University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa USA

Two of my favorite subjects in high school were the Latin language and Roman history. Indeed my valedictorian address at our graduation ceremony in 1931 was entitled "Pax Romana, Pax Americana." It is from this starting point I view human progress during the past two millennia.

It seems to me that the basic elements of human nature have remained the same. For example, society continues to honor honesty, integrity, loyalty, hard work, and the loving care of children, and to deplore avarice, hate, intolerance and cruelty.

Peering into the next millennium as the world's population passes the 6 billion mark is a hazardous undertaking and I do so with appropriate humility. My vision of the next century is a mixture of extrapolations of the past and hopes for the future. Here are my best efforts.

I expect the further and much more pervasive availability of electronic communication and of high-speed computers, though on the technical side there will be an inevitable leveling off as invention approaches fundamental physical limits of size, speed and capacity.

On the other hand, the efficient production of food is nowhere near global capacity and can continue to expand, aided by advances in bioengineering. Likewise in the fields of public health and the treatment of disease, it is reasonable to expect a quiet revolution with scientific advances in genetics, diagnosis, and treatment leading the way.

No such progressive revolution in mass transportation can be reasonably foreseen, because of its profligate consumption of non-renewable energy and the limits of surface roads and airways. As traditional sources of energy become more expensive and approach exhaustion, the use of wind power, solar electric power, nuclear power, biomass combustion and other renewable sources will gradually become the dominant foundation for transportation and other human demands. But the economics of such alternative sources of energy will require much greater attention to efficiency on structural as well as technical bases.

In my own area of professional activity, I expect durable public support for the scientific exploration of our solar system and the distant astronomical universe as representing human curiosity at its best, despite few expectations of utilitarian applications. But I can not join the small cadre of futurists who predict that human space travel will become commonplace.

Finally, let me venture the hope that the human species will successfully pursue the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the elimination of crime and violence and in the wise husbandry of the Earth so that it will remain a pleasant, healthful habitat for our progeny.

JAMES VAN ALLEN

His research is in the area of space physics. In 1958, he discovered the radiation belts of the Earth and has served as principal scientific investigator for 24 space missions including satellites of the Earth and the first spacecraft to Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He has received many honors for his pioneering work including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (U.K.) in 1978; the National Medal of Science (USA) 1987 and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1989.

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I was born with a cruel, lifelong intractable and profound unknown disability that robs me of speech mobility and sensible movement. It is quite enough to cope with. Sometimes it is more than I can cope with but it's something to be accepted and worked around. It's just the way I am. There is no choice but to make the most of it.

England should be a comfortable place in which to grow up - no wars, famine volcanoes nasty diseases or the sort of poverty I've seen for myself in Tanzania and Bangladesh. But is it, has it been comfortable for me? Resoundingly, no. It's been a very rough ride indeed and I enter my teenage years with a quite extraordinary array of experiences quite unlike that of my able-bodied brother.

I have much too much to say and a great deal of indignation, not to say anger and frustration, at the difficulties I have encountered over and above those connected with my disability. I have therefore prepared a hand-out with the longer-winded version of my speech, and more details still are available on my website. From this hand-out, you will see what I have felt at various pivotal points in my development - how I thought I was stupid because I needed therapy, for example, how alone I felt when I realised I had a lifelong disability, how I got the opportunity to spell and became free to communicate what I wanted to (at least some of the time), being on trial at a mainstream school, the joys of the internet, the troughs of despair when placements failed.

I have had just one year's education, ie 23 terms less education than my peers. I myself took my case to the ombudsman and after 2½ years he decided that I had been unjustly deprived of care and education for 4 years. My parents subsequently complained about another couple of years going by but he decided that it was reasonable for the LEA to have failed to provide for me and that my statement of SEN does not have to be reviewed as other children's in law have to be. We have no explanation of why this is so and no means of complaining about it. He also decided that waiting 5 years for home adaptations was not the result of any maladministration because it is reasonable for the council to be careful in how they spend public money. Thus I still have no access at home to loo, basin, bath, shower, hoist or lift.

Unsurprisingly, I have grown a great deal of bitterness and have had some deep and dire depressions necessitating the NHS funding psychotherapy for me. I cannot stop being afraid. I am afraid of the power the authorities have to deny me help that could lessen the impact of my disability. Surely they exist to help people like me? Surely I am their raison d'etre?

I haven't let it stop me. I have grasped such opportunity as "they" have provided. My LEA recognised my talents at an early age and after my year in mainstream infants' school sought a grammar school base for me when I was still just 6. They funded my writing music for 2 years and my places at the prestigious London music colleges. They set up internet facilities for me at home. But they have not built on my early success at training others in my means of communication. I have one habitual enabler, who you see here today, my mother.

Without my mother I would not have been able to achieve anything. She has ensured that professionals listen, has built good working partnerships such that I have the allies and advocates I need, and has empowered me to be as self-determining as possible. She refuses to let my disability stop me from doing things I want to do: she has designed a pack-flat portable toilet seat, built me a bed, designed welly-boot wheelchairs, board games, appropriately sized dolls' house etc etc etc. She devised interactive games, quizes and multiple choice stories to build my early literacy skills and gives huge amounts of time so that I can develop my means of self-expression.

If you'd like to take a moment or two to look at my hand-out where I rabbit on interminably about memories to do with self-expression and education, acceptance and empowerment, please do. This afternoon I will be saying more about specific instances when I have felt harmed and thwarted by bureaucracy, about the denial of my equality with able-bodied people and what I do to make my life pan out more satisfactorily. OK?

I have carved my own life outside of any classroom. I am a performed composer of classical music, a BBC Video Nation correspondent, I set up at 10 a website that includes a literary mag of experiential writing that has won a prestigious international award and has had articles contributed by inter alia George Carey, John Tavener, Helen Sharman, and Melvyn Bragg; at 12 I raised the money to travel to Tanzania and Bangladesh and on to New York to discuss poverty with Kofi Annan. There is a lot I want to do. I want to divide my life much as Albert Schweitzer did between music and more obviously useful and pragmatic endeavours. I want to help to ameliorate conditions in poor countries where basic resources are sadly lacking. It horrifies me that hard-working honest nice people can be living with electricity in their homes and access to free health services for the treatment of cholera and dysentery and without access to safe clean water. It upsets me that they want it and can't have it.

However, there seems no expectation that I should be doing anything useful at all. Not merely is time not treated as precious but I am encouraged to have low expectations not high ones.

Let's begin at the beginning. From diagnosis at 13 months through to adulthood at 18 years, I have to periodically attend my local paediatric centre. It's where the speech therapists, physios and OTs are based. It houses a couple of pre-school groups. It's where I see my consultant orthopaedic man, my general consultant paediatrician and my epilepsy and neurology consultants. There is only staff parking. The reception and waiting room are on the first floor. There is no lift. There is a sign in the hall saying no valuables should be left lying about. My mother has to leave me in the hall and go upstairs to report that we have arrived. She has to persuade them that she cannot carry me upstairs and a downstairs room must be arranged. There are no examination couches downstairs. I have to be laid on the floor to have my hole in the heart listened to and my pelvis examined. The doctor must kneel on the floor. Then I must be lifted up again without the aid of any hoist. Then my mother is asked to pick me up and hold me in her arms to take a routine weighing on ordinary bathroom scales because they cannot bring the scales downstairs that I could sit on. There is no disabled toilet in the building. Now I wonder what I learn from all of this? Are the disabled valued? Of course not, I'm a bloody nuisance to everyone. Should my mother be lifting and carrying? Yes she should. Should anyone else? No there is health & safety legislation that prevents them from being allowed to.

Health & safety legislation erodes what can be provided. My care package is dwindling as I increase in weight and likewise my opportunity to exercise. My general fitness is not a priority. Overnight my physio was cut from twice a week to twice a year. They have no mechanism for funding my continued use of a standing frame. Education want to stop paying for my workouts in the hydro pool. My parents are required to undergo their umpteenth means-testing for equipment that will allow the implementation of section 3 provision in my statement of SEN. My needs would be met free of any charge if I were less severely disabled.

On top of this, I have a care manager who will not help to ensure that I can continue to leave my house. He wrote to me that my expectations were too high because I expect a wheelchair similar to this one in which I am currently seated when this is outgrown. This was NHS funded. It allows my nappy to be changed in a disabled toilet. They have said they cannot fund such a chair again.

I feel as if they would gag me, as if they don't care what they do to me, and how I feel.

My physical care is time-consuming but is as nothing compared with the time spent trying to organise stuffs for me. I seem to be divided into a million pieces and boundaries are fiercely defended. Budgets are not for spending but for protecting. I am made to feel greedy. I am made to feel difficult. I am made to feel worthless. I am 13. My considerable achievements are not apparently valued by my community although I receive correspondence from all over the world from people who do seem to value me and exhort me to struggle on. Life is a struggle. Not merely because I don't have proper equipment, bathrooms, intellectual stimulation, the company of my peers (however one defines that), not merely because of my disability.

