Man stabs 26 people at a school.

haven -- your professor is absolutely wrong...and I'd love to read that case if you have a link to it. And as a sidenote..one case does not necessarily reflect "the legal community." I'm a lawyer, thus a member of the legal community, and there are lots of cases I disagree with! This certainly isn't settled in the way you think it is.

The bill of rights and the constitution as a whole don't talk about state govts other than to say, in the 10th Amend, that anything not covered is left to the states to govern. Of course, we've already been screwed out of that protection. The bill of rights secure individual liberties. "the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." I have yet to read any piece of legislative history that backs your position up...even my Constitutional Law professor (an advocate for gun control) couldn't come up with any. The fact is, these men were concerned with individual rights when they decided to put the bill of rights in. Men like Adams and Jefferson and Franklin are the primary writers that give us an idea as to what they were thinking. You'd have to really be stretching to come up with something besides the security of individual liberty to own a weapon.

------------------

 

MadMax: Voila... from a gun-rights advocate.

6 Geo. Public Pol'y Rev. 25

LENGTH: 2454 words

FEATURE: GUN CONTROL IN AMERICA: Feature Interviews: Interview with Michael Bellesiles, Professor of History,
Emory University

Michael Bellesiles

Michael Bellesiles is Professor of History at Emory University and Director of Emory's Center for the Study of Violence.
He is the author of Revolutionary Outlaws: Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier, and
of numerous articles and reviews. He lives in Atlanta.

SUMMARY:
... In his book Arming America: the Origins of a National Gun Culture, Michael Bellesiles details the history of guns in
America from colonial days to post Civil War. ... I am an old fashioned kind of historian. ... The book isn't called "An Attack On
the NRA," which blames the entire gun culture on the NRA. I only mention the NRA on the penultimate page. ... As a gun
owner, has your research changed your views on gun control and what should be done? ... This is Madison's justification
for writing the Second Amendment: to make sure the state governments understand that nothing in the Constitution prevents
them from arming the militia. ... Basically, I blame Westerns, Western movies. I like Westerns myself; I grew up with them and
therefore I thought everyone on the frontier had a gun. ... What is interesting is that if you read a historian writing in the United
States in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century up to World War II, you're not going to find a sentence like,
"They all had guns." ... First I became a teacher, then I started writing. ... I really didn't question our current situation in terms of
gun laws, and I have no track record of any kind. ...

The interview section of The Review tries not only to create a balanced, informative discussion of the specific policy issue at hand,
but also to highlight the steps in the policy-making process that can be applied to all policy areas. Interview Editor Siobhan Murphy
and Executive Editor Christina Werth reach beyond the usual opposing arguments of the gun control debate to find a new
understanding of an issue that is important to so many lives. The first interview with Historian Michael Bellesiles details the history
of guns and the changing role they have played in America's history. Next, Michael Barnes of Handgun Control, Inc. and Larry
Pratt of Gun Owners of America stay firmly in their camps and try to help us understand why they work so hard for what they
believe. Finally, Rebecca Peters, an Australian gun control advocate currently at the Open Society Institute, explains how difficult
policy issues are approached in a different part of the world and what America might learn.

TEXT:
[*25] In his book Arming America: the Origins of a National Gun Culture, Michael Bellesiles details the history of guns in
America from colonial days to post Civil War. Through his research, Professor Bellesiles finds that, although the government tried
to infuse guns into American society, they did not become pervasive until after the Civil War.

Because the book has gotten so much attention, what is your reaction to your book being talked about on both sides of
the gun control debate and by those involved in policy discussions?

