Fight Those Bastards

A Literary Journal of Critical Thinking
In the Samizdat Tradition of Writing against the Machine
A Forum for Examining the Dark Side of the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex

Fight Those Bastards

The following is the editor's correspondence with Stephen Henn and Don Winter, co-editors of the small-press zine Fight Those Bastards. Eventually, I tired of the exchange with Winter because he kept avoiding points I'd made. It became a dialogue de sourds. An a AD subscriber mentioned Winter was a millionaire realty agent at one time, got divorced, lost some of the bucks to the wife, then oddly (or perhaps not considering the money some make on the game) got into poetry. The correspondence began with my simple email, which I sent because of the FTB snippet in Harvard MA Doug Holder's Ibbetson Press Newsletter (see Literary Cartoons, April 2005). First, Henn, then Winter:

Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 12:55:32 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subj: www.theamericandissident.org
To: stephenthenn@aim.com

Why the need to push Lifshin? Her stuff sucks. It lacks potency. Dig into our rotting society a little… OR you simply remain part of why poetry doesn’t matter. Ibbetson Newsletter is one grotesque backslapping self-congratulating crock of shit.

From: stephenthenn@aim.com
To: watered_down_yoohoo@yahoo.com, donwinter@hotmail.com
Subject: Fwd: www.theamericandissident.org
Date: Sun, 08 Jan 2006 16:08:40 -0500

I think I'll choose not to reply to this guy. after all, what can you say to the Arbiter of Truth? sh

From: stephenthenn@aim.com
To: todslone@yahoo.com, "Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com>, evilgenius@platonic3waypress.com, watered_down_yoohoo@yahoo.com
Subject: Fwd: www.theamericandissident.org
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 04:15:20 -0800

Alright, I know we're just being baited, and G. Tod needs something to put up on his website, so why not pick a fight.  Here's my response to your infinite wisdom, Mr. Slone:

Look, asshole, Lifshin is ONE POET among many who appear in FTB #1.

You haven't even seen the magazine.  And yet you profess to know everything about what we're all about, or supposedly not all about.  Congratulations to you.  Clairvoyance is a rare gift.

-- there's something else for your website, Mr. Defender of Truth.

-- steve henn

Date:  Fri, 13 Jan 2006 10:12:45 -0800 (PST)
From:  "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subj:  RE: tod slone's baiting
To:  evilgenius@platonic3waypress.com

Steve Henn, 
You seem incapable of responding to the simple question:  What does Lifshin and her style have to do with a journal

called Fight Them Bastards?  You didn’t respond to the Ibbetson comment, so do I assume we agree?  Why are you

incapable of logical argumentation? Do you lack education (and I don’t necessarily mean formal)?  Because I simply

wondered why a journal with a title like Fight Them Bastards would promote a poet like Lifshin does not constitute

reason to argue that I “profess to know everything about what” you’re “all about, or supposedly not all about.”  I know

nothing about what you’re all about with the exception that you like to call people who criticize you “assholes” and that

you like Lifshin.  That’s all I know about you and I really don’t have any reason to seek further information. Is it not odd

that you would mock a person, who prides himself on seeking the truth and has the courage to speak out and debate,

by calling him “Mr. Defender of Truth,” evidently meant to be derogatory? In fact, is it not odd that “Mr. Defender of Truth”

is negative in your eyes?  I suppose I really angered you.  In any case, your correspondence serves a purpose.  It helps

me further comprehend the state of the POET today. By the way, you are the third person in several weeks to make fun

of my name.  I make a special effort not to mock people’s family-given names. I think the Nazi’s did that, didn’t they?

