Stay In Touch -Have I not proven to you that I Am in the saving sinners business? -Jesus
Monday, November 28, 2011
We Are One: After holiday recovery
We Are One: After holiday recovery
Excerpt:
.....how completely I wiped out my own past. So why wasn't I delighted or even happy with not remembering. I should have been able to move forward with my life. Only it doesn't work that way. A repressed memory doesn't remove it or process it. Much like vwoopvwoop's painting the image is painted over. The memory of the experience is lurking behind the curtain of my subconscious much like the Great Oz. It influences or even controls my actions and I feel a bit like a marionette dancing to a tune that not even I hear. Counseling sessions often involve pulling back that curtain. Often, once exposed to the light of day, I find that the memory no longer has the ferociousness that I once feared. Occasionally the memory is just as big and ugly as I feared. Through counseling I work through how I can wrap my mind around it. Sometimes it is the acceptance that it is in my past. Sometimes it is the understanding that children are manipulated by cruel adults. Sometimes I need the opportunity to grieve the incident that caused some form of loss. Repression sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse...
Excerpt:
.....how completely I wiped out my own past. So why wasn't I delighted or even happy with not remembering. I should have been able to move forward with my life. Only it doesn't work that way. A repressed memory doesn't remove it or process it. Much like vwoopvwoop's painting the image is painted over. The memory of the experience is lurking behind the curtain of my subconscious much like the Great Oz. It influences or even controls my actions and I feel a bit like a marionette dancing to a tune that not even I hear. Counseling sessions often involve pulling back that curtain. Often, once exposed to the light of day, I find that the memory no longer has the ferociousness that I once feared. Occasionally the memory is just as big and ugly as I feared. Through counseling I work through how I can wrap my mind around it. Sometimes it is the acceptance that it is in my past. Sometimes it is the understanding that children are manipulated by cruel adults. Sometimes I need the opportunity to grieve the incident that caused some form of loss. Repression sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse...
Paul Davis On Crime: TNT Mystery Movie Night Offers Six Made-For-TV Movies Based On Best-Selling Crime Novels
Paul Davis On Crime: TNT Mystery Movie Night Offers Six Made-For-TV Movies Based On Best-Selling Crime Novels
Excerpt:
TNT is resurrecting the made-for-TV mystery movie genre with its Mystery Movie Night, a series of six films airing through Christmas, based on crime novels written by best-selling novelists. USA TODAY looks at the stars, the films and the books they're based on.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/story/2011-11-24/tnt-murdery-mystery-tv-series/51393396/1
I plan to tune to see the first TNT film, Scott Turow's Innocent. I like Scott Turow's well-written legal thrillers and I've read both Innocent and Presumed Innocent.
I also like the TV movie's cast. Bill Pullman, Marcia Gay Harden and Alfred Molina are all fine actors...
Excerpt:
TNT is resurrecting the made-for-TV mystery movie genre with its Mystery Movie Night, a series of six films airing through Christmas, based on crime novels written by best-selling novelists. USA TODAY looks at the stars, the films and the books they're based on.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/story/2011-11-24/tnt-murdery-mystery-tv-series/51393396/1
I plan to tune to see the first TNT film, Scott Turow's Innocent. I like Scott Turow's well-written legal thrillers and I've read both Innocent and Presumed Innocent.
I also like the TV movie's cast. Bill Pullman, Marcia Gay Harden and Alfred Molina are all fine actors...
Marks in the Margin: The Spirit of the Coffee House
Marks in the Margin: The Spirit of the Coffee House
Excerpt: [I am so happy this blog is still up and running~]
It was a pleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt had on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. Hemingway
Over thirty years ago I bought a book titled Coffee Houses of Europe. I don't know how I managed to save it all this time, since it is a large, heavy book, filled with beautiful color photographs of some of the most famous coffee houses in Europe. Really, it’s a coffee table book and apparently it has become quite a treasure.
I’ve also had a life-long interest in the coffee house culture and the spirit that it is said to engender. No doubt that’s because most of the cities I’ve lived in have not been blessed with coffee houses or its culture. But in those that I have visited in France and Italy, I’ve felt their warmth and congeniality.
In his Introduction to the photographic plates, the Hungarian-born writer George Mikes distinguishes between the classic coffee houses of Central Europe--Vienna, Budapest, Prague—from those of Lisbon, Paris and London. He calls the latter “places,” while those in Central Europe are “a way of life…a way of looking at the world by those who do not want to look at the world at all.”
Excerpt: [I am so happy this blog is still up and running~]
It was a pleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old water-proof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt had on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. Hemingway
Over thirty years ago I bought a book titled Coffee Houses of Europe. I don't know how I managed to save it all this time, since it is a large, heavy book, filled with beautiful color photographs of some of the most famous coffee houses in Europe. Really, it’s a coffee table book and apparently it has become quite a treasure.
I’ve also had a life-long interest in the coffee house culture and the spirit that it is said to engender. No doubt that’s because most of the cities I’ve lived in have not been blessed with coffee houses or its culture. But in those that I have visited in France and Italy, I’ve felt their warmth and congeniality.
In his Introduction to the photographic plates, the Hungarian-born writer George Mikes distinguishes between the classic coffee houses of Central Europe--Vienna, Budapest, Prague—from those of Lisbon, Paris and London. He calls the latter “places,” while those in Central Europe are “a way of life…a way of looking at the world by those who do not want to look at the world at all.”
Anecdotal Evidence: `Metre Is a Brain-Altering Drug'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Metre Is a Brain-Altering Drug'
Excerpt:
“It was language I loved, not meaning. I liked poetry better when I wasn’t sure what it meant.”
Excerpt:
`Metre Is a Brain-Altering Drug'
One outgrows such thinking, usually by age sixteen, about the time we start feeling guilty for having fallen for the flummery of Dylan Thomas. The poet who wrote the lines above, P.K. Page, died last year at age ninety-six. She wrote them, in “Falling in Love with Poetry” (collected in The Filled Pen: Selected Non-fiction), in 2005. Some of us mature more slowly than others.
In the best, most memorable poems, sound and sense are inseparable. It’s not surprising that among the first poems to excite me as a boy were Poe’s “The Bells” and "Annabel Lee,” the usual well-oiled suspects. Today, I can’t read Poe on a bet, and for diametrically opposite reasons I can’t read Allen Ginsberg. At the start of her essay, Page suggests an explanation for our early, faulty infatuations:
“I fell in love with poetry before I knew what poetry was. I loved the rhythms and the rhymes.”
Bad poetry can be very powerful and seductive, whether transparently bad like Poe’s or “skillfully obscure” like Hart Crane’s, in the words of Yvor Winters. Too much emphasis on sound results in nonsense; too much on sense, propaganda that might as well be prose. One reason we can’t fall in love with contemporary poetry is that most of it possesses too much sound and too little sense, or vice versa. Good poems dwell in a taut equilibrium. Formlessness invites self-indulgent senselessness. We need something to chafe against, in literature as in life. Free verse, in most hands, is slavery. Sonnets liberate. In another essay, “A Writer’s Life,” Page says:
“I suspect that metre is a brain-altering drug – one we ignore at our peril. Just consider what we know, but take for granted: that iambic is the lub-dub of the heart, and iambic pentameter that lub-dub repeated five times – roughly the number of heartbeats to a breath. It is difficult for me to believe this is accidental.”...........
Sunday, November 27, 2011
SHIRT OF FLAME: AN OPIUM-ADDICTED SAINT!
SHIRT OF FLAME: AN OPIUM-ADDICTED SAINT!
Excerpt:
Mark couldn’t receive communion because his addiction was regarded as gravely sinful and scandalous. He prayed for deliverance from his addiction, but deliverance never came. Nevertheless he remained a believing Catholic...
Excerpt:
A friend of mine recently sent me a unusual holy card. It honors St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, a Chinese layman who was murdered in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village, in the vicious persecution of Christians during the Boxer rebellion. That’s not the unusual thing. The Church has canonized many martyrs, including many Chinese martyrs. What’s unusual about St. Mark is that he was an opium addict who was barred from receiving the sacraments for the last 30 years of his life.
A Common Reader: Too Loud a Solitude
A Common Reader: Too Loud a Solitude
Excerpt:
After seeing glowing reviews of the works of Bohumil Hrabal, I thought I would read one of his books. Expect to see several more posts on his works over the next few months—I thoroughly enjoyed Too Loud a Solitude. Welcome to the world of Haňtá, a trash compactor in Prague, turning out compressed bales of paper for the last thirty-five years. Haňtá reveals that his two loves in the world are books and beer, items he feels are necessities for his work and his learning. It’s questionable at first whether he understands the books he rescues from the compactor and takes home to read. It becomes clear that he not only understands the books, they have become part of him, leaving a mark on his soul. No longer able to tell which “thoughts come from me and which from my books” (page 1) he sees himself as a bale of compacted thoughts he has received from his books. Haňtá makes use of his learning to add to his unique way of looking and acting in the world around him, although his subtle subversion, born of a naiveté despite the self-scholoarship, sets him apart from others.
Haňtá hopes that the books he saves from the compactor will tell him more about himself. His apartment becomes so filled with books that he can barely maneuver around the many stacks. He has added shelves everywhere, including above his bed where the weight of his books would crush him in his sleep if they happened to fall. Haňtá accepts whatever comes his way with unquestioning gratitude, highlighting a tension between his ideals and what he is willing to do to obtain them:........
Excerpt:
After seeing glowing reviews of the works of Bohumil Hrabal, I thought I would read one of his books. Expect to see several more posts on his works over the next few months—I thoroughly enjoyed Too Loud a Solitude. Welcome to the world of Haňtá, a trash compactor in Prague, turning out compressed bales of paper for the last thirty-five years. Haňtá reveals that his two loves in the world are books and beer, items he feels are necessities for his work and his learning. It’s questionable at first whether he understands the books he rescues from the compactor and takes home to read. It becomes clear that he not only understands the books, they have become part of him, leaving a mark on his soul. No longer able to tell which “thoughts come from me and which from my books” (page 1) he sees himself as a bale of compacted thoughts he has received from his books. Haňtá makes use of his learning to add to his unique way of looking and acting in the world around him, although his subtle subversion, born of a naiveté despite the self-scholoarship, sets him apart from others.