I'm really uncomfortable with the whole thing. This is my fifth book and I didn't exist until this book was published. I thought when
I was working on it that it would be of interest to my fellow historians, and gun enthusiasts, and I thought that would be about it.
Knopf Publishing House always thought it would have a bigger impact, and they were correct. I am a dyed in the wool empiricist.
I am an old fashioned kind of historian. I like spending years in the archives, and do not have any, as they say, axes to grind in the
policy debate. I made no policy recommendations; I'm not a public intellectual. I have generally been very put off by the interviews
I have been asked to give because everyone wants me to reach an absolutist position; the NRA represents that, I am afraid. They
are ideological absolutists and they want everyone to be driven to one absolute or another. Either you are pro-gun or anti-gun. I
have been called anti-gun, among many outrageous things. I was just opening my mail when you called and opened a letter from a
local here in Atlanta who says I am a tool of the liberals, which, he says, is another word for state [*26] socialism. The grammar
of these letters collapses, but the logic is apparent, which is, of course, that I am anti-gun. I contacted the NRA to ask why they
are labeling me anti-gun when I own guns and have been associated with gun enthusiasts for years, decades. I got a very nice
email back from a man named Paul Blackman who told me bluntly that Garry Wills liked my book, therefore it must be anti-gun.
You all remember guilt by association? They were also mad at me because I made fun of Charleton Heston. I just quoted him;
that's not making fun of him. But they have a cult of personality over at the NRA. I guess that is a longer answer than you
wanted, but the whole thing has just thrown me for a loop. I just don't know what to make of it. I'm very uncomfortable with being
told what my politics are by people who have never met me in their life and have not read the book either. The book isn't called
"An Attack On the NRA," which blames the entire gun culture on the NRA. I only mention the NRA on the penultimate page. I
mention it being founded by two Union veterans who were appalled at the fact that the people they had to train at the beginning of
the Civil War had never held a gun in their lives. I guess since I used their own founding to sort of demonstrate my thesis, they got
really upset and decided the whole book was anti-gun.

As a gun owner, has your research changed your views on gun control and what should be done?

Not my study, oddly enough, but the reaction [to it]. I'm changing my mind quickly about a number of things. Although I've never
been a member, I have associated with members of the NRA for a long, long time. I am one of those people who got his first gun
when he was twelve; I got my first target shooting ribbon when I was sixteen. I'm suddenly starting to rethink these people and
what they stand for, and basically their whole approach to our democracy. I'm obviously may be making this more grandiose than
it is by justice. But I really do believe that our country is based on a willingness to accept the views of others. I don't want to push
my view too much, but I have been looking much more at the NRA's policies. They do not allow anyone a position between them
and those who want to confiscate handguns, as they put it. It seems to me that the NRA in its current position may be a dangerous
force in American politics. I'm not sure yet, but I am rethinking a lot of my attitudes towards the question of gun control and the
gun in modern society.

In the book you discuss how the Second Amendment came about. Looking at the conflict between the federalists, who
wanted a standing army, and those who wanted state militias in order to avoid a standing army, how does the Second
Amendment work today, and is that what the framers were hoping for?

My study, of course, does not consider at all what became of the Second Amendment, and how it was used after
Reconstruction. What I am trying to suggest in that section of the book is that currently, people try to understand the Second
Amendment just as the one sentence. They are trying to parse that sentence. Some people read the first part of that sentence
about a well-regulated militia being necessary to secure a free state and they think that is it, it's about the militia. And other people
read the second part about the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." And they say okay, by "the
people" they mean individuals, meaning the individual right to keep and bear arms. I am more interested in the exact historical
context in which that sentence was written, [*27] what led to that sentence, and what followed upon it. It is a much more
complex story than most current legal scholars have portrayed it as. To restate what I say in the book in a succinct way, the
Second Amendment was written against the background of the Revolution, which was a close call, which we tend to forget.
Those who lived through it and those in a position of command knew what a close call it had been, and that the United States had
been dependent for its arms on Europe. Eighty-five percent of the guns used by the Americans in the Revolution came from
France and the Netherlands, almost all the rest from England. There were no gun manufacturers in the United States when the
Second Amendment was written. For those writing the Constitution, it was an important issue. How was the country going to
defend itself? Here is the other part of the story, again, external threats, which are pretty obvious: what if England comes back?
Even our ally France could not be relied upon.

And secondly, [there was the problem of] domestic insurrection, as the Constitution puts it. By domestic insurrection they meant
two things. One was represented by Shays' Rebellion, a radical uprising possibly leading to anarchy or on the other side,
nationalists who would want to put in a tyrant, a military dictator. So they feared that and they also, of course, feared slave
rebellions. So they had this amazing problem. And again, I thought anyone would be fascinated by this story.

The framers of the Constitution, including James Madison, the author of the Second Amendment, and the members of the first
Congress in their debates, all talked about this fundamental issue: how to get arms into the hands of the militia, the reliable citizens,
but keep them away from the unreliable. This latter is a large group, including all the black people, Catholics, the poor, and the
people on the frontier. So this was the problem they faced. This was why the anti-federalists worried that since Article One
Section Eight says Congress is to arm the militia, what if Congress decides not to? The people don't own arms, at least not
sufficient arms. That was Patrick Henry's point, Richard Henry Lee's point, and the point of most of the anti-federalists. They
understood that there was this problem of not enough guns in private hands to defend the state and the community. This is
Madison's justification for writing the Second Amendment: to make sure the state governments understand that nothing in the
Constitution prevents them from arming the militia. It is a complicated story.