Would it not be asinine of me to say that your name is the antithesis of pretentious because it evokes a chicken?  Would

it not be asinine of me to purposely spell it with one “n” only? Do you follow?  Or don’t you?  If you don’t, there’s no help

for you… that is, except a nice first-hand brush with corruption.  My efforts are always made in the direction of sticking

to logical argumentation, not in deriding someone’s name or otherwise calling him an asshole because what he says is

upsetting. They do say TRUTH HURTS... and for an evident reason. Instead, why not ask yourself why it hurts?  George

Carlin mocked my name (Tod), along with a few others, in one of his sketches… but he’s a comedian, not a poet. Are

you a comedian or a poet?  You might wish to contemplate what I write here, learn from it, and grow from it… or you might

simply wish to call me an asshole again.  That is your choice. And I suspect I already know what that choice will be.  My

final question to you, FTB, Stone Soup Poets, and Ibbetson Press is:  WHY DO POETS FORM SUCH TIGHT HERMETIC

CIRCLES (GROUPS), DETEST ANYBODY DARING TO QUESTION AND CHALLENGE THEM, AND OSTRACIZE THEM

FOR DOING SO? Well, I suppose I already have the answer:  Because HE’S AN ASSHOLE, that’s why!  Hey, how about

sending me a photo of you.  I’d like to do a cartoon on you and that question. We evidently differ greatly on what it means

to be a poet. For me, to be a poet is to be a truth seeker and to be a man or woman with the courage to decry bullshit when

he or she comes across it. Evidently, the large majority of poets simply disagree with that vision. But then my vision also

sees the poet as a non-herd member, not cowering in the safety of a majority of like-thinking creatures. The vision of so many

poets today is simpler:  SELL MY POEMS AND PROMOTE MYSELF BECAUSE I AM A POET (with no other vision than that).

Thanks for provoking my mind to write this missive.

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone

From: stephenthenn@aim.com
To: todslone@yahoo.com, "Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: tod slone's baiting
Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:31:08 -0800

okay, Mr. Slone, let me explain my response to you in simple terms, and then you can expect our correspondence to stop, at least from my end.

1.  you claim that a zine that calls itself Fight These Bastards and then proceeds to publish Lifshin is therefore not fighting any bastards,

and is run by (you insinuated in an email) hypocrites.

2.  Setting aside your contention that Lifshin somehow represents the pinnacle of the poetry establisment, which I disagree with anyhow, my

contention is that you have never seen the magazine, you've never read it, you haven't bothered to examine our philosophies (discussed in an

editor's note in issue 1) nor the many other poems we published in our first issue.  You base your claim of hypocrisy solely on the fact that we

publish Lifshin, and nothing else.

3.  So, my conclusion is, you don't know what the hell you're talking about; you're getting up on your soapbox against a supposed opponent

(I'm not sure why you oppose us, other than you expect something from us because of the name of the zine -- an expectation that may not go

unfulfilled were you familiar with the content of the zine), because we publish a poet who happens to get a lot of her poems into a lot of journals

-- notably, many independent small press journals and generally fewer of the academic variety.  And for the record, we haven't published

anything by Lifshin that she wrote about her cat.  Rather than taking her poems, at least the ones that appear in our zine and the chap we

published, on their own merit, you seem to be playing the same name game you claimed to be against, dismissing them because they're Lifshin poems

(rather that on the basis of what the actual poems say), they must be poetry establishment poems, they must be -- I don't know what -- about her

cat, I s'pose.  Get it?

From: todslone@yahoo.com

To: stephenthenn@aim.com

Hi Steve,
Personally, I enjoy this kind of exchange. I’m sad that you and the large majority of poets seem to detest it. It is intellectually stimulating to debate with those who do not think the same as oneself. Yet most poets can only seem to bear discussing with like minds. I’m not sure what, if anything, can really be gained from that.

Well, I didn’t really call you hypocrites. I simply made a brief statement saying that it was odd, to say the least, that FTB was publishing someone like Lifshin. But it really doesn’t matter. I was just surprised you got so upset by my simple remark. I never made any statement that Lifshin “represents the pinnacle of the poetry establishment.” If you look at her website, you’ll see that she really doesn’t represent anything at all, no ideas, just glorifying herself and ever striving for fame and maximum number of publications, anywhere and in any journal that will publish her, which is why I refuse to do so… and yes she has sent The American Dissident some of her stuff.