Haňtá hopes that the books he saves from the compactor will tell him more about himself. His apartment becomes so filled with books that he can barely maneuver around the many stacks. He has added shelves everywhere, including above his bed where the weight of his books would crush him in his sleep if they happened to fall. Haňtá accepts whatever comes his way with unquestioning gratitude, highlighting a tension between his ideals and what he is willing to do to obtain them:........
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Marks in the Margin: Avoidance
Marks in the Margin: Avoidance
Excerpt:
In Pascal Mercier’s novel Night Train to Lisbon the Portuguese physician Amedeau Prado inquires: Is it so that everything we do is done out of fear of loneliness? ….Why else do we hold on to all these broken marriages, false friendships, boring birthday parties? What would happen if we refused all that, put an end to the skulking blackmail and stood on our own?....
Excerpt:
In Pascal Mercier’s novel Night Train to Lisbon the Portuguese physician Amedeau Prado inquires: Is it so that everything we do is done out of fear of loneliness? ….Why else do we hold on to all these broken marriages, false friendships, boring birthday parties? What would happen if we refused all that, put an end to the skulking blackmail and stood on our own?....
Paul Davis On Crime: The Early Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Intriguing Glimpse Of Hemingway's Formative Years
Paul Davis On Crime: The Early Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Intriguing Glimpse Of Hemingway's Formative Years
Excerpt:
Dave Williamson at the Winnipeg Free Press offers a good review of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922.
Readers wanting something light should look elsewhere. This is a scholarly volume, with 84 pages of introduction and myriad footnotes that often exceed in length the letters to which they are appended.
What is most fascinating about this book is the evidence of how early in his life Hemingway recognized his ambition to be a novelist. Virtually everything he did after high school in Oak Park (a suburb of Chicago, also the birthplace of Carol Shields) became part of his self-styled apprenticeship. Though his upper-middle-class parents wanted him to go to university, he took a job with the Kansas City Star and was writing news stories at the age of 18.
You can read the rest of the review...
Excerpt:
Dave Williamson at the Winnipeg Free Press offers a good review of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 1907-1922.
Readers wanting something light should look elsewhere. This is a scholarly volume, with 84 pages of introduction and myriad footnotes that often exceed in length the letters to which they are appended.
What is most fascinating about this book is the evidence of how early in his life Hemingway recognized his ambition to be a novelist. Virtually everything he did after high school in Oak Park (a suburb of Chicago, also the birthplace of Carol Shields) became part of his self-styled apprenticeship. Though his upper-middle-class parents wanted him to go to university, he took a job with the Kansas City Star and was writing news stories at the age of 18.
You can read the rest of the review...
Irrational, Imaginary, and Transcendental — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Irrational, Imaginary, and Transcendental — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Thanksgiving morning, as I was doing my research, I made a tweet or two, as mental markers, and as it happens, an iFriend who is a mathematician saw my tweets and that that prompted a short conversation where I learned (if I understood him correctly) that the aspects of mathematics that seem most self-evident, as in 1,2,3,4… is actually the least well-founded.
Today, as I talked about this with my wife on our long drive back from Flatbush to Montauk, I tried to conceive of a race of beings who apprehended the ratio of a circles diameter to its circumference, ratio of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with two equal shorter sides to those shorter sides as fundamental concepts, and have to build upon such a foundation novel ideas like whole numbers. I doubt it’s an original thought, but my brain couldn’t take the idea any further....
The Diary Review: Livingstone’s invisible writing
The Diary Review: Livingstone’s invisible writing
Excerpt:
A remarkable diary left behind by the famous British explorer and missionary David Livingstone has just been revealed, literally, for the first time - and published on the internet - thanks to a trans-Antlantic team of scholars and scientists. The so-called 1871 Field Diary was written in the run-up to Livingstone’s meeting with the journalist Henry Morton Stanley, and covers a horrific massacre by Arab slave traders...
Excerpt:
A remarkable diary left behind by the famous British explorer and missionary David Livingstone has just been revealed, literally, for the first time - and published on the internet - thanks to a trans-Antlantic team of scholars and scientists. The so-called 1871 Field Diary was written in the run-up to Livingstone’s meeting with the journalist Henry Morton Stanley, and covers a horrific massacre by Arab slave traders...
Friday, November 25, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Sanctuary for the Abused: Why Women Stay
Sanctuary for the Abused: Why Women Stay
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Situational Factors
Economic dependence. How can she support herself and the children? Fear of greater physical danger to herself and her children if they try to leave.
Fear of being hunted down and suffering a worse beating than before.
Survival. Fear that her partner will follow her and kill her if she leaves, often based on real threats by her partner.
Fear of emotional damage to the children.
Fear of losing custody of the children, often based on her partner's remarks.
Lack of alternative housing; she has nowhere else to go.
Lack of job skills; she might not be able to get a job.
Social isolation resulting in lack of support from family and friends.
Social isolation resulting in lack of information about her alternatives.
Lack of understanding from family friends, police, ministers, etc.
Negative responses from community, police, courts, social workers, etc.
Fear of involvement in the court process; she may have had bad experiences before.
Fear of the unknown. "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."
Fear and ambivalence over making formidable life changes.
"Acceptable violence". The violence escalates slowly over time. Living with constant abuse numbs the victim so that she is unable to recognize that she is involved in a set pattern of abuse.
Ties to the community. The children would have to leave their school, she would have to leave all her friends and neighbors behind, etc. For some women, it would be like being in the Witness Protection program--she could never have any contact with her old life.
Ties to her home and belongings.
Family pressure; because Mom always said, "I told you it wouldn't work out." or "You made your bed, now you sleep in it."
Fear of her abuser doing something to get her (report her to welfare, call her workplace, etc.)
Unable to use current resources because of how they are provided (language problems, disability, homophobia, etc.) Time needed to plan and prepare to leave.
Emotional Factors
Insecurity about being alone, on her own; she's afraid she can't cope with home and children by herself.
Loyalty. "He's sick; if he had a broken leg or cancer--I would stay. This is no different."
Pity. He's worse off than she is; she feels sorry for him.
Wanting to help. "If I stay I can help him get better."
Fear that he will commit suicide if she leaves (often he's told her this).
Denial. "It's really not that bad. Other people have it worse."
Love. Often, the abuser is quite loving and lovable when he is not being abusive.
Love, especially during the "honeymoon" stage; she remembers what he used to be like.
Guilt. She believes--and her partner and the other significant others are quick to agree-- that their problems are her fault.
Shame and humiliation in front of the community. "I don't want anyone else to know."
Unfounded optimism that the abuser will change.
Unfounded optimism that things will get better, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Learned helplessness. trying every possible method to change something in our environment, but with no success, so that we eventually expect to fail. Feeling helpless is a logical response to constant resistance to our efforts. This can be seen with prisoners of war, people taken hostage, people living in poverty who cannot get work, etc.
False hope. "He's starting to do things I've been asking for." (counseling, anger management, things she sees as a chance of improvement.)
Guilt. She believes that the violence is caused through some inadequacy of her own (she is often told this); feels as though she deserves it for failing.
Responsibility. She feels as though she only needs to meet some set of vague expectations in order to earn the abuser's approval.
Insecurity over her potential independence and lack of emotional support.
Guilt about the failure of the marriage/relationship.
Demolished self-esteem. "I thought I was too (fat, stupid, ugly, whatever he's been calling her) to leave."
Lack of emotional support--she feels like she's doing this on her own, and it's just too much.
Simple exhaustion. She's just too tired and worn out from the abuse to leave.
Personal Beliefs
Parenting, needing a partner for the kids. "A crazy father is better than none at all."
Religious and extended family pressure to keep the family together no matter what.
Duty. "I swore to stay married till death do us part." Responsibility. It is up to her to work things out and save the relationship.
Belief in the American dream of growing up and living happily ever after.
Identity. Woman are raised to feel they need a partner--even an abusive one--in order to to be complete or accepted by society.
Belief that marriage is forever.
Belief that violence is the way all partners relate (often this woman has come from a violent childhood).
Religious and cultural beliefs.
(from the Rural Women's Advocacy Program)
Coffee shop serves up Christmas light show in Austin | KREM.com Spokane
Coffee shop serves up Christmas light show in Austin | KREM.com Spokane
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
AUSTIN -- Mozart's Coffee Roasters on Lake Austin Boulevard is serving up a heaping helping of Christmas cheer.
Their annual holiday lights and music show goes off at the top of the hour, from 6 p.m. to midnight, until New Year's Eve...
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
AtonementOnline: Thanksgiving
AtonementOnline: Thanksgiving
Excerpt:
George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"......................
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God....
Excerpt:
George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation.
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"......................
Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God....
Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Thanksgiving
Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Thanksgiving
Excerpt:
Thank you to the millions of people, including my ancestors, who pulled up stakes, or risked life and limb, and travelled to America, and built this great country and passed it on to us.
Dear God, we give you thanks for our ancestors who left homes and families and the life they knew and came to America, often at great sacrifice and great hazard, and built this great country and gave it to us. Please grant that we will be worthy of them, and leave this country to those who come after not only not less but greater than it has been given to us.
Excerpt:
Thank you to the millions of people, including my ancestors, who pulled up stakes, or risked life and limb, and travelled to America, and built this great country and passed it on to us.
Dear God, we give you thanks for our ancestors who left homes and families and the life they knew and came to America, often at great sacrifice and great hazard, and built this great country and gave it to us. Please grant that we will be worthy of them, and leave this country to those who come after not only not less but greater than it has been given to us.