Life is a struggle because I am so afraid. I am afraid of my dependence on services whose attitude impedes me, hurts me, frustrates me, and upon which I am life-long dependent. Who will help me when my mum dies? Who will be my advocate? The NHS resources a clinical psychologist to help me with my fears but it's not an individual's problem really. It's not me that's mad, it's society that's unfair. And I find it sad that although I have been sufficiently cute crip often to be a human interest story in the press, I can't kick them into campaign mode single-handed. I don't really want to spend my life in politics fighting for my rights or those of others. There are other things I want to do, but if I am prevented from doing them, I have no choice but to be a political animal.

I want to feel valued even though I am disabled, even though I cost the state money. I would prefer to live in a society that is HAPPY to help the vulnerable and disadvantaged not grudgingly doing so, but I feel I MUST live in a society that is at least trying to be equitable. I hope people here agree.

HERO JOY NIGHTINGALE

I am a thirteen year old girl with a locked-in syndrome caused by a profound apraxia of all my muscles and the retention of dominant babyish reflexes. I am a wheelchair user and need complete care. I cannot make voluntary sounds and therefore cannot speak. Spelling is my greatest delight as it affords me the freedom to direct the course of my life. I crave acceptance as a really quite ordinary person, with an artistic temperament and a nice enough personality. On the whole I prefer adult company to kids', and my own company to 'most any other. I am bloody-mindedly independent and rarely acknowledge the wisdom of my mother's grey years.

I live in England, in the same town as I was born in but I love my mother's native land of Scotland even more. I also find Venice hard to eradicate from my mind, it swims like a tantalising mirage on my horizon informing my tastes and swelling my longing need to be truly me. I used to say that "I yearn to visit with people beyond Europe but have not a lot of dosh available for such sojourns". Last year I raised the money for my first big journey and changed my life immensely.

I need quiet. I hear music in my head a great deal of the time in a way I have come to accept is unusual. I was a composition student on a part-time Intermediate place at the Royal Academy of Music in London, participating alongside the undergraduate and graduate students when I was 9 years old, but they abruptly terminated my place and thrust me into a terrible depression.

Since then, I have veered more towards writing and journalism, by inventing FTW and becoming a BBC Video Nation correspondent and some other initiatives, but I also have leanings towards the visual arts. I am currently building an ambitious installation, am continuing to develop my photography, and if I could find more time, would out the visual aspects of the two autobiographical ballet scores I have completed and organise some performances of my poetry.

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My little window, at times, provides me with insights into the world around me and my role in it. Back in 1961 I was involved in a program entitled, "The Encampment for Citizenship". The purpose of the program was to demonstrate to young people that they could make a difference and that they should be part of the process to involve themselves in the world around them.

This program had a lifelong effect on me. I heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak in San Francisco while attending the program at the University of California, Berkeley, and was enormously moved. At that time the Freedom Rides were taking place in the US and groups of Black and White people were attempting to bring about the integration of public transportation.

Following Dr. King's speech I signed up to attend a non-violent workshop in the South, the bastion of segregation in my country, conducted by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Upon attending I was part of a group arrested for ordering a cup of coffee. You see, we were a racially mixed group and that was a NO-NO in that part of our country.

The outcome of the specific event is unimportant. The important aspect is that I utilized my learnings to recognize that a 18th century countryman of yours, Sir Edmund Burke, was totally correct when he said, " All that is necessary for the forces of evil to take root in the world is for enough good men ( women) to do nothing." My anger over injustice, in all areas, has never ceased. However, I have attempted to recognize that injustice is easy to fight. After all what is easier than saving mankind? It is contributing to saving the individual or solving the small problem that is difficult. Therefore, my window led me to teach a course, at one time, on Social Action. My emphasis, in teaching as well as life, is that one must be involved with his/her community. School groups such as PTA, Voter Registration, local charities, sports' groups for children, community association and what have you. All need the involvement of the general citizenry if this is to be a better place to live and grow.

CORE, ( Congress of Racial Equality ) began the "freedom rides" during the summer of 1961. They caught the imagination of the entire nation. CORE was led by a civil rights icon James Farmer. He was an African American. His assistant was a gentleman named Gordon Carey. He was white. Together these two men built an interracial organization dedicated to improving the conditions of the African American in America. At that time the obvious and open injustices were taking place in the southern states of America.

However, CORE was also educating a nation of "whites" who didn't live in the South and for the most part were unaware of what was taking place in their country. CORE ran lunch counter and restaurant integration activities. That is they would have a team of white and blacks enter an eating facility to see if they would be served. After "testing" they, CORE, would then decide if they wanted to cause an arrest by the local authorities by having an interracial group refuse to leave an establishment that wouldn't serve them. The "freedom rides" did the same thing in the area of interstate commerce by using a bus that traveled from state to state in the South. An area where blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus. Integration of public beaches was also being attempted. In St. Augustine, Florida the mother of Governor Peabody of Massachusetts, quite an elderly lady, was arrested for being in such a group. Dogs were unleashed on her group. I do not remember if that took place in the summer of 1962 or 1963. Dogs, firehoses, the unleashing of vicious citizens were the order of the day.

The dogs, the firehoses were all part of the police tactics to "break-up" non-violent demonstrations. Our view was "we will fill your jails" and use our "bodies" to obtain a just society. A romantic and possibly naive point of view. Remember, we were all young students or just out of college at the time.

The police were not present to protect anyone demonstrating from the violence of the local citizens. Most people may remember the names Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. These were one black and two white young men who were killed while working on a voter registration drive. They were arrested on a bogus traffic charge and then released so that the "killers" could follow them and carry out the killings.

While voter registration, integration in many areas of daily life and other civil rights acts of civil disobedience were taking place not all were being carried out under the CORE banner. However, it was this organization that led the way with acts of civil disobedience on a large scale that set the scene for the myriad other Civil Rights groups to follow. The key to the entire movement was the young student of the day. While there were some "older" people involved and killed it was the young people who carried the day. The end result came with the passage of federal laws, known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation as it then existed. This was also coupled with decisions of the United States Supreme Court which also declared that "equal but separate" is inherently unequal.

At the same time the Northern section of the country felt it was morally superior. After all, outright segregation did not exist in northern states. However, CORE knew that defacto segregation was an important if not more important than dejure segregation. That is segregation that exists as opposed to segregation created by law. In New York City, where I lived at the time, our CORE group tested apartment rental policies. We would send a black couple to rent an apartment. They would be followed by a white couple in order to ascertain if the apartment would be available to one group as opposed to the other. In many instance the answer was the apartment was not available to the black couple but was to the white couple.

As far as my personal life and upbringing are concerned I didn't think it exceptional in any way. My father was a postal worker who always had "black" colleagues. Some were invited to such family functions as a wedding. My mother, a typical housewife of the day, was bright and well read although not formally educated. There was never a negative racial nor ethnic slur used in my home. We were taught, as young children, that all people are equal. My dad always spoke of the "brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God". Obviously it had an effect on me.

I became a teacher, assistant principal and then a principal of an "inner city" school attended by black and Hispanics students. I also spent ten years as an adjunct faculty member of the State University of New York as an instructor of United States Labor History.

I hope this meets your expectations. At the present time they are distant memories. After all some 38+ years have passed. I feel lucky to have been part of the "solution" to a problem. While racism is still alive and well in my country I do believe we "work" at trying to face and solve our problems. Not fast enough for some and too fast for others. I have always believed that if my children were to ask me what I did at such and such a time I would have to have a valid answer for them. Unfortunately they never asked.

Keep well my young friend. Remember, you make the difference.

Love,

Bob Balogh

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House of Commons

Dear Hero,
Thanks so much for your letter inviting me to write something for your magazine.
I am so overpressed that I can't manage it so I shall have to ask you to excuse me for the moment.
I read your enclosures with care and I do hope you will be able to make some progress with your education.
Good luck!

With best wishes,

Tony

Tony Benn

TONY BENN

is a Labour politician of the old sort. HJN.

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VANITY, VANITY, NOTHING BUT VANITY

From Doctor Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes' to Orwell's 'Keeping the Aspidistra Flying', from George Gissing's 'New Grub Street' to Paul Auster's recent 'Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle Of Failure', the tribulations besetting the would-be writer have been well-charted. The lonely wrestling with the might of the English language. Shifty or condescending patrons. Discontented spouses. Rejection slips to paper several garrets and a madhouse wall. Acceptances which, once they come, never actually achieve the light of print. All are discouragements enough. Especially for a type not noted for a tough skin. And meanwhile Tom Clancy & Co rake in millions...

In this age of electronic payment and junk mail, now to the scourges above add the Vanity Press. Not that it ever refers to itself as such, seeking out, rather, the quiet corners of otherwise respectable literary supplements. 'Your Poems Considered'. 'Be a Writer'. 'New Authors. Publish your work.' 'Authors worldwide invited.' You take the advert at its word and send off your manuscript, whether five pages or five hundred...