This ties into your earlier point that both sides of the issue want you to be an absolutist on one side or another. Today we
do think of the interpretations of the Second Amendment as whether an individual is proor anti-gun but really it is a
discussion of how to defend the country and keep it together.

Yes. That is not really necessarily a pretty picture. People who are fervently for gun control may not find a lot of material here to
support their position, because after all, what is involved in the past in the Second Amendment were the laws forbidding certain
classes of citizens from possessing firearms. So it is often a racist, often class-based, often ethnically-based legislation and there
are even instances when women are denied [a right] to bear firearms because they might use them to shoot their husbands.

One of the ideas that some gun rights organizations present is that in the early days of US history, there were fewer gun
accidents and fewer gun homicides because everyone had guns and knew how to use them. There [*28] seems to be a
disconnect between that idea and what you have stated. Where did the idea that everyone had guns and knew how to use
them originate?

I've written an article on this and am thinking about expanding it more care-fully in the future. Basically, I blame Westerns,
Western movies. I like Westerns myself; I grew up with them and therefore I thought everyone on the frontier had a gun. But
what I've come to realize is that so does everyone else. Everyone who has seen these movies thinks that is the way it was. Some
of the Westerns are really good, more accurate, like Shane. Alan Ladd and Jack Palance are hired guns. They're the ones who
own the guns, who know how to use them. The other people are farmers or ranchers who don't necessarily have guns or know
how to use them.

After the Civil War, there were guns everywhere, make no mistake. But it is still interesting how few people on the supposedly
very violent frontier were walking around with handguns. In fact, as Robert Dykstra's excellent research has shown, the Western
communities had legislation, had rules, requiring that guns be checked with the sheriff. My own research has found that the
territories had laws against the public display of firearms and against carrying firearms in public, whether concealed or in the open.
Even police officers were not allowed to carry concealed firearms in the Wild West. So again, it becomes a slightly more
complicated story.

What is interesting is that if you read a historian writing in the United States in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth
century up to World War II, you're not going to find a sentence like, "They all had guns." You're not going to find something about
universal gun ownership. Those kinds of sentences start to appear in history books after World War II. So I am very intrigued by
what caused this shift. Why did historians start accepting this logic? I have read several historians from the 1920s writing that
many people think there were guns throughout the West, but they are being influenced by the dime novels. So historians knew
back then that it was all a myth, but by the 1950s, the historians routinely write about universal gun ownership in the earliest
frontiers, in the seventeenth century.

So I speculate they are getting this from popular culture. It was influencing the work of historians and then feeds back into popular
culture. But I do hope to research this topic more, try to pinpoint, as you say, the spot.

To return to an earlier topic, it seems interesting that you have gotten strong and sometimes negative reactions to your
book.

Not by anyone I respect, though. All the historians so far, a very impressive list of historians who have reviewed my book, have all
been positive. But I have received a lot of negative mail.

You have mentioned that it is causing you to re-examine these issues. Do you think it will cause you to get more involved
and perhaps use your research to bring about a more intellectual discussion of the policy issues instead of absolutist
positions for or against gun control?

I don't know, I hadn't really thought about it. I love to teach. First I became a teacher, then I started writing. I'm not sure how well
teaching works outside of a school environment. The public intellectuals I know tend to have a didactic tone. Preach more than
teach; that is not for me. I don't like telling people what to think. Too often that is what disturbs me about policy debates.

[*29] Did you begin this book with the idea of looking at the current gun control situation and tying it to our past?

I really didn't question our current situation in terms of gun laws, and I have no track record of any kind. Let's just be blunt, it's just
blank. It would be really nice if scholars had a space where they would be listened to, where they would have the opportunity to
lay out the more complex aspects of our past and current situation and be given some room to develop the information so that
people can make more informed judgments. But my experience so far, and I don't mean to be in any way objectionable to people
who have interviewed me in the past, but they want absolutes, flat statements, that it is this way, or it is that way, or it should be
this way. And that is not something I am willing to do. Even talking about the current situation, anyone who has read the work of
Franklin Zimmrick, who is a very fine legal scholar who writes on gun issues and crime, or of Phil Cook over at Duke, should
know that you cannot just say it is just one thing: it's just the guns, or it's just the movies, or it's just fill in the blank. It's an
interesting complexity in our culture in which these factors reinforce each other. We give people guns, we train them how to use
them, and then the culture emphasizes the use of those firearms to resolve personal conflicts at every turn. And then something
bad happens.