Barefoot and Pregnant: Nothing Says "Road Trip" Like Anaphylaxis
Barefoot and Pregnant: Nothing Says "Road Trip" Like Anaphylaxis
Excerpt:
These are the best, best, best, best, BEST tacos I have ever eaten. I only got one, which was a huge mistake.
Excerpt:
These are the best, best, best, best, BEST tacos I have ever eaten. I only got one, which was a huge mistake.
I should have had seventeen.
Also, they make the best queso in existence. I became a total savage under the influence of this queso. I literally had to restrain myself from snapping at my sister-in-law's hand every time she dipped her chip in the queso. I wanted to drink it. The heavens parted, the angels sang, I ate indelicately, and it was glorious.
... everyone in Austin has somehow developed the ability to park backward.
... everyone in Austin has somehow developed the ability to park backward.
That last part was weird.
.............
Anecdotal Evidence: `Have a Book Open on Your Dressing Table'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Have a Book Open on Your Dressing Table'
Excerpt:
Sir William Osler, who adorned your profession in the United States for many years, is cordially presented.”
Here is the third of four paragraphs:
“May you share with him his `relish of knowledge’ and his absorbing love and passionate, persistent search for truth.”
One can hardly imagine the world suggested by this gift and message, even if we dismiss it as promotional boilerplate...
“get the education, if not of a scholar, at least of a gentleman,” and suggests:
“Before going to sleep read for half an hour, and in the morning have a book open on your dressing table. You will be surprised to find how much can be accomplished in the course of a year.”
Here is Osler’s prescription for a liberal education:
I. Old and New Testament.
II. Shakespeare.
III. Montaigne.
IV. Plutarch’s Lives.
V. Marcus Aurelius.
VI. Epictetus.
VII. Religio Medici.
VIII. Don Quixote.
IX. Emerson.
X. Oliver Wendell Holmes—Breakfast-Table Series.
.............
Excerpt:
Sir William Osler, who adorned your profession in the United States for many years, is cordially presented.”
Here is the third of four paragraphs:
“May you share with him his `relish of knowledge’ and his absorbing love and passionate, persistent search for truth.”
One can hardly imagine the world suggested by this gift and message, even if we dismiss it as promotional boilerplate...
“get the education, if not of a scholar, at least of a gentleman,” and suggests:
“Before going to sleep read for half an hour, and in the morning have a book open on your dressing table. You will be surprised to find how much can be accomplished in the course of a year.”
Here is Osler’s prescription for a liberal education:
I. Old and New Testament.
II. Shakespeare.
III. Montaigne.
IV. Plutarch’s Lives.
V. Marcus Aurelius.
VI. Epictetus.
VII. Religio Medici.
VIII. Don Quixote.
IX. Emerson.
X. Oliver Wendell Holmes—Breakfast-Table Series.
.............
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Song's Eternity
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Song's Eternity
Excerpt:
“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions — the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English Romantic poet
(This poem is best when read out loud.)
SONG’S ETERNITY
What is song’s eternity?
Come and see
Can it noise and bustle be?
Come and see
Praises sung or praises said,
Can it be?
Wait awhile and these are dead
Sigh sigh
Be they high or lowly bred
They die
What is song’s eternity?
Come and see
Melodies of earth and sky,
Here they be
Song once sung to Adam’s ears
Can it be?
Ballads of six thousand years
Thrive thrive
Songs awaken with the spheres
Alive
Mighty songs that miss decay
What are they?......... ~ John Clare (1793-1864), English Romantic poet
Excerpt:
“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions — the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.” ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English Romantic poet
(This poem is best when read out loud.)
SONG’S ETERNITY
What is song’s eternity?
Come and see
Can it noise and bustle be?
Come and see
Praises sung or praises said,
Can it be?
Wait awhile and these are dead
Sigh sigh
Be they high or lowly bred
They die
What is song’s eternity?
Come and see
Melodies of earth and sky,
Here they be
Song once sung to Adam’s ears
Can it be?
Ballads of six thousand years
Thrive thrive
Songs awaken with the spheres
Alive
Mighty songs that miss decay
What are they?......... ~ John Clare (1793-1864), English Romantic poet
Rachel's Challenge: A kindness campaign to reducing bullying in our schools | KREM.com Spokane
Rachel's Challenge: A kindness campaign to reducing bullying in our schools | KREM.com Spokane
On this Thanksgiving we all have many things to be thankful for. The greatest gift we can ever give is compassion.
I will not let thee go except thou be blessed. Now wouldn’t it be a magnificent world if we all lived that way with each other or even with ourselves?
Excerpt:
On this Thanksgiving we all have many things to be thankful for. The greatest gift we can ever give is compassion.
I will not let thee go except thou be blessed. Now wouldn’t it be a magnificent world if we all lived that way with each other or even with ourselves?
Excerpt:
At first it seemed the shooters had forever silenced the girl who had dreams of making the world a kinder place. But in the days following her death, Rachel's dad discovered an essay she had written just one month before she died. She titles it 'My Ethics, My Codes of Life'. In it she wrote the following:
"I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go."
"In that essay, she challenged her reader to start a chain reaction of kindness and compassion that would ripple around the world," said Darrell.
.....[Start your 'ripple' today........:)]
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Skeptical Doctor: Knowledge Without Knowledge
The Skeptical Doctor: Knowledge Without Knowledge
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Dalrymple's new piece on the communist writer Isaac Deutscher, in New English Review, is in keeping with his recent, excellent work for that site. We see therein a recurring, unspoken theme of his work: that in trying to make sense of our world, neither intelligence nor education nor talent, nor even the combination of all these things, is nearly enough. One also needs practicality, open-minded self-criticism, a sense of proportion and probably a lot more besides.
Deutscher was an infant prodigy, brought up as a religious Jew but losing his faith at an early age. He transferred his religious longings at about the age of twenty to the secular faith of Marxism, and never lost that faith to the day he died. Happy the man who lives in his faith, but unhappy the man who lives in a country in which his faith has become an unassailable orthodoxy.
When one reads Deutscher aware of the fact that English was his sixth or seventh language, one is truly astonished, for his prose in his sixth or seventh language is lucid and even elegant, with absolutely no hint that he is not a native-speaker, and a highly-educated one at that. As a sheer linguistic feat this is, if not completely unexampled, very remarkable indeed. Although a Marxist, he modelled himself as a stylist on Gibbon and Macaulay, and if he does not quite reach their level – well, who does nowadays?
His language was clear, but his thought was not. He was what might be called a dialectical equivocator, made dishonest by his early religious vows to Marxism. This made him unable to see or judge things in a common-sense way. His unwavering attachment to his primordial philosophical standpoint, his irrational rationalism, turned him into that most curious (and sometimes dangerous, because intellectually charismatic) figure, the brilliant fool. He was the opposite of Dr Watson who saw but did not observe: he observed, but did not see. He was the archetype of the man, so common among intellectuals, who knows much but understands little...
Anecdotal Evidence: `He Seldom Mentions Sin'
Anecdotal Evidence: `He Seldom Mentions Sin'
Excerpt:
Auden...wrote an introduction to the celebrated Phyllis McGinley in Times Three (1960), he collected poems that went through seven printings in six years. Here is “This Side of Calvin”:
“The Reverend Dr. Harcourt, folk agree,
Nodding their heads in solid satisfaction,
Is just the man for this community.
Tall, young, urbane, but capable of action,
He pleases where he serves. He marshals out
The younger crowd, lacks trace of clerical unction,
Cheers the Kiwanis and the Eagle Scout,
Is popular at every public function,
“And in the pulpit eloquently speaks
On divers matters with both wit and clarity:
Art, Education, God, the Early Greeks,
Psychiatry, Saint Paul, true Christian charity,
Vestry repairs that shortly must begin—
All things but Sin. He seldom mentions Sin.”
McGinley’s satire is gentle, as is mine.
Excerpt:
Auden...wrote an introduction to the celebrated Phyllis McGinley in Times Three (1960), he collected poems that went through seven printings in six years. Here is “This Side of Calvin”:
“The Reverend Dr. Harcourt, folk agree,
Nodding their heads in solid satisfaction,
Is just the man for this community.
Tall, young, urbane, but capable of action,
He pleases where he serves. He marshals out
The younger crowd, lacks trace of clerical unction,
Cheers the Kiwanis and the Eagle Scout,
Is popular at every public function,
“And in the pulpit eloquently speaks
On divers matters with both wit and clarity:
Art, Education, God, the Early Greeks,
Psychiatry, Saint Paul, true Christian charity,
Vestry repairs that shortly must begin—
All things but Sin. He seldom mentions Sin.”
McGinley’s satire is gentle, as is mine.
l'malheur: Simone Weil
"We didn’t ask for the l’malheur but it came, it tortured us, brought us to the brink of many deaths and at the edge, the brink of death’s door, it threw us back out into the world. Some of us inwardly may scream but l’malheur forces out the one voice emerging through heart’s tunnel into a hoarse, hushed whisper. The memory is actually a symphonic, theatrical on-going play, historia. It was initially; it is now. The witness must forever tell of his experience to remind one of 'justice'."
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
[Agape: The Law of True Love: Generous Hospitality]
The opposite of cruelty is not simply kindness or the end of the cruel relationship. The opposite of cruelty is hospitality.
This is the conclusion reached by the philosopher Philip Hallie (1922-1994) after he studied what the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon had done during the Second World War. Le Chambon was located in a part of France under the close eyes of the Nazis. All the Jews found in the area would be deported to the extermination camps in the East.
The residents decided as a village to provide food and shelter and comfort to any Jews knocking on their doors. Risking their lives, they saved more than 6000 Jews.
But their enduring hospitality did more than save lives. For example, writes Hallie, “the morning after a new refugee family came to town they would find on their front door a wreath with ‘Bienvenue!’ ‘Welcome!’ painted on a piece of cardboard attached to the wreath. Nobody knew who had brought the wreath; in effect, the whole town had brought it.”