A few days later - time being money, these organizations are nothing if not prompt - a peculiarly grandiose envelope arrives. Postmarked Cambridge, England, the left-hand corner carries a picture of the University's spires, presumably uncopyrighted. Not yet knowing the nemesis ahead, you eagerly undo the seal. There on the letter-head are three different typefaces, the same appropriated spires recurring, your Christian name. 'At certain points in a lifetime of work, it is helpful to both reflect on one's career achievement as well as look forward to the challenges ahead,' gushes typeface number one, split infinitive powerless to stop it. 'All too often we may wish to promote our respective achievements without losing a sense of natural humility...' Gush, guff, gush, your Christian name once more, a quote from Henry V. This is a prologue to the big announcement in typeface two: Here is 'your chance to be', anonymity notwithstanding, 'the proud owner of a signed and sealed Golden Scroll of Excellence'. Not only that. You can have it 'mounted on a magnificent wooden base and eminently suitable for hanging on an office or study wall to reflect your achievements to date.' Or ostentatiously suitable, revises a cautionary whisper of common sense.

'A Special Invitation from the Senior Editor,' the golden blurb spills onto another sheet. More gush and guff. Then, overleaf, 'Your Personal Reservation Form.' Now, in significantly smaller print, for the nitty-gritty: 'For only $415 the Golden Scroll is yours. Or for an equivalent fee in sterling.' - The Award is international after all. Or, should you so wish, for a de luxe version you can pay $495. No, your eyes are not playing tricks: That's debit, not credit. As if anonymity has not messed you around already, here it is pushing you up against a wall and leering. In a fit of amour propre you tear letter, envelope, form into tiny pieces. One more lesson learned, one more pitfall avoided...

Until a fortnight later another letter arrives. From the same organization or a dingy offshoot? You're not told. Only that your submission has now been 'certified as a semi-finalist' in a competition which the advert did not mention, and 'will automatically be entered into the finals'. Here the neat black print breaks into indigo italics: 'IMAGINE YOUR POEM/STORY...IN A BEAUTIFUL ANTHOLOGY!' Three paragraphs and five more flourishes of your Christian name lead to the question, 'SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW?' To add to the $495 payment requested previously, for $212 you can obtain your 'personal copy of the publication in which your artistry appears.' A few lines down, the PS, as if anticipating your misgivings, insists: 'You should be genuinely proud of your achievement.'

Vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity! Worse still is the image of someone the other end sneering all the way to the bank. This letter goes the way of the first. Compared to such nonsense, plain oblivion seems almost a blessing. Never again, you vow, attempting to rise above the situation, the waste-paper bin your witness...

Or not till next week. Into your pigeon hole drops, on the strength of that submission you're beginning to regret having ever written, 'Your Personal Invitation to acquire an Individual Award recognizing you unfailing service in World Literature.' Attached is an illustration of 'An International Testimonial of Merit', complete with your name misspelt and a passport photo of a bespectacled gray-haired lady resembling some dimly-remembered maiden aunt. 'The Board has resolved that the above portrait be included in this Testimonial as verification of the honor bestowed...Mark of distinction in this competitive world...antique bronze...fine milled paper to last generations...' More dreaming spires. Somewhere the thought, If I were more successful, this could well be a practical joke from some envious rival, flattery as insult, a gilded put-down? If...if...

Your sense of achievement - diminished already - diminishes further on reading Visa, Mastercard, Access, beside each its small blue and expectant square. Yes. The reward for acquiring 'the tasteful honors afore-mentioned' is a debit of 100 pounds and 10 pence including postage. Meanwhile in cream or beige 'The Pictorial Testimonial' is a bargain at minus 92 pounds. Here must be two of the most extortionate sheets of quarto ever. For a further fee the certificates may be 'laminated on their own wooden bases ready for hanging and so eliminating the need for framing.' Forty six more pounds will make you 'the recipient of both certificates bound in a folder of best chamois skin...' Answering that advert is taking on the dimensions of a curse that will not budge, a punishment for harboring genuine literary ambitions to begin with. As if to prevent another unwanted encore, this time you don't just tear up the dubious documentation but burn it.

'As cold water in a thirsty mouth is good news from a distant country,' says the proverb. Real news, that is. This pseudo version resembles another substance altogether, something one wouldn't wish on anyone. Not for this did you spend those midnights crouched over the word-processor, agonizing over le mot juste, the best rhyme, revising your revisions: And now you're being charged for it, urged on to pay for your own efforts. Alienation of labor is one thing, but here's an aspect of capitalism even Marx did not think of. As if a dustman would pay for emptying dustbins, a secretary accept being debited for typing letters?

Four, five more weeks pass. Then, lest you think you've been forgotten and the curse is lifted, another envelope arrives. Having escaped the lure of Golden Scrolls, being labeled with an untold myriad of others as 'International Man of the Year', you're offered a place in 'The International Who's Who of Intellectuals - in Standard Edition, Luxury Edition, or the exclusive Royal Edition.' Provided, of course, you buy a copy. The bill, to be footed by your esteemed self, has now sky-rocketed into the 500-1000 dollar range. As a sample payee/recipient there's a Professor from the Department of Industrial Automation, Waotung University.

Among a pile of other achievements, he can boast of being 'first class prize winner of the Xuzhou City audio-visual demonstration lecture match.' Finally you are requested 'to recommend the names of others you feel fit the criteria as an intellectual, and who would like to be invited to be included in the 'International Who's Who of Intellectuals.' Spaces are provided for a dozen, each plus more lines for a 'Full Address.' (Vanity is evidently infectious...) Alright, you asked for it. 'Names embossed in gold on the spine, front and back covers,' why not maybe Kim Il Sung for his services to Political Thought; Freddie and the Dreamers for their contribution to modern music; the inventor of the Credit Card for services to economics, though in the latter case the Edition would probably come free. Or, as a genuine as opposed to a bogus contender, how about Ecclesiastes? 'For what hath man of all his labour, and of his vexation of heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?' Quite. 'Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun...yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it to his portion.' Timelessly to the point. Whether as commentary or antidote, also a candidate for 'Pearls of Wisdom', or any other of the anthologies mentioned in the blurb - 'A Lasting Calm', 'Flowers of Fancy'. Or maybe not. For one thing: Ecclesiastes probably had no bank account. As further grounds for rejection, Biblical shekels wouldn't be an acceptable currency. Then, now the Temple is no more, there's the problem of an address. In which case the less timeless talent of A.N. Whoever as evidenced in an unrhyming sonnet to his pet ego will have to take preference. This is also vanity, and if not 'a great evil', certainly in the running as a minor one.

SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW? You think of some corner of the rain forest cut down to provide paper - plain or beige or cream - for all those certificates, not to mention the varnished wall-plaques, those wooden bases. Then it's back to the word processor, dispatching more poems, short stories, a never-ending novel into the void. That's what. At night, all this vanity gone to your head, you dream of tomorrow's post. One envelope has 'Save Trees' biroed across the back. Two are in your own hand-writing, the only difference from waking life being the golden ink. Predicting the rejection slips, you find a moment later your predictions come true. 'While enjoying your work, the editor regrets he cannot make use of it. You are reminded that a very dim view is taken of those who fail to include a stamped self-addressed envelope...' There's a bill from the Gas Board, from the phone company, a pamphlet about double glazing. Just one envelope left.

On fine milled paper out slides an announcement that you have just been awarded 'the Nobble Prize for Litterature.' Amazing, but for those mischievous misspellings. You turn over. Less amazingly you are invited to place your order now, before demand outstrips supply. The fee, you cannot help noticing, has jumped from a thousand dollars to more than your life's savings. Payment by Wire Transfer, Visa, Access, Master Card are, of course, accepted.

And at no extra charge, along with the prize comes an inflammable certificate...

MARTIN BENNETT

Martin Bennett taught in West Africa for several years and now works in Saudi Arabia. He has had three short stories on BBC World Service, and other work in Stand, Poetry London, Wasafiri, West Africa Magazine and elsewhere. A collection of poems - 'Loose Watches' - appeared from University of Salzburg Press in 1997.

____________________________________________

JOHN BIRKBECK

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

HOMELESS

Sometimes he

perches on

a bench on

the ped mall

mislocated and

miscast into a

place and time

not his own.

In bad weather

he looks out

from the window

of The Tobacco Bowl

remembering

the day when

he could make

time stop

and the sun

run on time.

It's not

America

anymore

he thought

wondering

where he was

and how he got

to this place.

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

ALIEN AND SEDITION

Commonplace riots

over-the-top road rage

pedestrians raging

snarling militia bands

in new camouflage

nazi dungerees

suicide bombers and

biker gangs amok

myriad mutants gather

in the heart of

gutted cities

junkpiles and jags

of plaster and brick

like after a bombing

as if a slow

and imperceptible

war had just happened

where the homeless

feel most at home.

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

IT'S CHIVALRY

... or maybe it's

just the esoterics

of whatever it is

that passes for

academic discourse

in these later

days of no Latin

no Greek no

rollick in the

original tongues

of bards who

after facing down

the Moors

had strummed of

delayed lust for

ladies a-waiting

in foggy homelands

pining high on

unassailable

balconies

far up on cold

stone battlements

yet holding the

dream aloft.

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

JOHN BIRKBECK

I was always a late bloomer. I went

through about half my life, not

realising that what I'd always thought

were dangerous imaginings, were

really poems trying to get free.

My first published poem happened

when I was in my mid-forties. Since

then, I've published three books, and

have another one in the process of

being published as I write this.

I've made my living for over thirty

years as a scientific illustrator for

James Van Allen, discoverer of the

radiation belts around the Earth that

have been named for him. Sometimes,

during a lull at work, or at lunch hour,

I'd dash off a poem or two.

I've had poems in numerous small-

press magazines in the U.S., Canada,

the UK, and France. My true ambition is

to write (and publish) short stories,

and my dream is that if I ever become

famous as a poet, this might be easier

to do!

More of John's work appears in Mag 5 and 6. HJN.

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Hi Hero,

My name is Tom, and I live in the United States, in a city named Woodhaven, in Michigan. We are near to Detroit.

I saw an article about you in Nando Times, and checked out your magazine, following all the links to your web pages. I have read some of your magazine, and have downloaded and saved to disk all of the older editions. I will be reading it carefully over the next day or so, as I have time. From what I have seen so far, you are doing a wonderful job, and I will look forward to your future successes over the coming years.

If I think of my body as the house of my soul, and my eyes as the windows through which " I " , that is to say the Eternal part of me peer out, I can say that from the Window of my Soul, I have seen many beautiful things, and much suffering as well. You suffer, trapped as you are in your body for a while, and yet you accomplish more than most, generously giving to the rest of us the beauty of your own vision....your Soul peering through the window, through your eyes. I always like to see Souls from this side of the Window, but most people don't like to reveal themselves at such a deep level.

Halloween is coming next month, so I thought I would share with youthis little poem, in the spirit of the day. It's called John the Mortician.

John the Mortician was working late

With the skill of an artist to recreate

The face of a girl a shark had ate,

Using Marilyn Monroe to illustrate.

When, suddenly, began to pour

A host of ghosts, right through the door.

All around him they did soar,

'Till one said "I am Theodore.

"And I'm the one my friends did choose

To bring you this tremendous news.

Your hesitance we won't excuse;

In fact, we won't _let_ you refuse.

"Johnny, since you've been around,

My friends out there in hallowed ground

Have seen a change that's so profound

That we just had to come around.

"Just take that famous Capuchin,

Besides the grin beneath the skin

He has one made of paraffin,

That makes one think of mortal sin.

"And then it's almost scandalous

The way you made voluptuous

And dressed in clothes diaphanous

A girl shaped like a platypus.

"We think that you deserve a prize,

And so arranged for your demise,

So _you_ can come in some disguise

And waft about the friendly skies."

But John began to wheeze and sneeze,

'Til they dispersed in the ensuing breeze.

He packed his clothes in his valise,

And moved his business overseas.

I hope you enjoy the poem. Thank you for your efforts.

tom brooks

TOM BROOKS

Dear Hero,

I am going to attempt to compose a short bio for you, so that you can use my poem, _John the Mortician_.I have looked at the bio's you have published so far, and see that some are big and fancy, while others are short and sweet. I think I will go for the latter variety, if that's ok with you. I am 51 years old, was born in Ann Arbor Michigan, which is the city where the University of Michigan is. I grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, where my family moved when I was in 2nd grade. After I graduated from High School, I joined the U.S. Marines, and spent four years as a Marine, and was a Sergeant when I was Honorably discharged. I work for Ford Motor Company, in the Quality Assurance Department, at the Woodhaven, Michigan Stamping Plant. While I have been working here, I have attended Lawrence Institute of Technology in Southfield, Michigan, and the University of Michigan, Dearborn campus. While attending U of M, I changed my major to English. I live with six cats, work, write, and use the computer. I wrote _John the Mortician_ on Holloween, for a friend (now dying of cancer, unfortunatly) who always dreamed, for some reason known only to himself and to God, of being a Mortician. I hope that is enough; you can use as much or as little of it as you like. I have to tell you, I do like your magazine, and the way you share your inside with us on the outside. You are giving to us something that most won't give.

Your new friend (hopefully)

tom brooks.

P.S. I also study Metaphysics, have tried many different religions in my search for Truth. I think of the world as One, and God as One. To me, each person, no matter their situation, is the beautiful expression of the Divine Mind. God is the Artist, the Musician, the Poet, etc., inspiring all in us. tb

___________________________________________

Some people, I am told, can remember things from their childhood as early as three or four years old; their first fall, that first special Christmas present, a vague sensation from a season of happiness, or perhaps misery. Maybe this ability to remember is a measure of an early desire to absorb life or maybe it is this which shapes our skill to be accurate and precise throughout our adult life. Maybe the recalling of early memories is triggered off more by the faded family photographs and the recounted stories from spiteful siblings. Maybe it’s best that we don’t remember too much from our early years.

But memories of growing up in my Kingdom in the clouds, are worth remembering and according to the editor of this wonderful webzine, worth recounting: The natural beauty of the Himalayan mountains which served as a backdrop to all our early childhood play, the crispness of the air at eight thousand feet, the paddy fields laid out like steps to our hilltop mission hospital. I remember the way the early morning clouds would gather in the valley below us and how I would want to run, run, run and throw myself off into the puffy candy-floss which obscured the terraces below. These things would be worth recounting. But alas, how to describe this magic when I struggle with words, as my first school report from the British Primary School of Kathmandu stated, "Stephen is following the Ladybird Key words reading scheme, he has progressed steadily and knows 166 words. His hand writing must improve " 166 words! What were these words? How many words do I now know I wonder? Enough to adequately describe the marvel of the snow-capped mountains, the early morning walks collecting wild mushrooms, or the evening sunsets which seemed to scorch the western evening sky? How can I describe in words what then I could only feel and taste, picture and sense? Perhaps I should try to share these with you using paint, paper-folding, cutting and drawing instead, for as the school report went on "he enjoys these subjects but encouragement will help him gain confidence."

Maybe the Internet is the answer to my desire to describe and share, for through this most technological of inventions I can indeed "cut and paste" and ‘paint’ my memoirs. I can capture a few snapshots which ‘draw’ my feelings of growing up in this mystical kingdom, a kingdom which extended far beyond the line of mountains which served as such an important childhood reference point.

Today If I pause long enough to catch the smell of a Landrover on a farmland path and absorb the unique musty mixture of dust and diesel which only this peculiar workhorse throws up, I can begin to remember the slow descent from our mountain in the hospital ambulance. The hard upright seats provided no cushion from the pot-holed cavernous road. Peering through the small dirty windows I would look back and ache for the home I was leaving. The mission hospital with its curved reflective aluminium roof stood out like an excavated pre-historic backbone laid bare against the green hill. How it must have appeared like a holy vision to those villagers who would carry their relatives, the lepers, the sick and dying over the mountains. Often these human ambulances would walk for days to receive the white man’s medicine. I can remember feeling proud of my father as I would wait for him to appear at the end of a long day’s surgery, his stethoscope my treasured toy. The evening meal of rice and dhal no sustenance for a man who stood for hours at the operating table or alongside the dying, yet was not this food a feast for the local porters, the cleaners and those who scratched a living from the fields?

Although I would hear later about my parents’ struggle with lack of medical supplies and indeed lack of knowledge to cure the walking wounded, all I knew then were the radiant faces of those Nepalese nurses and church workers and the happiness which flowed from our little home. My father on the pedal organ bellowing out another old Welsh hymn, the terror of his tenor voice in full unbridled swing. My mother telling us stories and tucking us up in our beds upstairs. To us our father and mother were the pillars of not only our home but, it seemed, the whole surrounding district. How strange then to be leaving this nest, this home of warmth and comfort where the World Service was the only western voice and where the greatest childhood pleasure was buffalo milk and sugar on yesterday’s left over rice.

Passing the cows, pigs and bison who shared the narrow road, the Landrover ambulance turned around the final bend and in an instant the site of the hospital was gone. Fighting back the tears I would face forward and grip the hand of my father who accompanied my sister and I to the airstrip which lay far away in the valley below.

These journeys were a harrowing occurrence and the signal to me of the start of term. For 3 months we would be apart, separated from our parents and younger brothers (who between them could inflict enough injuries to warrant a separate accident and emergency department had not our mother watched over them so closely ! ) Exchanging the idyllic mountain playground for the very strange bustle of Kathmandu and the primary school was bad enough, but the protracted goodbye and sense of abandonment which lay at the end of this journey down the mountain was torturous.

More often than not, these descents would be halted by the effects of the monsoon rain which caused great landslides which covered or ‘ate’ away the road. Sometimes the road would disappear and we would have to let the driver turn back with the Landrover and set out on foot with our father. Slowly, with child-like steps, we would set off over the landspills, river beds and mountain streams which flowed down, joining the tributaries of the great river Ganges. I can still remember the large rectangular whitewashed blocks which were perched at the side of the road and served as barriers from the crevice below. Images of buses and overburdened lorries toppling over the sides disturbed many a sleepless night. I was never sure whether the occasional flowers which daubed these white blocks were an offering to the gods for a holy cow which had fallen or whether there had indeed been a tragedy of man and machine. That the tomb-like blocks ever provided any barrier from the thousand feet drop below was questionable, but they did serve as a useful resting stop for the coolies who would eventually take over from my father and carry us and our luggage in their cone-shaped back packs. These silent graceful men looked dwarfed by their precious cargo, balancing their burdens using only a strap over their foreheads. Like mountain goats they plodded bare-foot over the stones and across the gorges, carrying us down till at last we arrived at the foot of the hills and the little airstrip. A runway is too grand a description for a piece of land which doubled up as the local feeding ground for the sheep, cattle and straggly goats.

