May 2010
8 posts
1 tag
“It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for...”
– William Carlos Williams (recalled to me most recently by kathleenjoy)
1 tag
Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and...
“Except for the technical incompetence of a Muslim dirtbag named Faisal Shahzad,...”
– Mark Goldblatt, “The Poet Versus the Prophet”
Similarly fair and kind words could be said about many religiously inspired groups and activities.
“… a retired military officer and former instructor at West Point...”
– Radley Balko, (“More Militarized Than the Military”) discussing how the US has provided a more humanitarian police state to Iraqis and Afganis than it does to its own citizens in the drug war.
2 tags
“The president went to Harvard, and barely defeated a primary opponent who went...”
– David Bernstein, “Isn’t This a Bit Much?”
We’re busily building a more powerful aristocracy. While I appreciate talented, educated, and capable intellectuals, they can be found in non-ivy-draped places too.