One would think normally your “philosophies,” as you term them, are in the title of your review, especially one like yours, Fight Them Bastards. No mystery there… one would think. Of course, you could have been an ultra conservative zine fighting liberals.

I do not necessarily oppose you at all and don’t know why you immediately drew that conclusion from my simple statement. I was just curious… but really more than that and you and your zine, I have become quite tired of seeing Lifshin’s name broadcast right and left and everywhere else… like Pinsky or Angelou or Collins or any of the other poets that seem so dreadfully boring, flat, and neutral… in a world that seems to “desperate” for anything else but that. Lyshin was why I contacted you… not the name of your zine or you. I’ve seen enough of her poetry plastered everywhere not to desire to see anymore. She stands for nothing, but herself. In your negative sense of the term soap box, she is one of the biggest soap boxers around… certainly much, much bigger than I with my little box. Capiche? Clearly, you published her because you got excited by a name brand sending you her shit and hoping, wow, it might help make FTB popular, give it seriousness, and sell… or something like that. Why else would you have done so? You could not have looked at her poem without seeing her… in the same way if Bukowski, for example, had sent you a poem on the race track. Deny this, and you simply deny reality… which I suppose you’ve become pretty good at.

I don’t quite understand your “soap box” thing. I think it is a brave man who dares stand alone (read Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People) and if need be on top of a soap box. So, I really don’t consider that an insult, not in the way you’re trying to use it against me. I think it’s too bad that we see so few soap boxes today… just herd behavior everywhere even in the most surprising place, where one ought not expect it: poetry. Thanks again for this exchange. It has proven fruitful… at least for me.

To Steve Henn,
Personally, I enjoy this kind of exchange. I’m sad that you and the large majority of poets seem to detest it. It is, after all, intellectually stimulating to debate with those who do not think the same way as oneself. Yet most poets can only seem to bear discussing with like minds. I’m not sure what, if anything, can really be gained from that.

Well, I didn’t really call you hypocrites. I simply made a brief statement saying that it was odd, to say the least, that Fight Those Bastards (with a name like that) was publishing someone like Lifshin. But it really doesn’t matter. I was just surprised you got so upset by my simple remark. I never stated or implied that Lifshin “represents the pinnacle of the poetry establishment.” If you look at her website, you’ll see that she really doesn’t represent anything at all, no ideas, just glorifying herself and ever striving for fame and maximum number of publications, anywhere and in any journal that will publish her, which is why I refuse to do so… and yes she has sent The American Dissident some of her stuff.

I do not necessarily oppose you at all and don’t know why you immediately drew that conclusion from my simple statement. I was just curious… but really more than that and you and your zine, I am quite tired of seeing Lifshin’s name broadcast right and left and everywhere else… like Pinsky or Angelou or Collins or any of the other poets that seem so dreadfully boring, flat, “popular,” and neutral… in a world that seems to “desperate” for anything else but that. Lyshin was why I contacted you… not the name of your zine or you. Capiche? I’ve seen enough of her poetry plastered everywhere and do not desire to see anymore. Capiche? She stands for nothing, but herself. In your negative sense of the term soap box, she is one of the biggest soap boxers around… certainly much, much bigger than I with my little box. Clearly, you published her because you got excited by a name brand sending you her shit and hoping, wow, it might help make FTB popular, give it seriousness, and sell… or something like that. Why else would you have done so? You could not have looked at her poem without seeing “Lifshin” flashing in neon… in the same way if Bukowski, for example, had sent you a poem on the race track. (Yes, I know, he’s dead.) Deny this, and you simply deny reality… which I suppose you’ve become pretty good at.