And then the tears and tug of war would begin. A mixture of exhilaration for surviving what felt like a real Pilgrim’s progress (in reality no more than a day’s walk), and the sense of the impending separation would be too much for me. As we begun to say our goodbyes the little man became a big child again and wanted to be cradled and taken home back up the mountain. I knew what the "its time to go now" and the "of course we love you" meant. I knew the clinging would have to stop. I would have to be brave and follow my sister onto the little twin engine plane.

The site of two small fair-haired children boarding the Royal Nepalese Airline brought benevolent sympathy from the airline staff who would now be our guardians. The only consolation from these flights was the VIP treatment of being able to go up to the cockpit and watch the splendour of the mountain ranges and the tiny path we had had to navigate. I remember the two red triangles which formed the Nepalese flag on the tail wing (why was it that Nepal had a flag which was so different from any other country I would wonder?) The sick bags and the primitive safety belts which strapped us into our seats for the rocky take off; the taste of boiled sweets, the sympathy and countless smiles from airline stewardesses. It was as if all my senses were shaken up together in the giant cocktail shaker of the metal fuselage. After picking up hippies from Pokhara, we would be poured out on the tarmac runway in Kathmandu which, to my inexperienced senses, looked and smelt like the capital city of the world !

From the airline hostesses the ‘baton’ of care was passed on to my sister. Mary who was older by 2 years would now become my companion and security. After all, at 8 years old she was already accustomed to the boarding school hostel and the 14 other ex-pat kids who shared the dormitories and classrooms. The fact that I can’t now picture the faces of our fellow borders or remember any of their names says much about this period. What I can remember now as I write this 30 years later, is the "splutter splutter" sound that came from the wobbly engine of the Volkswagen camper van which took us from the airport and into the heart of the city. Past the temples and under the massive gates, cocooned from the outside alien world by the security of this little split-screen van which looked and sped like a bullet. Already the tears were drying and my father’s hand had been replaced by my sister’s. I was captivated by the metal dashboard, the radio - which to me seemed so modern, so European (wherever Europe was? ). From behind the little rectangular windows I would look out at the crowds, the cows the rickshaws and the elephants all of whom shared the road in seeming harmony.

What is time and distance to a 6 year old ? All I knew was that we would return. One day we would see our father again waiting for us at the tiny little airstrip. With smiles and unshaven kisses he would take us home. We would walk and ride up, up, up into the mountains. Telling us stories of people from far-off lands and teaching us songs of hope and refuge. He would be there to take us home back , - up to our kingdom in the clouds.

As I look back I realise the heartache which my parents felt at being separated from their young offspring was different, but no less painful than it was for us. We knew my father had to return to the mission, to his other sons and our mother and perhaps most of all to the patients who needed his skills. Although I must have felt a very real sense of abandonment at these dramatic goodbyes and 3 monthly absences, I always had my sister and must also have been conscious of a deep love and underlying security. What effect these seeming contradictions had on me I cannot say. Perhaps the great love which I felt from both my father and mother was derived from their care and passion for the poor and their "higher calling". As a young parent now, I marvel at the choices they made, but also at their courage, their seeming unshakeable faith and single-mindedness. To be able to have the discipline to be consistent, to be able to continually balance the complex, frequently changing priorities of child care and wider compassion - was this a natural gift or a vestige from an earlier austere generation I will have to ask my guardian angel one day.

__________________________________________

"What Do You Do?"

A friend of mine, a writer who is half-Portuguese, maintains that the question the English always ask of a new acquaintance is "What do you do?"

He considers it a terrifying question, with that accusatory emphasis on thefinal word, and it is certainly daunting if one lacks a ready answer.

Sometimes, it can sound more like the question, "Who are you?" with the implication lurking in the background that "Do you exist, or are you just a nonentity?" is the real question.

The other month, as it happens, a quintessentially English Cambridge postgraduate asked it of me at the Festival Hall. Fortunately, if you confine yourself to the job you do, if you have one, it is easy to give a superficial reply. So I told him about working for a small charity, and about my interest in writing.

The questioner is always uncertain of how he or she will respond; they are waiting to find out how interesting you actually are, and whether you are worth knowing. I imagine you are reading this in a similar frame of mind.

So what is it that I "do," really? I am a collector of impressions, but for this sort of collecting you don't need money. You must simply continue to exist. As a boy, I wanted to play alone with my toys; what I "do" now is to float through the streets, an observer, an outsider: it is certainly a way of making time pass. It feels as though things follow one after another, and I experience them completely, every one. A walk on an ordinary afternoon becomes a succession of vivid moments, and I believe I can even recover them in my memories. But, of course, the truth is different. It isn't like that at all, only pieces remain, like thumbnail sketches, partial, incomplete, skewed in their emphasis. It is not even true that you can ever experience the world in a complete way; we think of that as divine or superhuman. It is enough that it sometimes seems to us that we are totally connected to the world. The real wish is to make a new world out of these impressions, a creation that can be experienced by others, but in the first place just existing as a completed whole.

The images of city streets are what my imagination builds with; the way the light falls upon the buildings, and on the pavement. Hence the interest in small details of appearances, which become like fragments of memory because they are attached to imagined events. I see the steps down to a basement and imagine someone tumbling down them, half-running, half-falling; a large, fat man hurrying down to meet his friends, is he, or someone abruptly stricken by illness? Moon-eyed, I stare at the sunlight on a wall, or two scooters, parked side-by- side, their number plates the same shape, yet somehow different.

This seems like the renewal of an experience as one writes it down, but is it truly so? In the moment of writing, there is always at least a small gap between event and word, and frequently a great deal of time has passed. The experience has continued in the mind meanwhile, but changed and often remade.

But that doesn't mean one gives up trying. Once I tried to capture these moments on film; I became a collector of my own photographs. I was living in Hampstead then, and for a period I used to spend hours in the streets there, and on the Heath, snapping at anything that struck me. Just a few of these images were worth the effort, but generally I find having a camera creates a barrier between me and the experience. I am not usually so literal-minded, and perhaps the images only served as a reminder to me of my state of mind, and could not have communicated their secrets to others.

Their expressiveness came from the thoughts and feelings I linked them with; my photographs, at least, were not expressive works in themselves. Instead, I constantly seek an internal "fixing" of the impression, and the greatest possible definition of what it is I am seeing.

I shall try to go back almost as far as I can, to see what can be recovered- some of this is certainly fact, but I cannot always vouch for every detail of it. When I see a photograph of myself as a small boy, I can't become once more the child in the picture. I don't really know what I was thinking at that precise moment- how could I? I have to distrust my remembrance of these states of mind. These memories concern the period between my infancy in London and the permanent return there just before my teens. My recollections of life at this time are the first that have any shape- before that, I just have random images, some of them equally vivid, but impossible to compose into a narrative. I have referred to some photographs and other evidence, but in places I can confirm these from my own memories. I could almost draw a plan of the place- I have the guidelines in my head. To call memory so very unreliable is to take too gloomy a view; it is just that not all of it is my memory- some things I know only because I have been told about them later.

I was not yet 6 when we came to live at Bernard Shaw's house, Shaw's Corner, which is at Ayot St. Lawrence in Hertfordshire. My parents were the first National Trust custodians of the place, and my father managed to obtain some publicity, so that he still has photos and articles about it-some facts are recoverable. For example, there is a picture of two small boys (my brother Tim and myself) "helping" my father dust the books in the study.

One of the photos shows us smiling over the gates of Shaw's Corner, with my mother looking like a film star. Or we are seen next to the vanished bronze statues of Joan of Arc and of a lamb (they were later stolen, and doubtless melted down). Another confirmable fact is that my brother and I used to show people round the garden after my parents had shown them the house, and this little piece of enterprise was written up in the local paper. This garden featured the bronze statues I have mentioned and the hut Shaw used for his writing. In a less public-spirited moment, we also tried to set up a roadblock, made from bricks, outside the house, but fortunately this was not a great success. I remember seeing a dead rat in the kitchen garden, and the memory of how the orchard looked often comes back to me, as though it were a setting or backdrop. In that orchard, the aged Shaw had the fall which killed him. I believe he was pruning the trees. Sometimes, the pheasants stalked across the grass- I thought of them as peacocks, and in a way that delusion persists, a stubborn revision of my experience, as though the traces of former ignorance have still not been worn away. We visited a local dignitary, Lady Hart-Dyke, and saw her silk farm. I was worried by the huge silk moths, (which lived in large, rather dark cages) since I have always been afraid of insects and thought they might escape and fly around me.

There was a steep little valley in the garden, below the statue of St. Joan, with a path on the further edge, beside the flower-bed in the centre. It forms another of those pictures that recur, a sort of background, partly from memory, partly imagined, that come into the mind when reading. Many of the visitors to Shaw's Corner were from the Soviet Union, and there is a photograph of some very Russian figures all looking at the small wooden building in the garden. Years later, when I was a teenager, we performed "Saint Joan" at school, but I have never had any talent for acting. I did, however, write an additional Act for "Androcles and the Lion," in which the hero and his new friend return to his home town.