“The people of Le Chambon,” wrote a woman years later who had been saved as a young girl, “showed to us that life can be different, that there are people who care, that people can live together and even risk their own lives for their fellow man.” The people of Le Chambon gave their guests hope for the future.
If I can stop one Heart from breaking,
I shall not live in Vain:
If I can ease one Life the Aching,
Or cool one Pain,
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet
(To read more, see Philip Hallie’s Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There)
[Agape: The Law of True Love: Generous Hospitality]
The opposite of cruelty is not simply kindness or the end of the cruel relationship. The opposite of cruelty is hospitality.
This is the conclusion reached by the philosopher Philip Hallie (1922-1994) after he studied what the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon had done during the Second World War. Le Chambon was located in a part of France under the close eyes of the Nazis. All the Jews found in the area would be deported to the extermination camps in the East.
The residents decided as a village to provide food and shelter and comfort to any Jews knocking on their doors. Risking their lives, they saved more than 6000 Jews.
But their enduring hospitality did more than save lives. For example, writes Hallie, “the morning after a new refugee family came to town they would find on their front door a wreath with ‘Bienvenue!’ ‘Welcome!’ painted on a piece of cardboard attached to the wreath. Nobody knew who had brought the wreath; in effect, the whole town had brought it.”
“The people of Le Chambon,” wrote a woman years later who had been saved as a young girl, “showed to us that life can be different, that there are people who care, that people can live together and even risk their own lives for their fellow man.” The people of Le Chambon gave their guests hope for the future.
If I can stop one Heart from breaking,
I shall not live in Vain:
If I can ease one Life the Aching,
Or cool one Pain,
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in Vain.
~ Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), American poet
(To read more, see Philip Hallie’s Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Lightest of Touches
Everything is managed with the lightest of touches. ~on Maias
They shift the moving toyshop of their heart ~Alexander Pope
Brindar
Pourtant, je suis seule dans ce tourbillon et c'est ce que l'écriture est. Qui serait trivially choisir une telle vie? Il vraiment chelems vous jusqu'côté de la tête, les turions lances à incendie dans vos yeux, se déverse les coulées de lave dans votre âme, "pauses votre coeur" en un milliard minuscule morceaux puis avez si impoliment livres et pulvérise même ces pièces en plus fine dans la poussière.
With varying vanities, from every part,They shift the moving toyshop of their heart ~Alexander Pope
Chesterton on Dickens
from 1866/Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens by Gilbert Keith Chesterton...
Nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us or the things on the retina of the eye or the enormous irrelevancy of encyclopedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come. All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation. The first thing that has to be realised about Dickens is this ultimate spiritual condition of the man, which lay behind all his creations. This Dickens state of mind is difficult to pick out in words as are all elementary states of mind; they cannot be described, not because they are too subtle for words, but because they are too simple for words. Perhaps the nearest approach to a statement of it would be this: that Dickens expresses an eager anticipation of everything that will happen in the motley affairs of men; he looks at the quiet crowd waiting for it to be picturesque and to play the fool; he expects everything; he is torn with a happy hunger. Thackeray is always looking back to yesterday; Dickens is always looking forward to to-morrow. Both are profoundly humorous, for there is a humour of the morning and a humour of the evening; but the first guesses at what it will get, at all the grotesqueness and variety which a day may bring forth; the second looks back on what the day has been and sees even its solemnities as slightly ironical. Nothing can be too extravagant for the laughter that looks forward; and nothing can be too dignified for the laughter that looks back. It is an idle but obvious thing, which many must have noticed, that we often find in the title of one of an author's books what might very well stand for a general description of all of them. Thus all Spenser's works might be called A Hymn to Heavenly Beauty; or all Mr. Bernard Shaw's bound books might be called You Never Can Tell. In the same way the whole substance and spirit of Thackeray might be gathered under the general title Vanity Fair. In the same way too the whole substance and spirit of Dickens might be gathered under the general title Great Expectations..
Saturday, November 19, 2011
First Known When Lost: "The Region November" Revisited
First Known When Lost: "The Region November" Revisited
Excerpt:
But any good poem is worth revisiting, isn't it? Here's one way to look at it (perhaps): are you the same person that you were a year ago?
The Region November
It is hard to hear the north wind again,
And to watch the treetops, as they sway.
They sway, deeply and loudly, in an effort,
So much less than feeling, so much less than speech,
Saying and saying, the way things say
On the level of that which is not yet knowledge:............
Excerpt:
But any good poem is worth revisiting, isn't it? Here's one way to look at it (perhaps): are you the same person that you were a year ago?
The Region November
It is hard to hear the north wind again,
And to watch the treetops, as they sway.
They sway, deeply and loudly, in an effort,
So much less than feeling, so much less than speech,
Saying and saying, the way things say
On the level of that which is not yet knowledge:............
You Who?
h/t Ruth at We Are One:
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
Anecdotal Evidence: `All Our Ladies Read Now'
Anecdotal Evidence: `All Our Ladies Read Now'
Excerpt:
Another flight to Seattle, another calibration of print requirements: How to carry sufficient reading matter to fill the four-hour-and-forty-minute flight, plus time seated in the terminal, but not over-burden one’s self with cargo, and yet to budget thirty minutes or so for the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine? Such are the trials facing the savvy traveler, especially one accustomed to reading three or four books simultaneously, and who likes to mix genres and subjects.
The latest issue of First Things arrived Thursday, and I was strong – I saved it for the flight. Next, Janet Lewis’ first novel, The Invasion (1932), which I recently bought with birthday money and started reading on Thursday. Call it consumer testing: I like to be certain a book will occupy my attention. How frustrating to start one midair and find out it’s unreadable (hardly likely with Lewis – I’ve read all of her other novels and poetry). Not only could I not read it, I’d have to lug it around for the rest of the trip unless it was so bad I gave it to my seatmate, which I once did with a much-touted George V. Higgins novel.
I’m also packing the latest volume by the prolific Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (Bloomsbury Press, 2010). In the first essay, “Why Study War?” he writes: “Few classicists seemed to remember that most notable Greek writers, thinkers, and statesmen—from Aeschylus to Pericles to Xenophon—had served in the phalanx or on a trireme at sea and that such experiences permeated their work.”
The new books I carry are devoted to old themes and the old ones read like new. .................
Excerpt:
Another flight to Seattle, another calibration of print requirements: How to carry sufficient reading matter to fill the four-hour-and-forty-minute flight, plus time seated in the terminal, but not over-burden one’s self with cargo, and yet to budget thirty minutes or so for the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine? Such are the trials facing the savvy traveler, especially one accustomed to reading three or four books simultaneously, and who likes to mix genres and subjects.
The latest issue of First Things arrived Thursday, and I was strong – I saved it for the flight. Next, Janet Lewis’ first novel, The Invasion (1932), which I recently bought with birthday money and started reading on Thursday. Call it consumer testing: I like to be certain a book will occupy my attention. How frustrating to start one midair and find out it’s unreadable (hardly likely with Lewis – I’ve read all of her other novels and poetry). Not only could I not read it, I’d have to lug it around for the rest of the trip unless it was so bad I gave it to my seatmate, which I once did with a much-touted George V. Higgins novel.
I’m also packing the latest volume by the prolific Victor Davis Hanson, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (Bloomsbury Press, 2010). In the first essay, “Why Study War?” he writes: “Few classicists seemed to remember that most notable Greek writers, thinkers, and statesmen—from Aeschylus to Pericles to Xenophon—had served in the phalanx or on a trireme at sea and that such experiences permeated their work.”
The new books I carry are devoted to old themes and the old ones read like new. .................
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wuthering Expectations: Where to start with Eça de Queirós, a non-answer
Wuthering Expectations: Where to start with Eça de Queirós, a non-answer
Excerpt:
Where should a reader start with Eça de Queirós? Or Charles Dickens, or Virginia Woolf, or William Shakespeare? These are not my questions. I assume the existence of a reader with a large appetite, and enough sense to not dismiss the judgments of previous good readers on the basis of a random encounter with Barnaby Rudge or Henry VIII.
As I get to know an author, the question I ask is: where should I stop? Which books are just trivia, or impenetrable period pieces, or juvenilia, or scrapbooks? For a certain kind of critic – Edmund Wilson, Frank Kermode – who reviews new novels only after reading something close to everything the author had ever written, there is no stopping place. How this was feasible, I do not know, except that I suppose these critics read a lot faster than I do, or magazine deadlines were more leisurely than I imagine.
Given enough time, almost anyone can read almost everything...
Excerpt:
Where to start with Eça de Queirós, a non-answer
As I get to know an author, the question I ask is: where should I stop? Which books are just trivia, or impenetrable period pieces, or juvenilia, or scrapbooks? For a certain kind of critic – Edmund Wilson, Frank Kermode – who reviews new novels only after reading something close to everything the author had ever written, there is no stopping place. How this was feasible, I do not know, except that I suppose these critics read a lot faster than I do, or magazine deadlines were more leisurely than I imagine.
Given enough time, almost anyone can read almost everything...
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: "Josey Wales," "Remember..."
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: "Josey Wales," "Remember..."
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
"Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it,
then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. 'Cause if you lose your
head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is."
- Clint Eastwood, "The Outlaw Josey Wales"
Pentimento: Senses Working Overtime
Pentimento: Senses Working Overtime
Excerpt:
Most people see beauty where there's beauty, Pentimento," my old comrade S., from the days of Bohemia, once said. "But you see beauty where there's none." This habit must have started early; my mother has told me that in the first grade, I pulled another child's discarded drawing out of the classroom trash can, wondering aloud that anyone could possibly throw away something so beautiful.