I just received this email fifteen minutes ago that one of my former students named Matt Carter, who graduated with highest
honors last May, was shot and killed in Houston, TX on the morning of Sept 18th during a robbery/abduction.

We have created the society that we are in. That is may be the underlying theme of my book, that cultures in democracies at the
very least are created because people want those cultures. We want this culture. Why we want this culture I don't know, but we
want it. We allow it. If we wanted to, we could change it, but we're not going to change it by single actions. We are going to
change it by really studying the root causes deeply, coming to an appreciation of what the factors are that lead to this kind of
personal violence. And that may be too daunting for people.

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...

[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

but I have been looking much more at the NRA's policies. They do not allow anyone a position between them and those who want to confiscate handguns, as they put it.

This is why most gun control debates fall apart, in my opinion. Somehow, this comes into play and any reasonable, sensible debate falls apart.

Except for when debating the rare individual who thinks a complete ban on handguns is both necessary and workable, gun control debates should never involve the 2nd amendment because it's not relevent to the discussion. We already have limits on gun ownership and gun rights -- the question is simply how far they should go.


------------------
http://www.swirve.com ... more fun than a barrel full of monkeys and midgets.

 

Shanna:



Except for when debating the rare individual who thinks a complete ban on handguns is
both necessary and workable, gun control debates should never involve the 2nd
amendment because it's not relevent to the discussion. We already have limits on gun
ownership and gun rights -- the question is simply how far they should go.

I actually disagree with you a bit there. If one believes that the 2nd Amendment applies to individual citizens, then much of the gun control legislation we *already have* is unconstitutional.

The fact that it's not allows greater regulation. Otherwise, gun control legislation would be treated with "strict scrutiny" - another phrase for "the government loses." The situation would be much like it is with free speech: you can make it illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded room, but not much more. If we used strict scrutiny, you could probably still not allow felons from acquiring weapons, and you could probably have an age limit. Not much more.

That's why it's important to interpret the 2nd Amendment as allowing state militias. Otherwise, current legislation falls... and that's why we know that every judge except one lunatic in Texas interprets it this way. They've always rejected the argument that gun control is an individual right.

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...

[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

Beto: Find me a mainstream media link that says it's absurd, and I'll consider finding another source.

The guy's a gun-rights advocate. I seriously doubt you can find a moderate-source that decries the book.

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...

[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

I guess no one cared about my Dept. of Justice report in regards to US vs. UK gun control stuff...fine.

Haven,

I read something from the NRA that said that book was anti-NRA...it must be true, right? Actually, what I read saying that was in the article you posted.

------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

 

Uh liberal arts has nothing to do with liberal politics....

------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

 

Beto: You can find anything on the internet. I'm not going to bother with every extreme-right source you find. It's a waste of my time. I don't cite sources like "Mother Jones" for the same reason. It would be a waste of YOUR time.

I did read this last link you put up. It's, well, very bad. For one, it can't serve as a direct response to the article I cited. Why? Because it was written in 1992.

This guy is concerned with natural rights. Natural rights were dismissed as a valid consideration concerning the Constitution by the very first Chief Justice, Marshall. Since then, the Supreme Court has never made a judicial decision based on natural rights. Not even during the Tawney Court.

Natural Rights have been advocated by both conservatives and liberals, depending on the situation. Liberals have used NR theory to support abortion rights and to attack the death penalty, generally. Conservatives have used it favor of gun rights.

But it's not really useful, because it's so arbitrary. To pull a line from your source:

there are certain rights
individuals can identify by looking into the core of their being. It may be sufficient if that search tells them that it is
ludicrous to rely on government to protect them and to accept the danger of that protection arriving too late as the
necessary price for order.

I actually think this may be true; but it certainly isn't within the province of law. This is the truth we have to recognize: law is not a panacea, there are sometimes that the law can't solve for something. But how does one incorporate that legally? You sort of run in circles: if something's a natural right, it's self evident... but what if other people disagree? Is what they find self-evident a natural right? Very problematic.

And... dude, Emory isn't especially liberal.

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...

[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

The original case was US vs Miller. It took place like 60 years ago. It as a bit vague, but basically determined that the possession of a sawed off shotgun did not bear a strong enough correllation with the right to a militia to be legal. They key here, is that they mentioned that to be covered by the 2nd Amendment, the law must prohibit the maintenance of a militia. The Supreme Court has rejected *all* further cases where anyone advocated an individual right to bear arms. Wouldn't even HEAR the cases.