Shaw was very famous then, since he had only just died. The area was still quite rural, and one was surrounded by animals. I have seen a photo of myself rather timidly patting the head of a foxhound at the meet- but I have no memory of that incident. Above the garden valley, a lawn ended in a steep slope (another boy once rolled me down it) which led up to the verandah at the back of the house. The kitchen garden would have been on the left, looking at the house from the rear, with the orchard beyond. The door from the kitchen was on that side of the house, but on the other, something about my memory of the arrangements reminds me of scenes from a Jane Austen novel- it seems an appropriate setting, but I cannot recall it accurately enough to say why.

Later on, I was ill and spent several months in bed: I can remember watching the mice scurry backwards and forwards on the landing outside, back and forth under a chair in the night- I suppose it was then that I began the habits of insomnia which have persisted ever since. My second brother was born at this time.

This was a country interlude in my life. After Shaw's Corner, we lived in Sanderstead, near Croydon. One day I sat on the back doorstep, looking up at the towering white clouds, and worked out how old I would be in the year 2000. Now we are almost there.

MARK CASSERLEY

I was born in London in 1951, and educated at University College School and the Universities of East Anglia and Sussex, where I studied English Literature. I have been a writer in thought, if not always in deed, since my schooldays. My gestures in the direction of a career, or at least earning a living, include periods working for the Richmond Fellowship (a mental health charity) and the ILEA, and as a free-lance literary journalist, writer and researcher. My recent working life has shown much greater commitment, however. I have been with the National Association for the Education of Sick Children (a small charity) since its inception in 1993. I first joined as a volunteer and helped to set up the organisation, and am currently Press and Publications Manager.

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From: Art and Joni Cox

Subject: (Ya'll come back now, ya hear)

Date: Sunday, 19 September 1999 12:00pm

good mornin from Beverly, West Virginnie, USA. Yes, I guess that do make me the Beverly Hillbillie, Cain't help that. Picture me as Jed Clampett.

Do your friends call you Hero, or Joy or Nightingirl? I am a poet, a mechanic, a calligrapher and a grandfather. I am also disabled. Deaf, or dang near it. (I picked the wrong parents, so type loud if you reply) Enjoyed your magazine, and will bookmark it. Maybe put a Post-it note between the pages. Can I submit a poem or two? That will the first one you have from a genuine hillbillie.

Coffee is a-callin, Nightingirl. And I got to go feed the livestock. Ya'll come bach now, ya hear!

Art Cox

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: Set a spell, Kick your shoes off

> Date: Sunday, 26 September 1999 10:32am

>

Ho,

I be gittin' ready to go see the grandkids wif my wife, Jonetta-Marie, here in a little bit. Ummmmm, doggies, but they is a-growin like weeds. Ages 9,8 and 6.

That'll be a trip of about 3 hours in the ol car. H'aint near as bad as befo the built that there new-fangled highway. Still we has ta watch out for suicidal deer. Them depressed deer will jest jump out in front of the ol car and make an awful mess of themselves. Don't do the radiator no good neither. Now there are a lot of deer what ain't set on killin theyselves, so I don't want you to think that I am prejudiced agin all of them. But they is a few what ain't a-thinkin straight. Maybe they's been drinkin a little too much, maybe smokin them there funny cigaretts.....

For what ever reason, there has been a whole bunch of depressed wildlife around these parts lately. Ain't been a lot of work for them to do. And when a racoon or a squirell ain't got nothin to occupy his mind, they bound to fall in with some bad company.

We took our male cat and set him to chasin some mouses under the house. It is a gettin cold out there since winter is a-comin, and them mouses is a-lookin for some warm place to keep their feet. The wife ain't partial to mouses settin up housekeepin in around the wood stove. ( I used to have this here pet black snake I kept in the house before I got hitched up to Jonetta-Marie, but she ain't partial to havin no snakes in the house neither). You got a cat?

Gonna get me some coffee to take the foggyness out of my head, Nightingirl, and then get to doin my chores before we leave. Give my regards to the family. I gonna send you a song I done did a while ago. It is about a guy who is a-havin some trouble with his woman. Here in the U S of A, we has to send our hard earned money to the IRS at taxtime. You'll have to know that as it mightn't not to make no sense to you otherwise.

For you, a country love song, from Art

>

> > "Oversalted Frenchfries" Art Cox 1997 ( a country, blues song)

> >

> > My baby called the I.R.S.

> > Said my returns were all lies.

> > She put poison in my meatloaf,

> > Oversalted my frenchfries.

> >

> > Then she emptied out my bank account,

> > Ran my credit cards to the sky,

> > Hit me with a frying pan,

> > And blackened both my eyes.

> >

> > She called a 900 pervert number

> > And left my phone off of the hook.

> > She burned down my old trailer

> > And gave me a dirty look.

> >

> > My baby up and left me,

> > Run off with my best friend.

> > They drove off in my pickup truck

> > Shot my dog and then

> >

> > Baby packed her bags and left me

> > Had me committed, this is true.

> > So if you see my baby, ask her:

> > "Does this mean we're through"?

> >

> > My baby called the I.R.S.

> > Said my returns were all lies.

> > She put poison in my meatloaf,

> > Oversalted my frenchfries.

>

>

So there you have it, Nightingirl. My next million seller. Jonetta-Marie says I shouldn't give up my day job whilst I wait for the record companies to call. Ya'll come back now, the coffee's hot and the buscuits is in the oven

Art and Jonetta-Marie

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: The bisquits is in the oven

> Date: Tuesday, 5 October 1999 12:03am

Sure enuff, Nightingirl, you can publish my little ditty in that there electronic magazine of your'n. Can I git several copies for my maw? She be right pleased to hear her son is being read about in someone's magazine. I might jest have to find me a bigger hat too.

My annaversary is tomorrow. Me and Jonetta-Marie has been married 3 years, and I got to go buy her somethin special. Maybe a new set of shovels for the garden, or her own screwdrivers. That would be nice, don't ya think? Say 'Howdy' to your maw for me, and if'n she wants to to drop me a line, I'll be here.

By now Ho, and I'll try to see if'n I cain't come up with another thingy for your magazine.

Art

----------

> From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: We'll put on some fresh coffee

> Date: Thursday, 7 October 1999 1:29pm

>

Good mornin', Nightingirl ( and Mama Nightingirl)

Hope that you are having a good day. Jonetta-Marie and I went out for coffee this mornin, and she is gonna have her hair done up real pretty at the beauty parlor. I am inclined to think she looks jest fine the way she is, so when I chases her around the kitchen table she don't say "Now don't you be a-messin up my hair".

She and I had been talking about how garbage and litter gets to be along the side of the road, and now the newspaper had this front page article on trash. I just couldn't resist pulling out this piece I wrote several years ago. Thought you and your maw might like it.

''Trash'' by Art Cox 1996

Trash. If you ask a hundred people if they put it there, you will get the answer "Not me". That is significant!!! One hundred percent testifying that it wasn't them. To the question "Are you lying"? the answer "No" will come back to you. Think about that: 100 % of the people do not litter. 100 % of the people are honest.

This leaves us with a dilemma. The garbage and trash gets there BUT NO ONE PUTS IT THERE !!! So, having a tangible substance but no explanation for it's existence, we need to come up with a theory or theories to explain it's presence.

The first theory presented was that God had made it. But when compared with the rest of His creation, the trash was not the same quality of workmanship. So we threw out that theory.

The next theory proposed was that it evolved. This theory allows for some of the observed facts. Being in a state of development would account for it being in an unusable condition at the present time. The beer cans would eventually fill up with beer and then cap themselves. Old typewriters would presumably develop into word processors or possibly computers. And of course the refrigerators would spontaneously sprout wheels and become Ramblers, that utterly shapeless car from the 1960's.

The evolution theory is not to be quickly dismissed due to the argument

of "When will it become usable"? We can simply say that not enough time has passed to see the transformation. Then to stifle any other criticism, we can throw in a line about "only the ignorant would dare to question such a well proved, widely accepted theory".

Third theory has to do with the military and U.S. Top Secret Pentagon activities. The military has been undergoing some cuts in their budget. Therefore in an effort to keep the men in a state of readiness, secret flights have occurred in the wee hours of the morning. Dummy bombs would have been too expensive to drop. At a cost of only $15,000 each, old Pentagon bathroom fixtures were dropped.["Top Secret" classification prevents me from revealing exactly what fixtures were dropped. But if you let your imagination run wild......] Swat teams brought in trucks late at night and set up communication centers designed to resemble old sofas and broken tv sets. Bags of trash [actually biological weapons] were positioned in strategic locations for future use. "Fetid Odor Number 3" was released over the area to keep curious eyes from prying into what could be an embarrassment should any of this clandestine activity leak out.

The forth speculation presented is a difficult one to either prove of disprove. It maintains that since no one ever sees the litter being put along the roads, it must be that it is being placed there by highly intelligent life forms [Not politicians. They don't qualify]. These life forms could vary from place to place. Here in West Virginia, it could be Whitetail deer. Since deer are out late at night and early in the morning, they might be returning from disposing of their waste products. I personally could not dismiss this because of never having seen a deer buying a sixpack of "Budweiser". I do all my shopping in the afternoon and deer don't do any shopping then. Perhaps if there are any concerned cashiers out there who could shed some light on the subject. We would guarantee anonymity. Or a hunter who stumbled on a group of drunk deer polishing off a Domino's pizza?

Well. There you have a few of the possibilities. We didn't have time to develop the "Alien-attempts-at-turning the-earth-into-a-garbage-planet" one, or the one that says that it is a Communist plot. We were only concerned with real possibilities, and figured that the tabloids would cover these on a "slow news" day.

I have to do some reading of some material I have to review down at the Kingdom Hall tonight, Ho, so I best be getting on that soon.

Ya'll have a great day

Art and Jonetta-Marie

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: From West Virginnie, USA

> Date: Sunday, 24 October 1999 12:13am

Dear Ho,

I have spent a gooddeal of time reading your experience in Africa, and I must admit that it has not been easy coming up with a responce. You see, my friend, it is so much easier to be silly than to be serious. How do I answer questions about if it is acceptable for you and I to have clean drinking water and a bed, when geography has deprived others of these necessities. The truth of the matter is that I wish there were an quick and easy answer.

I was born in 1949, shortly after the big one, World War 2. It was supposed to save the world from dictators. All the great minds of the day sat down and signed their names to paper so as to avoid war in the future. Fifty-four years have passed, and we still have dictators, still have war. So my generation protested, marched and screamed for peace. Some even died for that cause in the 60's. But, if we stopped one war, others came up to take it's place. Are we going to see the rulers come to their senses, and put that effort into water and beds? How I wish that would happen, my friend. You see, when you get to be 50, you have seen greed turn people's minds repeatedly. A craving for power doesn't worry about children. They are expendable. (I won't get into commercial greed here. That is another subject)

However my outlook isn't all that jaded. I do believe that deep inside of all of us is a desire to allievate the suffering of others. Do what you can through your contacts with others, but realize that you will make a small dent in the problem. My solution isn't global in scope, but I have found it works. I have volunteered my time teaching children at the local children's home (and other places) to control their anger. Did some work at a prison too.

In the early 60's, the injustices I saw turned me into an angry young man. Were it not for the efforts of someone who took time to teach me to control my anger, I am sure I would have found myself in jail. What I needed to realize was that mankind is incapable of solving his problems. He lacks the ability, the knowledge, and he is hampered by greed. So the solution has to come from a higher sourse. ( I am not talking about religion in general here. That is the sourse of so many of the conflicts)

What I am talking about is surrendering of the individual's free will to the benefit of the group. This isn't communism either, because that was a 90 year experiment that went bust. ( OOPs! We ruined your lives, your soil, your economy. We are so very sorry, Bye--)

Are you curious? Care to know more? Or shall I save my two index fingers, the only ones that know how to type ? Might be easier to send you a video tape of me. Then you can re-wind me, or dub Donald Duck's voice over mine when you get done watching it. That would be an improvement over my normal voice. But that would mean I need your 'snail-mail' address (, and will a videotape made in America work on your machine? I have never thought about that before. Hmmmmm. )

So there you have my serious side. Your illness has opened your mind to things another 13 year old would never think about. I expect that most other 13 year olds are boring to you. Is that an accurate assumption? But, since you are 13 in body, not mind, do you mind if I treat you like an adult? It is hard to put on my bibbed overalls, and my country accent when you have seen me serious.

Goodnight, Nightingirl

Art

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1st Dec 99

Brett saw lots of action yesterday at the WTO conference...not much sleep...got off at 2 am and back at 6 am this morning. Clinton arrived last night. He personally took down 6 protesters...2 did not get up very easy...he used a lot of pepper spray and tear gas...wore his mask all day. He is full of red marks from carrying all the gear and wearing his mask( his girlfriend says)...they had knives thrown at them and anything else you can imagine. No injury to any police. The riot squad is really suited up, as you can see on TV....

They are concerned about a propane truck and dynamite that was stolen in weeks past....some of the protesters are calling "bring on the truck"....would take out a city block if it holds true...so they are watching out for this truck. The police are out numbered like you would not believe. Brett says the force is probably more like 500 for the Seattle/King County force... yesterday's count was not enough...But they held their line yesterday...but could not cover all that was needed. So they brought in the National Guard and State Police. Brett's girlfriend saw some action yesterday. Was called down for a while. She was not suited up...she worked on the back lines away from the conference center with other matters.

Brett was at the WTO meeting site all day yesterday. King County Sheriff's dept. are the ones in all black....Brett was on TV for a lot of the day, he says....and we all probably saw him, but could not tell for all the gear....(he was the tall, handsome one with the powerful punch...ha ha ha) They were recording for TV when Brett and the others had the confrontation with the protesters he took down.

All officers were given 100 sets of plastic tie hand cuffs today...they will be arresting a lot.

Brett sounds very tired. Had no water or food yesterday and today went more prepared with water....but not much room for anything else. Guess you have to pee your pants....he did not say that....but?

Brett seems to be having a good time with all the action. That might sound strange, but Brett likes action and is very dedicated to the police Dept. and anyone that breaks the law, he wants to deal with them.

Most of the people are peaceful....they are small groups that are looting and spraying things on buildings, and breaking into places. Looks like a bunch of hippies....most of them probably can't spell WTO....the troublemakers, Brett feels, are just radical kids that need something to do....and are using this as an excuse to cause problems. There are a lot that are so defiant of the police... Brett enjoys giving them a lesson....

Today they are blocking off most streets to protesters...so there will be lots of arrests and confrontations. I will be glad when it is over on Saturday.... they are all on mandatory 12 hour shifts, which are turning into longer.... he gets no extra pay....just overtime over 8 hrs. I would think they would pay them more...

I asked Brett if he would be getting recognition, as well as the rest of the officers, for volunteering..only 100 King County volunteered...he says 'MOM, I'M NOT DOING IT FOR THAT".....ha ha ha sorry son....ha ha ha I was just asking!

Well, you are all up to date. I am sure I will hear more when we have the chance to talk again. He was sweet to call and let us know he was ok...He is in the front line of the riot squad cause of his size....so, keep watching for a tall guy ....

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Dear Hero,

Thanks for your letter. Congratulations on what you're doing. You ask me to let you have a "long & detailed article". So I'm enclosing a book I wrote (ie : a long & detailed article).

Hope you like it.

Very best wishes

Ran Fiennes

RANNULPH FIENNES

has walked across Antarctica in a feat of remarkable endurance I closely identify with because it was unnecessary but had to be done. HJN.

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Dear Hero,

It was great to meet you at the Scope Annual Conference and I particularly enjoyed sharing experiences of our visits to Africa. I was thrilled when you asked me to write about my visit to Ghana for From the World, as it is not often that I am given the opportunity to write from my own personal experience. I hope that we both get a chance to revisit Africa one day!

All the best!

Helen

I have a confession. I am scared of the unknown, worried to let go of my normal safeguards and put myself into new and unknown situations.

In theory, it should be a lot easier for me to face the unknown than it is for you, as I don’t need the support of other people to meet my primary needs of communication and movement. In the last edition of Windows on the World, you described how you achieved your dreams and reshaped your mind by new experiences. You have inspired me and I will continue to grab scary unknown opportunities.

Reading about your experiences in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Australia and New York bought back to me some wonderful memories of my experiences in Ghana last summer. It reminded me that once placed in new situations, I invariably find that I don’t need a safety net and that wherever I go, I meet people who are just like you and me, people I can trust and enjoy.

I travelled to Ghana to co-ordinate publicity for a new children’s book, ‘Wake Up World’, published by Oxfam. I had never been to Africa before and didn’t know what to expect when I set off for a rural village in Zuo, Northern Ghana, to meet Anusibuno, a young girl featured in the book. I comforted myself with the thought that I was prepared for the poverty that I would face as I had worked with Oxfam for three years. And I was with experienced travellers and journalists, including Tony Robinson who has spent much time in the developing world through previous work with Oxfam and Comic relief. But I think we all had some of our perceptions challenged and had our minds re-shaped by the people we met.

Like you, the face of poverty was bought home to me. Ghana is considered relatively well off compared to many other countries in Africa. But its export driven economic policy has had a devastating effect on the lives of the poorest people. Recent drought has severely affected farmers in the north, as have deforestation, overgrazing and soil erosion. Like Florianna, who you met in Moshi, many people we met could not imagine having a tap of their own or afford to send all their children through primary and secondary education.

Suddenly, poverty was no longer about statistics for me but about real people having to make unacceptable sacrifices. The real face of poverty is not reflected by the passive images often seen on television of people desperate for aid. Poverty is about continual struggle and no one we met wanted to accept their situation; they wanted control over their lives.

Anusibuno’s parents were determined that she and her sisters would have a full education but on hearing the costs involved, it was difficult to see how they would be able to afford it. But I believed them; their determination was so strong, that they would make as many sacrifices as they could to ensure their children could read and write.