BTW, I don’t quite understand your thing against the “soap box.” I think it takes a brave man to dare stand alone (read Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People) and if need be on top of a soap box. So, I really don’t consider “soap box” an insult at all, not in the way you’re trying to use it against me. I think it’s too bad that we see so few soap boxes today… just herd behavior everywhere even in the most surprising place, where one ought not expect it: poetry. In fact, “soap box” has a long history, it was an American institution… until recently. Many daring souls angered at our government stood on boxes in parks and elsewhere. Thanks again for this exchange. It has proven fruitful… at least for me.

Actually, Slone has published me a few times. And I think his journal is an important one. But doesn't his e-mail smack of the very "grotesque congratulatory" back slapping he's complaining of? At the very least, his email is elitist. And, has he even purchased a copy of Fight These Bastards? If not, how the hell does he know whether what we're doing is part of the "problem," as he calls it? (Actually, more people are reading and writing poetry than at any point in the history of our country). I guess if you are the most famous poet of our times (Lifshin), some people are going to take pot shots at you. Hell, there were quite a few who hated Buk (including most of academia). I think Lifshin is a terrific poet, the Emily Dickinson of our time. But perhaps Slone doesn't like Emily, either. By the way, has Mr. Slone ever read James Scully? Mr. Scully is by far and away the most anti-capitalist, anti-American society poet of our times. And I don't recall seeing him in the contributer's copies of American Dissident that I received (I'm trying to get him for future issues of FTB).

I do feel our society is rotting. Since Slone may come off his soap box long enough to read this e-mail, here's a poem I wrote about that, one of the many socially-conscious poems I've published during my five years in the presses (it will be in Tears in the Fence, a great journal out of London, this summer):

Hi Don,
Is there any reason why your response is as if not addressed to me?  How precisely does that brief email of mine “smack

of the very ‘grotesque congratulatory’ back slapping” I’ve evoked (not “complained about”)?  Your accusation lacks simple

logic as do other assertions in your email.  In that monstrously long Ibbetson newsletter, the evidence of backslapping

and self-congratulations IS egregious… as it is in the poesy world at large.  I read about your Fight These Bastards zine

in that newsletter and was not at all tempted to purchase a copy of it because, oddly, it promotes Lifshin.  How can that

possibly constitute fighting these bastards?  Magazines like the Iconoclast and Axe Factory also seem to be doing

anything but iconoclasting and axing.  Perhaps you ought to rename your zine and call it We Hope to Publish Famous

Poets… and Do! That “more people are reading and writing poetry than at any point in the history of our country” is entirely

immaterial to the argument.  How the hell does that diminish the problem of corruption in literature and in society at large?

On the contrary, it is rather proof the “problem” is worsening.  More people are reading poetry because poetry is becoming

pap a la Lifshin.  People read Stephen King, Celebrity Today, and now they read poetry too.  As for Scully, I’ve never heard

of him.  I am against the pushing of name brands like Lifshin or Buk or Scully or whoever.  I am for a potent poem, one potent

poem.  A poet like Lifshin, whose written 100s of poems about a dead cat must be a nitwit without a cause, without a vision,

that is, except becoming famous.  And yes, oh how the people love nitwits w/o causes!  Did you really write (or am I perhaps

dreaming) that Lifshin is “the most famous poet of our times”?  If this is true, then literature is in real deep shit.  Of course,

fame has nothing to do with greatness and by greatness I mean powerful writing that serves in some way to upset our ever

corrupt society.  Fame is also a good indicator of sucking up, playing the game, not going against the grain, not making waves,

etc. Well, let The American Dissident be one of the very few literary journals that will not publish the likes of a Lifshin or Pinsky

or Gluck or Wright or any other of that dubious ilk.  I’m sure Tim Hall’s Struggle is another such journal.  Let all the little zines,

including FTB, beg for a Lifshin dead pussy cat poem!  It will surely help sales. But not me!  No thanks.  Sales are not my

purpose. How common of you to belittle an ardent critic of poetry, poets and society as in “come off his soap box”.  Yes,