A few more citations of recent work on the issue... both sides included.

n23 See DAVID CRUMP ET AL., CASES AND MATERIALS ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 141 (2d ed. Supp.
1995). (emphasizing the poor construction of the Second Amendment making the determination of what, if anything, the Militia
clause modifies); see Keith A. Ehrman and Dennis A Henigan, The Second Amendment in the Twentieth Century: Have You
Seen Your Militia Lately?, 15 U. DAYTON L. REV. 5, 32 (1989) (arguing that if the drafters of the Second Amendment
wanted to guarantee an individual right to bear arms, they would not have included the militia clause); Todd Barnet, Gun Control
laws Violate the Second Amendment and May Lead to Higher Crime Rates, 63 MO. L. REV. 155 (1998) (arguing that the
Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to possess firearms for personal protection and thus should be interpreted as
creating a fundamental right in individuals); see David E. Murley, Private Enforcement of the Social Contract: Deshaney and
the Second Amendment Right to Own Firearms, 36 DUQ. L. REV. 15, 16 (1997) (affirming the interpretation that the Second
Amendment implies individuals have a right to "armed self-defense"); Harold S. Herd, A Re-Examination of the Firearms
Regulation Debate and Its Consequences, 36 WASHBURN L.J. 196, 198 (1997) (expressing the need for congressional
determination of the "need for and the scope of firearms regulation"); Donald W. Dowd, The Relevance of the Second
Amendment to Gun Control Legislation, 58 MONT. L. REV. 79, 108-12 (1997) (detailing several standards of review
applicable under the Second Amendment); Robert Dowlut, The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: A Right to Self-Defense
Against Criminals and Despots, 8 STAN L. & POL'Y REV. 25, 30 (1997) (noting the Framers main concern in adoption of the
Second Amendment was a concern of the right to self-defense); Carl T. Bogus, The Hidden History of the Second
Amendment, 31 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 309, 408 (1998) (arguing that the Second Amendment "lives two lives: one in the law
and the other in politics, public policy, and popular culture"); Steven H. Gunn, A Lawyer's Guide to the Second Amendment,
1998 B.Y.U.L.REV. 35, 46 (1998) (emphasizing that the Second Amendment only prevents the federal government from
interfering with state militia's); Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 YALE L.J. 637, 642 (1989)
(suspecting that the absence of legal explanation of the Second Amendment stems from the opposition of private gun ownership
and "perhaps the subconscious fear that altogether plausible, perhaps even "winning," interpretations of the Second Amendment
would present real hurdles to those . . . supporting prohibitory regulation").

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...


[This message has been edited by haven (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

Like liberal arts means liberal politics?



------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

 

Beto:

Without direct clash, it's impossible to show the mistakes. All that can do, is show an alternative concept of history. That doesn't do ANYTHING in the way of establishing superiority.

I read the article; it wasn't very good for the reasons I listed above. Without clash, all that we can establish is that two different people propose alternate visions of the historical record.

In lieu of an alternate method of determining superiority... Emory's a better school than Rutgers, therefore I win . (jk)

------------------
Lacking inspiration at the moment...

 

But beto my boy, your context makes no sense:

Did I dismiss your Emory University Professor because he works at a Liberal Arts University?

1. Emory is a university, why would you not want to read something from that?

2. What does "Liberal Arts" have to do with it? Technically, it is not really classified as such the way that Southwestern or Trinity are.

3. Haha, you funny! i am getting to like you more and more by the post. I mean that, too.

------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

 

MadMax,

Actually, you are misled in regards to UK (don't know about Australia). General crime has risen in the UK, but it is unrelated to guns.

Here are some crude excerpts from a US Department of Justice report:


Murder is 6 times higher in US than the UK. It was a larger margin 16 years ago because the UK has stayed about the same while the US has lowered.

Firearms are used in 68% of US murders, while only 7% in the UK.
They are also used in 41% of US robberies, with only 5% in UK robberies.

FYI, I got the link to the report from a conservative Op-Ed piece talking about gun control leading to more crimes/murders.

The crime that has risen in the UK is car theft, rape, and drug use...having little to do with guns.

The link is to a PDF (I could not cut and paste from it) read the general summary at the beginning.

<a href="http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cjusew96.pdf#xml=http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=View&VdkVgwKey=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eojp%2Eusdoj%2Egov%2Fbjs%2Fpub%2Fpd f %2Fcjusew96%2Epdf&doctype=xml&Collection=bjspdf&QueryZip=Farrington&">Article</a>


------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

[This message has been edited by keeley (edited June 11, 2001).]

 

well, I cant get it to work properly...just cut and paste it into your browser...maybe an admin can clean it up...it is the right URL.

------------------
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maître de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines