Friday, October 31, 2003 9:49 AM
Halloween in the Empire
On reading Google news this morning...
House approves $87 billion
for Iraq, Afghanistan
CNN
Hey, if the U.S. is now an empire like the leftists say, shouldn't we be making money from our colonies?
On reading further...
Study: Bush donors rake in contracts
USA Today
Bush Got $500,000 From Companies
That Got Contracts, Study Finds
New York Times
Oh, now I get it.... We're the colony!
And so this year's appropriate Halloween wear includes...
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"The pith helmet served traditionally and mainly the military colonial forces of Europe and the United States. It received widespread recognition as the head-dress for notable missionaries such as Stanley and Livingstone...."
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 4:49 AM
Pulitzer Ritual
Today is the feast day of
Saint Joseph Pulitzer,
who died on October 29, 1911.
In his memory, here are two links:
A Columbia Journalism Review article
on the Indymedia movement, and the movement's own site,
Tuesday, October 28, 2003 11:53 AM
In Memory of Soong Mayling
Dissing Dissent:
In White House actions, a troubling echo of life in communist China
By Liu Baifang
This is from the well-organized leftist site
http://indymedia.org/.
Related links:
Commentary on Baifang essay, and
two links that appear to be about this same Liu Baifang:
Liu Baifang, wife of Orville Schell, and
Liu Baifang, Producer
(Red Corner, Gate of Heavenly Peace).
Tuesday, October 28, 2003 6:06 AM
Going Beyond
"Any American who tries to go beyond 'America good, terrorists evil,' who tries to understand — not condone — the growing world backlash against the United States, faces furious attacks delivered in a tone of high moral indignation."
-- Paul Krugman, 10/28/03 NY Times
And those who launch those furious attacks face a reborn, well-armed, well-organized, international socialist movement with their own grandchildren in the vanguard. No, Communism is not dead.
For a view of this movement from the left, click here.
For a view from the right, click here.
Monday, October 27, 2003 8:28 AM
Dream of Heaven, continued
"...I am going up the hill on the grass behind juniper trees birches the road dusty she is coming up the other side yes there she is look it is who is it not Berty no Molly no a girl with red hair comes through the oak trees beautiful loves me puts out her hand kisses me we are kissing become one face floating in air with wings one fused face with wings Turner sunset and this and this and this and this and this WINGbeat and WINGbeat where whirled and well where whirled and well where whirled and well —"
— Great Circle, by Conrad Aiken, 1933.
Pp. 297-298 in paperback published by
Arbor House, New York, 1984.
For related material, see the poems of Conrad Aiken, the 1947 novel Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, and the 1936 poem "Altarwise by Owl-Light," by Dylan Thomas, whose birthday is today.
Surrealist postscripts:
The above dream contains a Turner sunset; a critic once called the work of Turner "pictures of nothing." For details, see my entry of 8/23.
The time of this entry, 8:28, is a reference to the date, 8/28, of the Feast of St. Augustine, who was puzzled, as many still are, by the nature of time. For details, see my entry of 8/28.
Monday, October 27, 2003 2:20 AM
"Heaven is a state, a sort of
metaphysical state."
— John O'Hara,
Hope of Heaven, 1938
"Frère Jacques, Cuernavaca,
ach du lieber August."
— John O'Hara, Hope of Heaven
Frère Jacques
is a
"canon à quatre voix."
For another, purely visual,
four-part canon, see the
owl-like picture
in the web page
Poetry's Bones.
See, too, the Wallace Stevens poem
"The Owl in the Sarcophagus,"
and hear Stevie Nicks as the voice
of The Wizard Owl in a story titled
Frère Jacques.
Sunday, October 26, 2003 12:22 PM
Long Time Gone
Today's hymn from KHYI, Plano, Texas...
(played at 11:15 AM Sunday, CST):
They got money but they don't got Cash;
They got Junior but they don't got Hank.
From the album Real Time,
by Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott.
Update of 1:50 PM EST...
Thanks, too, KHYI, for what may be
becoming my favorite Texas hymn
(played at about 12:45 PM CST)....
Love at the Five and Dime,
by Nanci Griffith
Sunday, October 26, 2003 3:17 AM
ART WARS for
Trotsky's Birthday
Part I:
Symbols
From my entry of July 26, 2003, in memory
of Marathon Man director John Schlesinger:
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Bright Star and Dark Lady "Mexico is a solar country -- but it is also a black country, a dark country. This duality of Mexico has preoccupied me since I was a child." -- Octavio Paz, | ||
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Bright Star
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Amen. |
Dark Lady
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For the meaning of the above symbols, see
Kubrick's 1x4x9 monolith in 2001,
the Halmos tombstone in Measure Theory,
and the Fritz Leiber Changewar stories.
Part II:
Sunday in the Park with Death
To Leon from Diego --
Details of a mural,
A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon
in Alameda Park,
Fresco, 1947-48,
Alameda Hotel, Mexico City:
Three's a Crowd:
Symbol:
Saturday, October 25, 2003 2:56 PM
On the Left
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See this analysis of the organizers of today's March on Washington. For a much better organized Commie effort, click here.
On the right
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Saturday, October 25, 2003 6:38 AM
Rummy, here's your
"war of ideas" —
The Hunt for Red October
Today is the anniversary of the triumph of Lenin in the October Revolution.
General background on the two sides:
News
Politics
Conservative
Progressive and Left
In today's news: March on Washington
War of Ideas
Click on the above picture for
my Aug. 17, 2003, entry,
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Rumsfeld Suggests New Agency
Friday, October 24, 2003 12:50 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview published on Friday that the United States needs to sell its message more effectively and that a new agency would help fight a "war of ideas" against international terrorism. "We are in a war of ideas, as well as a global war on terror. And the ideas are important and they need to be marshaled, and they need to be communicated in ways that are persuasive to the listeners," Rumsfeld said in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times. "The overwhelming majority of the people of all religions don't believe in terrorism. They don't believe in running around killing innocent men, women and children. And we need more people standing up and saying that in the world, not just us," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying. |
For the details of a rather famous religious text that shows Rumsfeld to be lying, see my note of July 31, 1997,
(The detail that makes Rumsfeld's statement a lie is the word
"all," which is contradicted by the religion of Orthodox Judaism. Another
detail of interest is the word "Joshua" in the Vacation Bible School
entry. Recall that this was the real name of the Jew now known as Jesus,
and that many of his followers may have hoped he would star in a bloody sequel
to the Book of Joshua. Hence the "thorny crown" phrase in the West Wing
link above.)
Thursday, October 23, 2003 3:00 AM
For the Dead of
St. Ursula's
Day
In the spirit of Southie...
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To admirers of |
"To admirers, Mrs. Hicks
spoke the truth
to liberal
power
in simple declarative sentences."
"The time had come for him
to set out on his journey
westward.
Yes, the newspapers were right:
snow was general all over
Ireland."
Tuesday, October 21, 2003 2:07 AM
"What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?"
-- Saying attributed to
Saint Ursula K. Le Guin
(10/21/1929 –
)
Saturday, October 18, 2003 3:33 AM
For St. Gwen Verdon:
From Daily Quotational Lattice:
The story of the day is "Dance in America," about a dancer who has dinner with some friends. Take note if you're a dancer: Ariel, a bona fide dancer, deems the quotes about dancing to be "very powerful."
"I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. I tell them it's the body's reaching, bringing air to itself. I tell them that it's the heart's triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It's life flipping death the bird. I make this stuff up."
"I am thinking of the dancing body's magnificent and ostentatious scorn. This is how we offer ourselves, enter heaven, enter speaking: we say with motion, in space, This is what life's done so far down here; this is all and what and everything it's managed--this body, these bodies, that body-- so what do you think, Heaven? What do you fucking think?"
Friday, October 17, 2003 4:15 PM
Happy Birthday, Arthur Miller
Miller, the author of "The Crucible," is what Russell Baker has called a "tribal storyteller."
From an essay by Baker in The New York Review of Books, issue dated November 6, 2003 (Fortieth Anniversary Issue):
"Among the privileges enjoyed by rich, fat, superpower America is the power to invent public reality. Politicians and the mass media do much of the inventing for us by telling us stories which purport to unfold a relatively simple reality. As our tribal storytellers, they shape our knowledge and ignorance of the world, not only producing ideas and emotions which influence the way we live our lives, but also leaving us dangerously unaware of the difference between stories and reality."
-- Russell Baker, "The Awful Truth," NYRB 11/6/03, page 8
Here is a rather similar view of the media:
The attentive student of this second essay will have no difficulty finding a single four-letter word to replace both of Baker's phrases "rich, fat, superpower America" and "politicians and the mass media."
Baker's concern for "the difference between stories and reality" is reflected in my own website The Diamond Theory of Truth. In summary:
"Is it safe?" -- Sir Laurence Olivier
Thursday, October 16, 2003 6:23 PM
Cursing the Darkness
From my entries on this date last year...
"...we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out."
Thought for today:
Render unto Rome that which is Rome's.
See also my remarks of January 29, 2003,
on the opening in New Zealand
of
Cullinane College.