Once I'd moved the four miles that might as well have been a thousand -- from Washington Heights, that is, to the northern Bronx -- I retained my old habit of walking until the blocks turned to miles. I loved to walk, to walk and to look. I walked around my own gemütlich neighborhood until I had to walk out of it. Then I walked in other, less savory climes...
[Yes!]
Excerpt:
Most people see beauty where there's beauty, Pentimento," my old comrade S., from the days of Bohemia, once said. "But you see beauty where there's none." This habit must have started early; my mother has told me that in the first grade, I pulled another child's discarded drawing out of the classroom trash can, wondering aloud that anyone could possibly throw away something so beautiful.
Once I'd moved the four miles that might as well have been a thousand -- from Washington Heights, that is, to the northern Bronx -- I retained my old habit of walking until the blocks turned to miles. I loved to walk, to walk and to look. I walked around my own gemütlich neighborhood until I had to walk out of it. Then I walked in other, less savory climes...
[Yes!]
Barefoot and Pregnant: Evacuate!
Barefoot and Pregnant: Evacuate!
Excerpt:
Have you ever heard the expression "my heart stuttered?" ........LOL....:)
Excerpt:
Have you ever heard the expression "my heart stuttered?" ........LOL....:)
Barefoot and Pregnant: The Difference Between "Its" and "It's"
Barefoot and Pregnant: The Difference Between "Its" and "It's"
[???????!!!!!! As usual she is great!!!!!!!!!!!]
[???????!!!!!! As usual she is great!!!!!!!!!!!]
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Part That Sings'
Anecdotal Evidence: `The Part That Sings'
Excerpt:
In “The Pleasures of Music,” an article he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post in 1959, Copland lauds Beethoven as “one of the great yea-sayers among creative artists” and Bach for the “marvelous rightness” of his work. He celebrates adroitness, energy, what Moore praises as “gusto”: “All of us … can understand and feel the joy of being carried forward by the flow of music. Our love of music is bound up with its forward motion.”
Both artists note the primacy of song, the most joyous of human expressions. In the final verse of “What Are Years,” (Marianne) Moore writes:
“So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.”
Excerpt:
In “The Pleasures of Music,” an article he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post in 1959, Copland lauds Beethoven as “one of the great yea-sayers among creative artists” and Bach for the “marvelous rightness” of his work. He celebrates adroitness, energy, what Moore praises as “gusto”: “All of us … can understand and feel the joy of being carried forward by the flow of music. Our love of music is bound up with its forward motion.”
Both artists note the primacy of song, the most joyous of human expressions. In the final verse of “What Are Years,” (Marianne) Moore writes:
“So he who strongly feels,
behaves. The very bird,
grown taller as he sings, steels
his form straight up. Though he is captive,
his mighty singing
says, satisfaction is a lowly
thing, how pure a thing is joy.
This is mortality,
this is eternity.”
Pentimento: Guerilla Librarianship
Pentimento: Guerilla Librarianship
Excerpt:
I love books so much that sometimes this love feels dangerous. I get a rush whenever I enter a library, especially an academic library. I often have twenty or thirty books checked out at a time, which is where it threatens to become a sickness. If I run across a reference somewhere to a book that seems like something I'd want -- I'd need -- to read, I immediately request it at the library; there's a sense of urgency, of immediacy, there, the fear that, if I let time pass -- the amount of time, for instance, that it would take to read the books I've already checked out -- I will forget that very important book, that new reference, and never request it, and, hence, never read it...
:)
Excerpt:
I love books so much that sometimes this love feels dangerous. I get a rush whenever I enter a library, especially an academic library. I often have twenty or thirty books checked out at a time, which is where it threatens to become a sickness. If I run across a reference somewhere to a book that seems like something I'd want -- I'd need -- to read, I immediately request it at the library; there's a sense of urgency, of immediacy, there, the fear that, if I let time pass -- the amount of time, for instance, that it would take to read the books I've already checked out -- I will forget that very important book, that new reference, and never request it, and, hence, never read it...
:)
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
First Known When Lost: The Shadow: Three Variations On A Theme
First Known When Lost: The Shadow: Three Variations On A Theme
Excerpt:
It is a slight poem, but something about it -- the combination of humor and truth? -- has kept it embedded in my memory, and I often return to it.
Things to Come
The shadow of a fat man in the moonlight
Precedes me on the road down which I go;
And should I turn and run, he would pursue me:
This is the man whom I must get to know.
James Reeves, The Questioning Tiger (1964).....
Read more...
Excerpt:
It is a slight poem, but something about it -- the combination of humor and truth? -- has kept it embedded in my memory, and I often return to it.
Things to Come
The shadow of a fat man in the moonlight
Precedes me on the road down which I go;
And should I turn and run, he would pursue me:
This is the man whom I must get to know.
James Reeves, The Questioning Tiger (1964).....
Read more...
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Eponymous Flower: November 15 is a Day for Heroes: Count Claus von Stauffenberg
The Eponymous Flower: November 15 is a Day for Heroes: Count Claus von Stauffenberg
Excerpt:
Edit: a hero was born in Germany on November 15 1907 at the Castle of Jettingen, who held the Empire and Secret Germany in his soul and lived up to its greatest champions.
Inspired by the poetic genius of Stefan George, he sat at the feet of the ancients and passed whole summers' days in antiquity, learning the timeless wisdom of the Psalmist, the Stagyrite, of Akademos. Then having learned those lessons, Count von Stauffenberg, the aristocrat and soldier, became the tragic hero who made the legendary heroes of old live again.
Here's an account from...
Excerpt:
Edit: a hero was born in Germany on November 15 1907 at the Castle of Jettingen, who held the Empire and Secret Germany in his soul and lived up to its greatest champions.
Inspired by the poetic genius of Stefan George, he sat at the feet of the ancients and passed whole summers' days in antiquity, learning the timeless wisdom of the Psalmist, the Stagyrite, of Akademos. Then having learned those lessons, Count von Stauffenberg, the aristocrat and soldier, became the tragic hero who made the legendary heroes of old live again.
Here's an account from...
A Common Reader: An "ambivalence about the nature and purpose of foreign policy"
A Common Reader: An "ambivalence about the nature and purpose of foreign policy"
Excerpt:
A link to an outstanding article on and review of George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis.
Excerpt:
A link to an outstanding article on and review of George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis.
His fluency in German and Russian, as well as his knowledge of those countries’ histories and literary traditions, combined with a commanding, if contradictory, personality. Kennan was austere yet could also be convivial, playing his guitar at embassy events; pious but given to love affairs (in the management of which he later instructed his son in writing); endlessly introspective and ultimately remote. He was, a critic once charged, “an impressionist, a poet, not an earthling.”
For all these qualities — and perhaps because of them — Kennan was never vouchsafed the opportunity actually to execute his sensitive and farsighted visions at the highest levels of government. And he blighted his career in government by a tendency to recoil from the implications of his own views. The debate in America between idealism and realism, which continues to this day, played itself out inside Kennan’s soul. Though he often expressed doubt about the ability of his fellow Americans to grasp the complexity of his perceptions, he also reflected in his own person a very American ambivalence about the nature and purpose of foreign policy...........
Barefoot and Pregnant: Me vs. the Weather
Barefoot and Pregnant: Me vs. the Weather
Excerpt:
[Yes, Virginia, it's Texas....:)]
Un-freaking-believable. UNBELIEVABLE. I actually want to cry right now. I want to sit down and shed tears.
Why? Why is too much to ask of this ludicrous state and it's ludicrous weather that it just, for once, just once, obey the laws of normal weather patterns and not be 75 degrees on Thanksgiving? Yeah, I know the forecast doesn't go that far, and we are in Texas after all, so there's always a chance that it could plummet down to the 40's overnight, but I bet it won't.
The children, at any rate, are delighted with the sudden warmth. They're all out in the courtyard, climbing trees and cheerfully beating each other to death with sticks and trowels. That's a positive. ...
Excerpt:
[Yes, Virginia, it's Texas....:)]
Un-freaking-believable. UNBELIEVABLE. I actually want to cry right now. I want to sit down and shed tears.
Why? Why is too much to ask of this ludicrous state and it's ludicrous weather that it just, for once, just once, obey the laws of normal weather patterns and not be 75 degrees on Thanksgiving? Yeah, I know the forecast doesn't go that far, and we are in Texas after all, so there's always a chance that it could plummet down to the 40's overnight, but I bet it won't.
 |
| This is not an exaggeration |
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Shema
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Shema
Excerpt:
The poem below was written by Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian chemist, writer, and poet. His many works, especially If This Is a Man, his memoir of his year at Auschwitz, examines man’s struggles to maintain his humanity in the face of great evil.
The Hebrew title of the poem below translates into “listen” or “hear.” It is the first word of a prayer in Jewish liturgy admonishing the faithful to teach their children to love God and to obey the commandments. ...
SHEMA
You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,....
[Along with Elie Wiesel this man has had a profound influence on my own struggles...]
Excerpt:
The poem below was written by Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian chemist, writer, and poet. His many works, especially If This Is a Man, his memoir of his year at Auschwitz, examines man’s struggles to maintain his humanity in the face of great evil.
The Hebrew title of the poem below translates into “listen” or “hear.” It is the first word of a prayer in Jewish liturgy admonishing the faithful to teach their children to love God and to obey the commandments. ...
SHEMA
You who live secure
In your warm houses
Who return at evening to find
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider whether this is a man,....
[Along with Elie Wiesel this man has had a profound influence on my own struggles...]
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Les debemos tanto a las letras.
("Les debemos tanto a las letras. Yo he tratado más de releer que de leer, creo que releer es más importante que leer, salvo que para releer se necesita haber leído. Yo tengo ese culto del libro"]...Borges, Caravana de recuerdos:...