just call it “soap box” when someone criticizes the inbred, self-congratulating, backslapping, prize thirsting, grant grubbing,

reading invitation suck up, self-deifying poesy crowd, uh, with social conscience of course… as things get worse and worse

and worse in that milieu and elsewhere!  BTW, I sent you and other seemingly establishment society-friendly poets that

simple email (and yes I could have/should have written it with a tad more eloquence) in an effort to debate, to see how you

might respond (if at all), and to bait you.  Often, such poets say the most incredibly illogical and self-damning things that I

extract creative material from it, including literary cartoons, poems, and essays.  Your letter with my response will appear

in the next issue of The American Dissident.  Why?  Because your response reveals just a little more of that type of poet,

and my readers are interested in discovering who you (plural) are in the guts.  In fact, I’ve written a 743 page non-fiction

narrative on that very subject.  And no, it will not be published by Ibbetson Press or Stone Soup Poets, Inc.  Finally, criticizing

egregiously corrupt intellectual practices ought not, by any means, imply that I am on an ego trip or think I am like Lifshin the

world’s best poet.  What an assinine and facile response to my critique.  I’m still at a loss as to how pushing Lifshin jives with

Fight These Bastards... unless of course I and others (Solzhenitsyn, Villon, Ferre, Jeffers, Bukowski, Thoreau, Emerson et al)

who agree(d) with much of what I observe(d) are in fact these Bastards.  In that case, it’s quite comprehensible.  The same would

go for Iconoclast.  I’ve been hunting for a word... and I know it must exist.  What do you call a person or entity who/that proclaims

itself to be something (FTB, Iconoclast, etc.) , while being anything but that something?  It seems to be an increasingly common

phenomenon in American society.  BTW, I am not really looking for socially conscious poems, for they tend to be a dime a dozen

and require no risk whatsoever on the part of the poet writing them.  Hell, Pinsky, Lifshin, Holder, and anyone else can write them

when they feel like it.  I’m looking rather for socially activist and/or risk poems.  There’s a huge difference.  You boast the poem

you sent as “one of the many socially-conscious poems I've published during my five years in the presses.”  Well, I’m also against

self-inflating statements like that one.  To have published many poems, socially-conscious or not, today is as banal as it gets in the

world of poesy.  Is there anyone more banal than Lifshin or Errol Morris in that respect?  I seek not credits, not name brands, but

rather risk and potency.  Your poem talks about other people… not you, the poet and/or your immediate milieu.  What are you?

That’s what I’m interested in, not the poor written up by you, who is not poor, in a poem.  Can you grasp that?  Probably not.

Good to hear from you, Don.

PS:  You’re right.  I don’t think much of Emily Dickenson at all, nor do I of most poets, famous, legendary, profuse, or whatever

you and academe wish to label them.

"between you me and the fencepost, Don, as far as I'm concerned "G. Tod Slone" (nice initial -- classy) comes off as a pretentious asshole who markets -- yes, markets, like a true capitalist -- himself as the Defender of Truth on his website, which I guess is a pretty impressive thing to call yourself. I'm really not interested in what he has to say."

However, back when I read the contributer's copies of Dissident you sent me (I think I was in your journal several times, if memory serves) I was impressed enough that I will now take time to think about (takes me a while to think, I'm something of an old fart) your e-mail below and respond to it.

2) I find it quite offensive you assume I'm "not poor." Sounds like something O'Rielly (spelling?) might do to try and pigeon-hole someone on The O'Rielly Factor (you weren't trying to do that to me, were you G. Todd?). In truth, since I took up the poem I've lived in rather bone-curtling poverty, as do many poets I admire (like Antler).

Don,
Sorry the person you so respect (why the anonymity?) is incapable of logical argumentation and debate. Sorry he’s (she’s) so lazy and complacent as to dismiss pertinent things on my website (not even written by me) with the words “asshole” and “Pretender of Truth.” I know the fellow or gal, scores and scores like him or her in academe and literature… all with the same anonymous, self-satisfied minds. That’s where our happy-face society has gotten us today… there and up the shit creak of war all the time.

In general, I doubt severely poverty-stricken people read poetry or are poets. Poetry is, after all, for those with food in their bellies and time on their hands… like you and me. I still doubt very much you live in abject poverty. But no matter. You simply skirt all the arguments in my previous email with that ridiculous statement of “I find it quite offensive…” That too seems to have proliferated in our society. Everyone so easily offended… and so indifferent to truth… to the point of dismissing truth with offensive epithets. Sort of ironic, eh? This correspondence serves to underscore the state of the POET today. Thank you. I shall use it.
Sincerely,
G. Tod

PS: As for my name, here’s what I wrote your colleague Mr. Henn: “By the way, you are the third person in several weeks to make fun of my name. I make a special effort not to mock people’s family-given names. I think the Nazi’s did that, didn’t they? Would it not be asinine of me to say that your name is the antithesis of pretentious because it evokes a chicken? Would it not be asinine of me to purposely spell it with one “n” only? Do you follow? Or don’t you? If you don’t, there’s no help for you… that is, except a nice first-hand brush with corruption. My efforts are always made in the direction of sticking to logical argumentation, not in deriding someone’s name or otherwise calling him an asshole because what he says is upsetting. They do say TRUTH HURTS... and for an evident reason. Instead, why not ask yourself why it hurts? George Carlin mocked my name (Tod), along with a few others, in one of his sketches… but he’s a comedian, not a poet. Are you a comedian or a poet? You might wish to contemplate what I write here, learn from it, and grow from it… or you might simply wish to call me an asshole again. That is your choice. And I suspect I already know what that choice will be.”

Let's see, now you call me a liar (about my life-threatening financial situation). You are quite the humanist, Mr. Slone.

I haven't skirted anything...I told you in my last e-mail that I will consider the points you have made and reply.

You seem to resort to ad-hominem argumentation quickly [already you have implied 1) I am an idiot ("do you understand my point? Probably not.") and 2) a liar ("I sill doubt very much you live in poverty"]. To you and folks like O'Reilly (sp.?) this may seem like nifty argumentation. To the rest of us, it's name calling.

P.S. Feel free to publish all emails I send. But I'm sure you won't just try to miscontrue my words, to use them out of context. You wouldn't to that, would you?

You have a knack for putting things that I did not say into my mouth. You have a severe problem focusing on the issues evoked in my emails and still have not even attempted to dispute them. Instead, you focus on idiocies like this name-calling thing that you and Henn began. Find the word “liar” in my emails! If you indeed have a “life-threatening financial situation,” why the hell are you concerned with publishing Lyn Lifshin and appearing in the backslapping and self-congratulating Ibbetson Newsletter? The logic is simply absent. You give me little information to go on. How is your life being threatened? Again, you tell me almost nothing. Why does it makes you feel good to label me an ultra-conservative like Reilly? I’m anything but conservative. What is the point? It’s just babble on your part… meaningless babble. Besides, there are plenty of liberals out there who behave precisely like Reilly does... you and Henn and tons of poets, for example. Again, you do not answer the fundamental question I posed: Why does a journal called Fight Them Bastards publish the likes of Lifshin? That was all I said. And you and Henn went whacko because of it. Listen to critique, feed on it, grow from it, create from it. Don’t name call it! That’s what I do. As for what little you’ve said in your emails, I never attempt to take things out of context in an effort to corrupt them. Hell, I don’t need to. Your very words in context sadly help illustrate the state of the POET today in America.

