappas
Copyright 2009

Cheney Please Go Away: The Demise of Fear Mongering...

Why won't Dick Cheney please go away?

I have heard enough of his twisted fear mongering to last a lifetime.

Yet night after night on TV there is Cheney -- a nightmare out of our recent past -- defending the indefensible -- torture and his administration's destructive foreign policy. He even has the gall to to brag about his sorry record of protecting our country?!!

Tell that to the victims of 9/11. Remember that was on your watch...D-I-C-K!!!

And Cheney even has the audacity to attack our current president's admirable effort to close the horror that is Gitmo. Even previous and current Defense Secretary Gates recently described Gitmo as a "taint"on America's image around the world.

Al Gore said recently he at least waited two years before attacking Bush's lame policies. Obama hasn't even been in office for six months and Cheney is already attacking him.

Funny the GOP would have called this treason if it was done to bush by Gore right after 9/11 or early in the Bush presidency. Such hypocrites

The fear card is dead, Cheney. Rejected in last two elections . . . and will be again in 2010.

Return to your bunker Cheney. You will not missed. The country has moved on.

Or as one our country's wise founders Ben Franklin said: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Here are a couple of past poems I wrote about the toxic contradiction that is Dick Cheney.

GP

***

VP OF NOTHING

Mr. Cheney, VP of nothing.
Convinced you’re cloaked and absolved from blame.
Secrecy is your life’s blood and your
ultimate game.
Weren’t prepared for all the heat and pain.
Still you hold on to your tired line
to the bitter end.

CHENEY’S BUNKER

Clinging to
an illusion of
safety
when there’s no safe
place
unless you want to
live in a bunker.

Cheney lives in
a bunker.
He has a bunker mentality.
But who would want to
live in a bunker with Cheney?

In fact, Cheney resembles
an actor who played a man
who tried to hide his family
in a bunker
in a Twilight Zone episode during
the threat of a nuclear attack.

His neighbors broke down
the bunker down in a panic
clinging to an illusion of safety
hence the downfall of a bunker
mentality.

George Pappas
Copyrigh 2009