Anecdotal Evidence: You Must Raise Your Hat'
Anecdotal Evidence: You Must Raise Your Hat'
Excerpt: Thanks to Frank Wilson and Dave Lull for alerting me to a wonderful conversation with Jacques Barzun about his arrival in New York City in 1920. Barzun, who celebrates his 104th birthday on Nov. 30, embodies civilization. He seems to have read everything and his memory for detail is phenomenal. He recalls that wristwatches were for “sissies” until American soldiers returning from Europe after the Armistice were seen wearing them. Spaghetti was an “exotic dish” until almost overnight it became thoroughly Americanized. Barzun moves on to hats:
President Kennedy forty years later is often credited with pushing the nation, at least the male portion, into hatlessness...
[***Another proof, in case anyone needed it, of the 'nervous passivity' of everyone's unwillingness to stand out from the crowd[i.e., herd] Jesus experienced that, too, BTW.]
Excerpt:
“Men always wore hats. There was a famous businessman who was interviewed as he landed back from a trip to Europe and he was asked what the great movements were that he was apprehensive about. He said, `Communism and hatlessness!’”
President Kennedy forty years later is often credited with pushing the nation, at least the male portion, into hatlessness...
[***Another proof, in case anyone needed it, of the 'nervous passivity' of everyone's unwillingness to stand out from the crowd[i.e., herd] Jesus experienced that, too, BTW.]
A Year with Rilke: Song of the Beggar
A Year with Rilke: Song of the Beggar
Excerpt:
You'll find me in all weathers beyond the gate,
un-sheltered from rain and sun.
Every so often I cradle my right ear
in my right hand.
Then my own voice sounds to me
as no one ever hears it.
Then I can't tell for certain
who is screaming:
me or someone else.
Poets cry out for more important matters.
At times I even close my eyes
so my face can disappear.
The way it lies with its full weight in my hands,
it is almost like rest.
Then no one can think I lack a place
to lay my head.
~Rilke, New Poems
Excerpt:
You'll find me in all weathers beyond the gate,
un-sheltered from rain and sun.
Every so often I cradle my right ear
in my right hand.
Then my own voice sounds to me
as no one ever hears it.
Then I can't tell for certain
who is screaming:
me or someone else.
Poets cry out for more important matters.
At times I even close my eyes
so my face can disappear.
The way it lies with its full weight in my hands,
it is almost like rest.
Then no one can think I lack a place
to lay my head.
~Rilke, New Poems
Saturday, November 12, 2011
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Try to Praise the Mutilated World
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Try to Praise the Mutilated World
Excerpt:
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”
~ C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity
TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world....
Excerpt:
“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”
~ C. S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity
TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world....
We Are One: Avoidance pattern
We Are One: Avoidance pattern
Excerpt:
Criticism was a part of my growing up years and continued into my adult life. I heard criticism so often that I say it to myself too. I desperately tried to be the 'good girl.' The first split was trying to solve the dilemma no one should have to face. How do I stay looking good while bad things happen? Splitting became away of life for me trying to cope with extreme contradictions, lies, and abuse. I worked at not being criticized until I almost completely stopped living. I was breathing but I wasn't alive. I almost completely vanished as a human being. ..
Excerpt:
Criticism was a part of my growing up years and continued into my adult life. I heard criticism so often that I say it to myself too. I desperately tried to be the 'good girl.' The first split was trying to solve the dilemma no one should have to face. How do I stay looking good while bad things happen? Splitting became away of life for me trying to cope with extreme contradictions, lies, and abuse. I worked at not being criticized until I almost completely stopped living. I was breathing but I wasn't alive. I almost completely vanished as a human being. ..
Adrienne's Corner: Good morning...
Adrienne's Corner: Good morning...
Excerpt:
After agonizing for weeks about where to put my computer desk (ok - maybe "agonizing" is a bit over the top), I decided to place it an angle beside my office window. For years I have sat at my computer with my back to the window and had no idea of all the things I was missing. Several times a day I'm able to witness the "march of the quail" as they file by in perfect order along the fence. All sorts of little birds come to visit and sit in the tree branches within mere inches of the window.
[Looks like my yard! I thought we had all the quail in our backyard...]
Excerpt:
After agonizing for weeks about where to put my computer desk (ok - maybe "agonizing" is a bit over the top), I decided to place it an angle beside my office window. For years I have sat at my computer with my back to the window and had no idea of all the things I was missing. Several times a day I'm able to witness the "march of the quail" as they file by in perfect order along the fence. All sorts of little birds come to visit and sit in the tree branches within mere inches of the window.
[Looks like my yard! I thought we had all the quail in our backyard...]
Friday, November 11, 2011
PJ Media » A True World War II Spy Adventure on this Veterans Day
PJ Media » A True World War II Spy Adventure on this Veterans Day
by Phyllis Chesler
I offer this interview as a token of my appreciation and as a contribution to all the men and women who are currently serving or who have ever served our country in a military or intelligence capacity.
Excerpt:
Most of us think we know all about soldiers and spies because we follow the actors who play such roles on television and in the movies. Thus, we see actors engaging in a lot of “action,” and we—at least those of us who have not been soldiers or spies—learn to suspend all disbelief. We are used to seeing a month long battle or even an entire war begin and end within an hour or two, and we leave the theater knowing that, in the end, the “good guys and gals” always triumph.
by Phyllis Chesler
I offer this interview as a token of my appreciation and as a contribution to all the men and women who are currently serving or who have ever served our country in a military or intelligence capacity.
Excerpt:
Most of us think we know all about soldiers and spies because we follow the actors who play such roles on television and in the movies. Thus, we see actors engaging in a lot of “action,” and we—at least those of us who have not been soldiers or spies—learn to suspend all disbelief. We are used to seeing a month long battle or even an entire war begin and end within an hour or two, and we leave the theater knowing that, in the end, the “good guys and gals” always triumph.
This is crazy. Even though I myself am an avid fan of television’s NCIS, and most of the World War Two movies (Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Saving Private Ryan, etc.), I am far more interested in the stories of real life soldiers and spies. I want to know what they think, what they do, how they learn their craft. Recently, an incredibly dignified hero came my way.
First, a letter arrived in the old-fashioned manner. The author cordially addressed me as a “colleague in the field of terrorism.” He asked whether I might like to read his unpublished manuscript about Islam and terrorism.
I was about to say no when, on a hunch, I agreed to look at his work.
A package soon arrived which weighed at least five pounds. I opened it and almost immediately began to read his book, which is tentatively titled: The DNA of Terrorism. The work, which focuses on Islamic fundamentalism, is very, very good. Now, I was curious about the author. I wanted to know how he came by this extraordinary knowledge.
Before I could even reach for the phone, he called and suggested we meet. He said:
I must tell you that both I and my wife still adhere to a 1930s dress code.
I plowed through my closet wondering what in God’s name to wear. Gloves? A hat? Nylon stockings? I ended up wearing what I usually do.
Next:...... “This example of double volunteerism constitutes the essence of patriotism.”
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: A Nation’s Builders
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: A Nation’s Builders
Excerpt:
Today is Veterans Day in America (known as Remembrance or Armistice Day in the Commonwealth and other countries), when we honor those who so loved their fellow countrymen they were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.
A NATION’S BUILDERS
Not gold, but only men can make
A people great and strong —
Men who, for truth and honor’s sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly —
They build a nation’s pillars deep;
They lift them to the sky.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American poet and essayist
Excerpt:
Today is Veterans Day in America (known as Remembrance or Armistice Day in the Commonwealth and other countries), when we honor those who so loved their fellow countrymen they were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.
A NATION’S BUILDERS
Not gold, but only men can make
A people great and strong —
Men who, for truth and honor’s sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly —
They build a nation’s pillars deep;
They lift them to the sky.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American poet and essayist
Through The Wilderness: Following Jesus In the 21st Century ~ Marlena Graves: God Sees And Remembers You
Through The Wilderness: Following Jesus In the 21st Century ~ Marlena Graves: God Sees And Remembers You
Excerpt:
"She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.' That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered." Genesis 16:13,14.
I don't know where you are this moment as you read this words. Maybe you stumbled across this place by accident. Even if that is the case, I want you to know that God sees and remembers you. Your prayers are heard by God most high (even if you don't know him quite well yet). He does not turn away those who call out to him (those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved). In Isaiah 42:3 he says that he will not break a bruised reed or as I translate it, "God doesn't kick us when we are down."
Instead, this is the God who says, "do not fear" and "grace and peace be yours in the name of Jesus Christ." Perhaps you are suffering. Maybe you are depressed and not sure that you can survive another day. Maybe you are unemployed--without money, low on food--wondering where your next meal will come from and if you will be able to pay your bills....
Excerpt:
"She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me.' That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered." Genesis 16:13,14.
I don't know where you are this moment as you read this words. Maybe you stumbled across this place by accident. Even if that is the case, I want you to know that God sees and remembers you. Your prayers are heard by God most high (even if you don't know him quite well yet). He does not turn away those who call out to him (those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved). In Isaiah 42:3 he says that he will not break a bruised reed or as I translate it, "God doesn't kick us when we are down."
Instead, this is the God who says, "do not fear" and "grace and peace be yours in the name of Jesus Christ." Perhaps you are suffering. Maybe you are depressed and not sure that you can survive another day. Maybe you are unemployed--without money, low on food--wondering where your next meal will come from and if you will be able to pay your bills....
We Are One: Time to remember
We Are One: Time to remember
Excerpt: [And then there are the 'real' men and 'women':]
["No greater love hath any man than this that he would lay down his life for his friend."]
The interesting thing about war, it affects everyone. No border can keep it out. Those that feel smug and think they are removed from war often get a rude awakening when it comes pounding on their door. Peace would be beautiful. However, as long as there are those that feel might and power give them the right to trample others, war will exist. I am thankful to those in every country that have served to protect liberty and lives of others. PTSD is sometimes called 'the soldier's illness.' I am sorry that they suffer long after they have come home. I found a few links that you may want to visit.
http://www.dltk-kids.com/articles/a_remembrance_day_story.htm
One day she set up a ‘lesson’ for her kids. On the first day of homeroom, she removed all the desks and chairs. Needless to say, the kids came in confused, wondering what the heck happened. This was the lesson: if there was one kid who could guess why they deserved to have chairs to sit on and desks to work on, she’d get the desks and chairs back into the room. The teacher gave each kid till the end of the day to figure it out.
As the day went by, every kid thought about it. The teacher got every possible answer; she heard ‘good grades’, ‘punctuality’, ‘good behavior’. Each time, the teacher turned each student down, saying that it wasn’t the reason. Every kid was flabbergasted. What could it have been? No one knew.
At the end of the day, the students rounded in with the desks and chairs still missing. She presented her ‘lesson’ one more time. None of the students could think of anything. None had a reason why they would have chairs and desks. Smiling, she nodded her head. As she made her way to a door leading into an adjacent room, she said this: “this is the reason why you’re allowed to have desks and chairs for school.” ..............................????????????[Do you know?]
Read on....
Excerpt: [And then there are the 'real' men and 'women':]
["No greater love hath any man than this that he would lay down his life for his friend."]
The interesting thing about war, it affects everyone. No border can keep it out. Those that feel smug and think they are removed from war often get a rude awakening when it comes pounding on their door. Peace would be beautiful. However, as long as there are those that feel might and power give them the right to trample others, war will exist. I am thankful to those in every country that have served to protect liberty and lives of others. PTSD is sometimes called 'the soldier's illness.' I am sorry that they suffer long after they have come home. I found a few links that you may want to visit.
http://www.dltk-kids.com/articles/a_remembrance_day_story.htm
A Good Teacher
This is a true story.
It started in a school. The location of the school is of no consequence, nor is the name of the teacher a consequence. What matters is what the teacher did to convey a serious point. This is what she did–One day she set up a ‘lesson’ for her kids. On the first day of homeroom, she removed all the desks and chairs. Needless to say, the kids came in confused, wondering what the heck happened. This was the lesson: if there was one kid who could guess why they deserved to have chairs to sit on and desks to work on, she’d get the desks and chairs back into the room. The teacher gave each kid till the end of the day to figure it out.
As the day went by, every kid thought about it. The teacher got every possible answer; she heard ‘good grades’, ‘punctuality’, ‘good behavior’. Each time, the teacher turned each student down, saying that it wasn’t the reason. Every kid was flabbergasted. What could it have been? No one knew.
At the end of the day, the students rounded in with the desks and chairs still missing. She presented her ‘lesson’ one more time. None of the students could think of anything. None had a reason why they would have chairs and desks. Smiling, she nodded her head. As she made her way to a door leading into an adjacent room, she said this: “this is the reason why you’re allowed to have desks and chairs for school.” ..............................????????????[Do you know?]
Read on....
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wuthering Expectations: It proves their true devotion to the priesthood - the mechanics of power in Father Amaro
Wuthering Expectations: It proves their true devotion to the priesthood - the mechanics of power in Father Amaro
Excerpt: [Talk about 'scapegoating!"]
Eça de Queirós is a true artist, meaning that the only path to the large is through the small. An abuse of power can be reformed, but we need a novelist like Eça to see how it works.
I'm in the middle of the novel. Father Amaro and Amélia are in love but restraining themselves, and Amélia’s now-former fiancé is behaving, completely understandably, like a jackass, culminating in a pathetically ineffectual physical attack on the priest. A group of priests and devout ladies gather every evening at the house of Amélia’s mother, so here they are together after the attack. Father Amaro has turned the other cheek, and why not, since he is the victor:
Left alone, the three priests looked at each other and laughed.
Excerpt: [Talk about 'scapegoating!"]
Eça de Queirós is a true artist, meaning that the only path to the large is through the small. An abuse of power can be reformed, but we need a novelist like Eça to see how it works.
I'm in the middle of the novel. Father Amaro and Amélia are in love but restraining themselves, and Amélia’s now-former fiancé is behaving, completely understandably, like a jackass, culminating in a pathetically ineffectual physical attack on the priest. A group of priests and devout ladies gather every evening at the house of Amélia’s mother, so here they are together after the attack. Father Amaro has turned the other cheek, and why not, since he is the victor:
Such saintliness drove the women wild. What an angel! They gazed on him adoringly, their hands almost raised in prayer. His presence, like that of a St Vincent de Paul, exuding charity, gave the room a chapel-like sweetness… (264)
So far, so satirical. Just a little vicious towards these women, fools, admittedly. But they are not Eça’s true targets. The most combative of the priests declares the fiancé has been automatically excommunicated and that having in the house any objects of the excommunicant’s is a threat to the soul, for example, this magazine, and that cigarette case, and this stray glove:
‘We must destroy them!’ exclaimed Dona Maria da Assunção. ‘We must burn them, burn them!’
The room echoed now with the shrill cries of the women, in the grip of a holy fury. (268)
Eça and I are still mocking the superstitious biddies, it seems, but here is the punchline:
The clamouring women raced into the kitchen. Even São Joaneira followed them, as a good hostess, to watch over the bonfire.Left alone, the three priests looked at each other and laughed.
Texas scientist makes strands of ‘invisibility cloak’ | The Lookout - Yahoo! News
Texas scientist makes strands of ‘invisibility cloak’ | The Lookout - Yahoo! News
Excerpt:
A University of Texas scientist is working on developing a technology that would delight Harry Potter fans everywhere--an invisibility cloak.
Ali Aliev uses carbon nanotubes--which look like pieces of thread--and then heats them up rapidly until the objects beneath them effectively disappear.You can watch the threads disappear as they are heated up in this video.
So how do the threads work? In a paper published in Nanotechnology in June, Aliev explains that the invisibility cloak exploits the "mirage effect." A highway can become so hot that small circles that look like puddles of water appear in the road. That happens when the road is so hot that the surface bends the light around it, so that the driver sees the reflected sky instead of the pavement. The carbon nanotubes create a similar effect.
But for now, Aliev only has the capacity to make tiny sheets from a few threads, he told NBC's Amanda Guerra. Luckily, many other scientists around the world are also working hard on this technology. In the United Kingdom, scientists are working to create temperature-controlled plates to attach to tanks that would make them disappear when viewed through night-vision goggles...
Excerpt:
Aliev's invisibility threads in the process of disappearing (UT Dallas)
Ali Aliev uses carbon nanotubes--which look like pieces of thread--and then heats them up rapidly until the objects beneath them effectively disappear.You can watch the threads disappear as they are heated up in this video.
So how do the threads work? In a paper published in Nanotechnology in June, Aliev explains that the invisibility cloak exploits the "mirage effect." A highway can become so hot that small circles that look like puddles of water appear in the road. That happens when the road is so hot that the surface bends the light around it, so that the driver sees the reflected sky instead of the pavement. The carbon nanotubes create a similar effect.
But for now, Aliev only has the capacity to make tiny sheets from a few threads, he told NBC's Amanda Guerra. Luckily, many other scientists around the world are also working hard on this technology. In the United Kingdom, scientists are working to create temperature-controlled plates to attach to tanks that would make them disappear when viewed through night-vision goggles...
A Trail Of Flowers: Love over all
A Trail Of Flowers: Love over all
*God will not conquer evil by crushing it under-foot-any god of man's idea could do that-but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all.* *--George MacDonald *
*God will not conquer evil by crushing it under-foot-any god of man's idea could do that-but by conquest of heart over heart, of life over life, of life over death, of love over all.* *--George MacDonald *
Tyranny is tyranny: left AND right
h/t 'Our Whole Political Society' posted at Elberry's Ghost:
i’ve been slowly reading through the grandly-titled Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, a collection of some of Camus’ essays. He seems resolutely sceptical about just about every abstraction going, noting somewhere that he can at most summon up a vague, general benevolence towards Mankind, but can love individuals. To a Communist apologist he writes:
For you are willing to keep silence about one reign of terror in order the better to combat another one. There are some of us who do not want to keep silent about anything. It is our whole political society that nauseates us. Hence there will be no salvation until all those who are still worthwhile have repudiated it utterly in order to find, somewhere outside insoluble contradictions, the way to a complete renewal. In the meantime we must struggle. But with the knowledge that totalitarian tyranny is not based on the virtues of the totalitarians. It is based on the mistakes of the liberals.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
PJ Media » My Meeting with The Girl With Three Legs
PJ Media » My Meeting with The Girl With Three Legs
Excerpt:
Soraya Miré is a beautiful and talented Somali feminist, a filmmaker, and the author of a new and daring memoir titled The Girl With Three Legs. Soraya lives in Los Angeles and she has the Hollywood-speak down pat. Everyone is “darling,” and “honey,” things are “awesome.” But, through it all, one can still see the Somali African in her. She greets people on the street, café waiters—mere strangers—with warmth and humor, with an easy familiarity, just as if they were clan or tribal members. “What a funny dog! And how are you today?”...
Miré’s is a uniquely riveting read. She is a woman who has turned her own suffering into a brave campaign to help other women who have also been genitally mutilated in the Arab, Muslim, and African worlds. Miré is unstoppable. She does not spare anyone: not herself, not her family, not her culture, which persists in traumatizing and torturing its girls in the name of family purity. Miré carefully, personally, exposes how girls are genitally mutilated, usually without anesthesia, always at the insistence of their mothers and/or grandmothers. And she describes exactly how this mutilation leads to lifelong suffering.
Excerpt:
Soraya Miré is a beautiful and talented Somali feminist, a filmmaker, and the author of a new and daring memoir titled The Girl With Three Legs. Soraya lives in Los Angeles and she has the Hollywood-speak down pat. Everyone is “darling,” and “honey,” things are “awesome.” But, through it all, one can still see the Somali African in her. She greets people on the street, café waiters—mere strangers—with warmth and humor, with an easy familiarity, just as if they were clan or tribal members. “What a funny dog! And how are you today?”...