However, all this is not to say that the people we met live in misery in their poverty. The village shared tremendous pride in all that they had, especially the fact the local co-operative had just recruited a female secretary for the first time. A woman in the village could read and write as well as a man, and not only was the woman showered with respect but the whole village enjoyed self-respect for this achievement.

At the end of our stay, I felt incredibly humbled when presented with a basket of eggs to thank us for our visit. I knew the value of the eggs to the village, and struggled to find a way to accept the gift graciously and then return it without causing offence. The only way to do this was to explain that they would not last the journey but that we were honoured by the gesture.

But really, it was us that had to thank the villagers for our stay, not them us. In the few days I spent in Zuo, I danced, sang and laughed more than I have for years. I found it difficult to loose my English inhibitions as I wasn’t used to spontaneous dance but the laughter at the difficulties I had in finding the rhythm were warm, and suddenly I relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

In the playground of the school, I rediscovered games that I had played as a child and joined in with the skipping. When the words of the rhyme were translated, I realised I had played the same game myself during playtime at school. I sang out my name in time to the movement of the rope, which I have to admit was easier for me as my name was considerably shorter than that of a lot of the children.

The purpose of Wake Up World is to show children in the UK how much they share with other children around the world and that at heart people are driven by the same needs and desires. The book compares and contrasts the lives of eight children around the world, from the rain forests of Brazil to the frozen wastes of Siberia; from the traditional African rural village to the Californian Boulevard. The differences between the children’s lives are striking but I think it would take the wisdom of Solomon to be able to make a judgement over whose childhood is the happiest. I would be hard pushed to say that my youth involved as much dancing, singing and laughed as what I witnessed in Ghana and I wouldn’t dare to make a comparative judgement over the joys of our childhood.

However, growing up like you in safe and affluent southern England environment has meant that neither I nor my parents have had to worry about where the next meal is coming from, or how to get hold of clean and safe water. I am particularly lucky in that I have had a good education and been given every opportunity to control my life. If the West stops exploiting developing countries with crippling debt repayments and protectionist economic policies, the people we met may have a chance to control their lives too. They have the will and determination and are not asking for handouts just for control to access the standards of living that we enjoy. As you say, this should be the target for the new millennium and we all need to take responsibility to ensure equality is guaranteed for all people, wherever they live around the world.

HELEN HONOUR

Helen Honour worked in Oxfam's Press Office before joining Scope as Press and Public Relations Officer.

___________________________________________

BIOGRAPHY OF THE SOUL

Near Debrecen horsemen pasture stallions on the remaining pusta

as did their fathers who are giant memory; they wear hat and boots

(as if the village streets were mud) as had their fathers worn.

This vast plain of nothing much but grass and seldom tree was Eden

once.

In Sopron there stands a church in which my mother's blood and mine

still sits in prayer and counts the beads to bring some peace to family

unseen. Broadcast continuance, such is the conquest history has won.

Each in its place unswerved by change can measure what is man--

neither rebel, fool, nor Hun, but man as common trance; genetic

farmer at his fields, the millwright at his flour, commoners as all were

once.

Such is the victory over time that women in communities keep pace.

Such is the victory of time, the changing vista 'round unchanging grace:

In Budapest the Turkish baths are full and, afterward,

there's cafe Viennese and Linzer torte. These things,

more than citizen or mother tongue, denote a dream

still dreamt, a dream from which one cannot walk away.

I cannot walk away. How could I leave my hands that gesture

as she had or use them to end the misery of separateness

or turn my eyes toward another vision of the world as if I'd been

born immaculate and worthy of self-sacrifice. There must be dreams

from which one cannot walk away. The Christ-man knew it. He wept

upon the choice he'd made and had been made for him: an accident

of birth is fate. I know this as one knows of breath--I am his untrained

son and, yet, I am the factory which built the crucifix, distributor of crimes

against humanity. I am no less the stowage of the ship in which slaves slept.

I am no less the demon stoked the furnaces of death, the keeper of the shower stalls with gas; the gangster and the child giving birth to child; the villain of all violence. I am the woman with the swollen womb unwanted, the doctor who ends that life; I am what he had been to him one night; and she to her.

The venal and the murderous onslaught, the slut, the druglord and the drugged

I am what was for them as much as I am what I am and must become and had been

once.

The stallion--history, the sword of time, the one lost moment--mine,

the past forever in the child alive as in those who gave it birth.

Thus, Paris burned and plundered lies beneath my breath; the continent

in movement is the movement that I make; from where I stand, seasons

and the corners of the earth stretch out; the center of the shape of things

I am; round me and mine wherever is my blood, THERE is my present

and my past, the future deemed suitable for me. Unless I act

in order not to act; sever from me hands that touch not right, the tongue

that corrupts words of love, the feet that walk me into miseries.

Unless I act in order not to act; accept this bag of sinewed bones

and thoughtlessness as worthless heap. Refuse to act, to react,

stand my ground like some old rock that takes the blade, releases it,

that loses some to sharpen it, and yet remains a solid rock as it was

once.

It's something that the Jews have known, a Covenant with God;

and, yet, I am no Jew nor have I been at any place in time.

An Israelite without that history, a Zionist who dreams that dream,

and, yet, I have not been of these and neither have my kin. A dream.

I had dreamt once.

It is a dream that lives; it is a gypsy breathing in my soul;

it is an unconscious sphere of thought within--a dream,

as some would say--but it is more than that which lives:

it lives and dies; it breathes beneath my breath; its sacrifice

particular to its strange gods, its ritual and its own gold calves.

The past--life given us at birth--a dream from which none walks away.

Yet, we crave it in our bones: those dreams from which one walks away

but once.

Our freedom is to do its will; to change--though with unchanging grace;

to realize in everyday there is the dream--a Zionist within our genes;

to never turn aside from that from which one cannot walk away. The dream.

A sense of place, a memory, a happenstance of lucky birth, sixth sense,

or call it déjà vu. No. No. And No. You almost shout the thought--

There MUST be dreams from which one cannot walk away.

Not once.

And, child, one of them is you.

©John Horváth Jr

JOHN HORVÁTH

John Horváth Jr has published since the 1970s, most recently in Mindfire Poetry Journal, Dark Planet: Poetry, Morella (US), and in Badosa EP (Spain), Audax (Germany), and The Inditer (Canada). His poetry explores ethnic and regional, private or public identity. He writes about the strange and stranger among or within us, about where events, experience, history, and memory mingle.

Links to John Horváth, Jr.:

and,

___________________________________________

dear Hero Joy Nightingale,

I was pleased to have your letter. I'm afraid, though, that I'm quite overwhelmed with work just now and cannot write a piece for your magazine. Good luck with everything.

Yours,

Paul Muldoon

PAUL MULDOON

Paul Muldoon was elected to the Chair of Poetry at the University of Oxford earlier this year. He had the grace to reply, and in a hand-written note.

On the other hand, the poet laureate Andrew Motion, although a friend of a friend, has done me no such courtesy, although he wrote in the Guardian that all his salary goes on postage replying to requests such as I have sent to him. HJN.

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"If you wear a hat all day then take it off, you can still feel it on your head….………………………………it’s not that way with underwear, though!"

(The above quote was provided by Hallmark cards Australia 1999)

Not only have I lived with a very silly name for 44 years, but my business name is just as strange.

Philadelphia Philpot was discovered by my mother while researching our family history.

She was my great great great Grandmother, and was a very independent midwife who was born in Birmingham in England..

I loved the name and thought it very fitting for a milliner.

My business is situated in a very trendy, inner city suburb in Sydney, Australia, only a 7 minute drive to the centre of the city, and only a stroll to the best harbour in the universe !

I came to Australia in 1964 with my family, just after the Beatles and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world.

My background is art and design….art school, TV and advertising, fabric design and screenprinting. As I have always had a passion for hats, I enrolled in a millinery course about 8 years ago and have never looked back.

It’s everything I have ever loved all rolled into one. Fashion, colour & style…silks and textures….. jewels, antiques and fabulous feathers.

My studio is very small, but filled to the brim (!!) with beautiful old wooden hat blocks, boxes of fabrics, feathers, trinkets for hats…old hat books, patterns, flowers, old collected hats, and of course my couture hats.

Philadelphia Philpot hats are designed and lovingly made for clients who are looking for something unique. Brides who want a contemporary hat or headpiece, not a tiara and veil. Hats for the races, weddings and celebrities. Sometimes I am commissioned to design for the theatre or to do some restoration work.

My hats have appeared in television commercials and in promotional work.. I recently had great fun making a headpiece that had $250,000 worth of pearls carefully placed into it, and today I was asked to make a top hat for a famous Aussie cattle dog over here who stars in TV commercials!

Of course being an advertising agency, they "want it yesterday"

In Australia, the women only really tend to wear hats in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn…..it’s really not cold enough for hats in the winter…so as you can imagine, it’s quite seasonal, and milliners all over the country starve to death in winter !

The phone starts ringing about August, as Spring Brides and Mother’s of the Bride come out in force.

Brides need special attention, as they have very special requirements. Their dresses are only half made when they come to see me, or som