You have a knack for putting things that I did not say into my mouth. You have a severe problem focusing on the issues evoked in my emails and still have not even attempted to dispute them. Instead, you focus on idiocies like this name-calling thing that you and Henn began. Find the word “liar” in my emails! If you indeed have a “life-threatening financial situation,” why the hell are you concerned with publishing Lyn Lifshin and appearing in the backslapping and self-congratulating Ibbetson Newsletter? The logic is simply absent. You give me little information to go on. How is your life being threatened? Again, you tell me almost nothing. Why does it makes you feel good to label me an ultra-conservative like Reilly? I’m anything but conservative. What is the point? It’s just babble on your part… meaningless babble. Besides, there are plenty of liberals out there who behave precisely like Reilly does... you and Henn and Hillary and Bubba and Teddy K and tons of poets, for example. Again, you do not answer the fundamental question I posed: Why does a journal called Fight Them Bastards publish the likes of Lifshin? That was all I said. And you and Henn went whacko because of it. Listen to critique, feed on it, grow from it, create from it. Don’t name call it! That’s what I do. As for what little you’ve said in your emails, I never attempt to take things out of context in an effort to corrupt them. Hell, I don’t need to. Your very words in context sadly help illustrate the state of the POET today in America.

PS: I always put the harshest and/or stupidest criticisms of The American Dissident and/or its editor in each and every issue. Most literary journals do not have the courage to do that. Instead, they include self-serving praise.

1) You say "labeling my simple question 'attacks' is pushing the term a bit far." I assume you mean the question "Why the need to push Lifshin?" Yet in your 1/8/06 email you amplify that "simple question": "Her stuff sucks." And in your 1/11/06 polemic you rant : "A poet like Lifshin, whose written 100's of poems about a dead cat must be a nitwit without a cause."

2) You say "Hundreds of poems...on a dead cat is not a 'small sample.'" Yet considering all the poems she's written (Harrison argues emphasis on the mundane as fit material for poetry leads to extensive production...though he's referring to Bukowski's), so few are about what you think. Perhaps you should read The Blue Tattoo, about the holocaust, TSUNAMI, her poems in An Eye for an Eye, or almost anything she wrote in all the magazines devoted to Vietnam, or the civil right movement, her poems in Workshop in Non Violence, the poems about the Hiroshima Maidens, about the Native American problem and, yes, her poems in FTB#1. Her poems about cats are probably .00000000000000000001 of the poems she's written.

3) You sat "It is an easy thing to write about corruption in society...any two bit poet...can do that." Yet in your 1/8/06 email you seem to indicate that very type of writing represents the pinnacle of writing: "dig into our corrupt society a little."

4) You claim I've said a number of things I can't find in my e-mails: 1) that you are a "brand name poet" (in truth I've never seen a poem of yours in any journal), 2) that you are a "soapbox," 3) that you are an "asshole." I was told by someone I respect you market yourself on your website as "Defender of Truth." And in your 1/13/06 e-mail to Henn you indicate that is a good thing. So I have no reason to question that you do indeed call yourself that.

Date:	Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:39:57 -0800 (PST)
From:	"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	RE: tod slone's baiting
To:	evilgenius@platonic3waypress.com

From:	"Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To:	stephenthenn@aim.com, watered_down_yoohoo@yahoo.com, todslone@yahoo.com
Subject:	RE: Fwd:
Date:	Mon, 09 Jan 2006 17:09:05 -0900

From:	"Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To:	todslone@yahoo.com
CC:	evilgenius@platonic3waypress.com, watered_down_yoohoo@yahoo.com
Subject:	RE: Fwd:
Date:	Wed, 11 Jan 2006 16:15:23 -0900

Date:	Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:04:16 -0800 (PST)
From:	"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	RE: Fwd:
To:	"Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com>

From:	"Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
To:	todslone@yahoo.com
CC:	evilgenius@platonic3waypress.com, watered_down_yoohoo@yahoo.com
Subject:	our current argument
Date:	Fri, 13 Jan 2006 17:24:34 -0900

Date:	Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:18:22 -0800 (PST)
From:	"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Re: our current DISCUSSION
To:	"Don Winter" <donwinter@hotmail.com>