Miré’s is a uniquely riveting read. She is a woman who has turned her own suffering into a brave campaign to help other women who have also been genitally mutilated in the Arab, Muslim, and African worlds. Miré is unstoppable. She does not spare anyone: not herself, not her family, not her culture, which persists in traumatizing and torturing its girls in the name of family purity. Miré carefully, personally, exposes how girls are genitally mutilated, usually without anesthesia, always at the insistence of their mothers and/or grandmothers. And she describes exactly how this mutilation leads to lifelong suffering.
Unlike male circumcision, such female genital mutilation means that girls often cannot urinate or menstruate properly. Scar tissue and the sewn-shut vagina lead to agony and serious medical problems. Then, their wedding night becomes a veritable torture chamber as do all subsequent childbirths. (Unbelievably, the post-partum mothers are sewn right back up.) Many develop horrendous fistulas (they lose control of both urination and defecation) and are therefore rejected by the very families who caused this great misery. Miré writes about her own experience of all this—and about her arranged marriage to her first cousin which she fled. (“Today? The man is a drug addict. He has never found a life. And, he never remarried.”)...
“The Somali women attacked me more than the men did…” ......
Monday, November 7, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Dusting Off Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet - Harvard University Press Blog
Dusting Off Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet - Harvard University Press Blog
Excerpt:
...he managed to write incredibly thoughtful advice to the young Franz Kappus, who was eager to find his voice as a poet. Rilke counseled Kappus to be patient with his development, but urgent in his pursuit. From Harman’s translation:
Excerpt:
...he managed to write incredibly thoughtful advice to the young Franz Kappus, who was eager to find his voice as a poet. Rilke counseled Kappus to be patient with his development, but urgent in his pursuit. From Harman’s translation:
You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have already asked others. You send them to journals. You compare them with other poems, and are upset when certain editorial offices reject your efforts. Now (since you’ve permitted me to give you advice) I ask you to abandon all this. You look outside yourself, and that above all else is something you should not do just now. Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There’s only one way to proceed. Go inside yourself. Explore the reason that compels you to write; test whether it stretches its roots into the deepest part of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would have to die if the opportunity to write were withheld from you. Above all else, ask yourself at your most silent hour of night: must I write? Dig inside yourself for a deep answer. And if the answer is yes, if it is possible for you to respond to this serious question with a strong and simple I must, then build your life on the basis of this necessity; your life, even at its most indifferent and attenuated, must become a sign and a witness for this compulsion.
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: The Barranong Angel Case
A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: The Barranong Angel Case
Excerpt:
And when all’s said and done
He was a stranger. And he talked religion.
Did he keep on trying?
No. Gave us away.
Would it have helped if he’d settled in the district?
Don’t think so, mate. If you follow me, he was
Too keen altogether. He’d have harped on that damn message
All the time — or if he’d stopped, well then
He’d have been despised because he’d given in, like.
He’d just got off on the wrong foot from the start
And you can’t fix that up.
But what — Oh Hell! — what if he’d been, say, born here? ...
He was a stranger. And he talked religion.
Did he keep on trying?
No. Gave us away.
Would it have helped if he’d settled in the district?
Don’t think so, mate. If you follow me, he was
Too keen altogether. He’d have harped on that damn message
All the time — or if he’d stopped, well then
He’d have been despised because he’d given in, like.
He’d just got off on the wrong foot from the start
And you can’t fix that up.
But what — Oh Hell! — what if he’d been, say, born here? ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
The difference between a healthy person and one who is mentally ill is the fact that the healthy one has all the mental illnesses, and the mentally ill person has only one. ~Robert Musil, born on this date in 1880
The difference between a healthy person and one who is mentally ill is the fact that the healthy one has all the mental illnesses, and the mentally ill person has only one. ~Robert Musil, born on this date in 1880
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The Truth Shall Set You Free
As long as any society or social order allows through, at the very least, the present ‘nervous' passivity a complicity in the physical, sexual and emotional violence and neglect of children, especially women, the social and familial dysfunction will not only continue but will unfortunately grow deeper and more perverse. Never is there a just cause for it. Justice will seek its course whether in this life or the next. It is a very sad commentary on our times that it is not only allowed to continue but can only be dealt with whenever this violence erupts with terrible maiming or death. ~T. A. Smith
in lieu of a field guide: The Shooting Gallery (Tsushima Yūko)
in lieu of a field guide: The Shooting Gallery (Tsushima Yūko)
Excerpt:
By default, three things at least define the literary career of Tsushima Yūko (b. 1947). The first is that her real name is Tsushima Satoko. The second is that she is the daughter of the novelist Dazai Osamu who killed himself when she was just one year old. The third, and the most significant, is that she's an accomplished writer herself, a multi-awarded literary figure in Japan. With Kōno Taeko, Tsushima blazes as the foremost female short story writer in Japan, a prolific and consistent teller of subtle stories concerning human relationships. Like Kōno, the majority of her works remains untranslated. At least three books of hers have made it in English so far: the short story selection The Shooting Gallery (1988) and the novels Child of Fortune (1983) and Woman Running in the Mountains (1991). The two novels were originally published in 1978 and 1980 while the short stories appeared in the period 1973-1984. All were handled by translator Geraldine Harcourt. It is puzzling (but maybe not) that no recent book of hers has appeared in English – in French, for example, nine titles already came out – given that she is a considerable talent, her stories displaying a diversity of approaches that is hard to categorize into a single style.
The eight stories in her only collection in English are about the aftermaths (and preludes) of a divorce. It reveals a writer concerned with gender disparities and a woman's search for freedom. Tshushima's female protagonists are confronted with situations they either want to understand or, having failed to do so, they want to escape from. In their stubbornness and liberal attitudes they can be considered rebels of the time. The characters are almost exclusively single mothers, divorced or separated partners, or single women who tenaciously face their lot in life and dream of something better. What is exemplary in Tsushima is the unique chameleon-like style she deploys in story after story. The writing is clear and transparent, without any apparent tricks and obscurities, and yet the whole composition exhibits a strong sense of both familiarity to and estrangement from the narrative intent...
Excerpt:
By default, three things at least define the literary career of Tsushima Yūko (b. 1947). The first is that her real name is Tsushima Satoko. The second is that she is the daughter of the novelist Dazai Osamu who killed himself when she was just one year old. The third, and the most significant, is that she's an accomplished writer herself, a multi-awarded literary figure in Japan. With Kōno Taeko, Tsushima blazes as the foremost female short story writer in Japan, a prolific and consistent teller of subtle stories concerning human relationships. Like Kōno, the majority of her works remains untranslated. At least three books of hers have made it in English so far: the short story selection The Shooting Gallery (1988) and the novels Child of Fortune (1983) and Woman Running in the Mountains (1991). The two novels were originally published in 1978 and 1980 while the short stories appeared in the period 1973-1984. All were handled by translator Geraldine Harcourt. It is puzzling (but maybe not) that no recent book of hers has appeared in English – in French, for example, nine titles already came out – given that she is a considerable talent, her stories displaying a diversity of approaches that is hard to categorize into a single style.
The eight stories in her only collection in English are about the aftermaths (and preludes) of a divorce. It reveals a writer concerned with gender disparities and a woman's search for freedom. Tshushima's female protagonists are confronted with situations they either want to understand or, having failed to do so, they want to escape from. In their stubbornness and liberal attitudes they can be considered rebels of the time. The characters are almost exclusively single mothers, divorced or separated partners, or single women who tenaciously face their lot in life and dream of something better. What is exemplary in Tsushima is the unique chameleon-like style she deploys in story after story. The writing is clear and transparent, without any apparent tricks and obscurities, and yet the whole composition exhibits a strong sense of both familiarity to and estrangement from the narrative intent...
First Known When Lost: Edwin Muir
First Known When Lost: Edwin Muir
Excerpt:
The following poem by Edwin Muir (1887-1959) has its origin in an incident that took place in post-World War II Czechoslovakia. At the time, Muir was serving as the director of the British Council in Prague. In much of his poetry, Muir portrayed life as having an underlying mythic timelessness about it. Thus, this poem seems to suggest more than a simple encounter with border guards.
The Interrogation
We could have crossed the road but hesitated,
And then came the patrol;
The leader conscientious and intent,
The men surly, indifferent.
While we stood by and waited
The interrogation began. He says the whole
Must come out now, who, what we are,
Where we have come from, with what purpose, whose
Country or camp we plot for or betray.
Question on question.
We have stood and answered through the standing day
And watched across the road beyond the hedge
The careless lovers in pairs go by,
Hand linked in hand, wandering another star,
So near we could shout to them. We cannot choose
Answer or action here,
Though still the careless lovers saunter by
And the thoughtless field is near.
We are on the very edge,
Endurance almost done,
And still the interrogation is going on.
Edwin Muir, The Labyrinth (1949).
Excerpt:
The following poem by Edwin Muir (1887-1959) has its origin in an incident that took place in post-World War II Czechoslovakia. At the time, Muir was serving as the director of the British Council in Prague. In much of his poetry, Muir portrayed life as having an underlying mythic timelessness about it. Thus, this poem seems to suggest more than a simple encounter with border guards.
The Interrogation
We could have crossed the road but hesitated,
And then came the patrol;
The leader conscientious and intent,
The men surly, indifferent.
While we stood by and waited
The interrogation began. He says the whole
Must come out now, who, what we are,
Where we have come from, with what purpose, whose
Country or camp we plot for or betray.
Question on question.
We have stood and answered through the standing day
And watched across the road beyond the hedge
The careless lovers in pairs go by,
Hand linked in hand, wandering another star,
So near we could shout to them. We cannot choose
Answer or action here,
Though still the careless lovers saunter by
And the thoughtless field is near.
We are on the very edge,
Endurance almost done,
And still the interrogation is going on.
Edwin Muir, The Labyrinth (1949).
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