Writer
Wit
Thorn in Bush's side
We will miss you, Ms. Molly.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Poem of the Day
Dover Beach by Mathew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
A Connotation Of Infinity by e e cummings
a connotation of infinity
sharpens the temporal splendor of this night
when souls which have forgot frivolity
in lowliness,noting the fatal flight
of worlds whereto this earth’s a hurled dream
down eager avenues of lifelessness
consider for how much themselves shall gleam,
in the poised radiance of perpetualness.
When what’s in velvet beyond doomed thought
is like a woman amorous to be known;
and man,whose here is alway worse than naught,
feels the tremendous yonder for his own—
on such a night the sea through her blind miles
of crumbling silence seriously smiles
a connotation of infinity
sharpens the temporal splendor of this night
when souls which have forgot frivolity
in lowliness,noting the fatal flight
of worlds whereto this earth’s a hurled dream
down eager avenues of lifelessness
consider for how much themselves shall gleam,
in the poised radiance of perpetualness.
When what’s in velvet beyond doomed thought
is like a woman amorous to be known;
and man,whose here is alway worse than naught,
feels the tremendous yonder for his own—
on such a night the sea through her blind miles
of crumbling silence seriously smiles
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Poem of the Day
In Mars, What Avatar? by Don Marquis
“In Vishnu-land, what avatar?”
—BROWNING.
Perchance the dying gods of Earth
Are destined to another birth,
And worn-out creeds regain their worth
In the kindly air of other stars—
What lords of life and light hold sway
In the myriad worlds of the Milky Way?
What avatars in Mars?
What Aphrodites from the seas
That lap the plunging Pleiades
Arise to spread afar
The dream that was the soul of Greece?
In Mars, what avatar?
Which hundred moons are wan with love
For dull Endymions?
Which hundred moons hang tranced above
Audacious Ajalons?
What Holy Grail lures errants pale
Through the wastes of yonder star?
What fables sway the Milky Way?
In Mars, what avatar?
When morning skims with crimson wings
Across the meres of Mercury,
What dreaming Memnon wakes and sings
Of miracles on Mercury?
What Christs, what avatars,
Claim Mars?
“In Vishnu-land, what avatar?”
—BROWNING.
Perchance the dying gods of Earth
Are destined to another birth,
And worn-out creeds regain their worth
In the kindly air of other stars—
What lords of life and light hold sway
In the myriad worlds of the Milky Way?
What avatars in Mars?
What Aphrodites from the seas
That lap the plunging Pleiades
Arise to spread afar
The dream that was the soul of Greece?
In Mars, what avatar?
Which hundred moons are wan with love
For dull Endymions?
Which hundred moons hang tranced above
Audacious Ajalons?
What Holy Grail lures errants pale
Through the wastes of yonder star?
What fables sway the Milky Way?
In Mars, what avatar?
When morning skims with crimson wings
Across the meres of Mercury,
What dreaming Memnon wakes and sings
Of miracles on Mercury?
What Christs, what avatars,
Claim Mars?
Monday, January 22, 2007
Poem of the Day
The Dead Man Walking by Thomas Hardy
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death …
—A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death …
—A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
AHHH,,,,,,,,,,
There she goes... : The McNaught comet is seen early morning from Pucon, Calafquen Lake sector, Chile. (AFP/David Lillo)
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Poem of the Day
New Dreams For Old by Cale Young Rice
Is there no voice in the world to come crying,
“New dreams for old!
New for old!”?
Many have long in my heart been lying,
Faded, weary, and cold.
All of them, all, would I give for a new one.
(Is there no seeker
Of dreams that were?)
Nor would I ask if the new were a true one:
Only for new dreams!
New for old!
For I am here, half way of my journey,
Here with the old!
All so old!
And the best heart with death is at tourney,
If naught new it is told.
Will there no voice, then, come—or a vision—
Come with the beauty
That ever blows
Out of the lands that are called Elysian?
I must have new dreams!
New for old!
Is there no voice in the world to come crying,
“New dreams for old!
New for old!”?
Many have long in my heart been lying,
Faded, weary, and cold.
All of them, all, would I give for a new one.
(Is there no seeker
Of dreams that were?)
Nor would I ask if the new were a true one:
Only for new dreams!
New for old!
For I am here, half way of my journey,
Here with the old!
All so old!
And the best heart with death is at tourney,
If naught new it is told.
Will there no voice, then, come—or a vision—
Come with the beauty
That ever blows
Out of the lands that are called Elysian?
I must have new dreams!
New for old!
Saturday, January 20, 2007
My Inner European is Dutch
| Your Inner European is Dutch! |
 Open minded and tolerant. You're up for just about anything. |
Well, I do love Amsterdam a whole lot. Though I remain a Scot in my heart and soul.
Poem of the Day
Alone by Edgar Allan Poe
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I loved—I loved alone—
Thou—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I loved—I loved alone—
Thou—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Happy Birthday!
Edgar Allan Poe
(1809 –1849)
Poet, short story writer, editor, critic
Leader of the American Romantic Movement.
(1809 –1849)
Poet, short story writer, editor, critic
Leader of the American Romantic Movement.
Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to the emergent science fiction genre.
WTF.......
from Think Progress:
Yesterday, during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claimed there is no express right to habeas corpus in the U.S. Constitution.
Gonzales was debating Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) about whether the Supreme Court’s ruling on Guantanamo detainees last year cited the constitutional right to habeas corpus. Gonzales claimed the Court did not cite such a right, then added,
“There is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution.”
Specter pushed back. “Wait a minute. The constitution says you can’t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?” Specter told Gonzales, “You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.” (more)
What mail order law school did this idiot buy his diploma from? Has he never heard of the Magna Carta?
Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers
from New Scientist:
It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.
It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks. (more)
Poem of the Day
The Mystic by Cale Young Rice
There is a quest that calls me,
In nights when I am lone,
The need to ride where the ways divide
The Known from the Unknown.
I mount what thought is near me
And soon I reach the place,
The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim
And the Sightless hides its face.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the sea,
I have ridden the moon and stars.
I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
Of a comet coursing Mars.
And everywhere
Thro’ the earth and air
My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
It comes to a place where checking pace
It cries, “Beyond lies God!”
It calls me out of the darkness,
It calls me out of sleep,
“Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!”
It bids—and on I sweep
To the wide outposts of Being,
Where there is Gulf alone—
And thro’ a Vast that was never passed
I listen for Life’s tone.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the night,
I have ridden the ghosts that flee
From the vaults of death like a chilling breath
Over eternity.
And everywhere
Is the world laid bare—
Ether and star and clod—
Until I wind to its brink and find
But the cry, “Beyond lies God!”
It calls me and ever calls me!
And vainly I reply,
“Fools only ride where the ways divide
What Is from the Whence and Why”!
I’m lifted into the saddle
Of thoughts too strong to tame
And down the deeps and over the steeps
I find—ever the same.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the stars,
I have ridden the force that flies
With far intent thro’ the firmament
And each to each allies.
And everywhere
That a thought may dare
To gallop, mine has trod—
Only to stand at last on the strand
Where just beyond lies God.
There is a quest that calls me,
In nights when I am lone,
The need to ride where the ways divide
The Known from the Unknown.
I mount what thought is near me
And soon I reach the place,
The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim
And the Sightless hides its face.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the sea,
I have ridden the moon and stars.
I have set my feet in the stirrup seat
Of a comet coursing Mars.
And everywhere
Thro’ the earth and air
My thought speeds, lightning-shod,
It comes to a place where checking pace
It cries, “Beyond lies God!”
It calls me out of the darkness,
It calls me out of sleep,
“Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!”
It bids—and on I sweep
To the wide outposts of Being,
Where there is Gulf alone—
And thro’ a Vast that was never passed
I listen for Life’s tone.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the night,
I have ridden the ghosts that flee
From the vaults of death like a chilling breath
Over eternity.
And everywhere
Is the world laid bare—
Ether and star and clod—
Until I wind to its brink and find
But the cry, “Beyond lies God!”
It calls me and ever calls me!
And vainly I reply,
“Fools only ride where the ways divide
What Is from the Whence and Why”!
I’m lifted into the saddle
Of thoughts too strong to tame
And down the deeps and over the steeps
I find—ever the same.
I have ridden the wind,
I have ridden the stars,
I have ridden the force that flies
With far intent thro’ the firmament
And each to each allies.
And everywhere
That a thought may dare
To gallop, mine has trod—
Only to stand at last on the strand
Where just beyond lies God.
Comet McNaught
from Spaceweather.com:
Comet McNaught is the brightest comet to appear in centuries.
Only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, this photo gallery compiled by Spaceweather.co gives us in the North a hint of the beauty.
One more reason I should have immigrated to New Zealand in 2002.
Only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, this photo gallery compiled by Spaceweather.co gives us in the North a hint of the beauty.
One more reason I should have immigrated to New Zealand in 2002.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Poem of the Day
I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day by Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decrees
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decrees
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Well, this should just about do it....
from MSNBC:
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal made no effort to mask his skepticism Tuesday about President Bush’s proposal to send 21,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq to stem sectarian fighting.
Saudi Arabia believes the Iraqi government is not up to the challenge and has told the United States that it is prepared to move its own forces into Iraq should the violence there degenerate into chaos, a senior U.S. official told NBC News on Tuesday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal made no effort to mask his skepticism Tuesday about President Bush’s proposal to send 21,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq to stem sectarian fighting.
“We agree with the full objectives set by the new plan,” Saud said at a joint news conference in Riyadh with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling in the region selling Bush’s plan. “We are hoping these objectives can be accomplished, but the means are not in our hands. They are in the hands of the Iraqis themselves.”
But he knows so much more than we do...
ANNOTATED TEXT OF THE SIGNING STATEMENTS
From Coherent Babble, this LIST with text of all the signing statements the Resident has used to claim authority to ignore and twist the intent of laws passed by Congress. Complete with annotations.
Frightening. And awe inspiring in its abilty to produce anger.
Poem of the Day
Absence by Amy Lowell
My cup is empty to-night,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight.
The room is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They sway in the moon’s radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.
When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart’s blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.
My cup is empty to-night,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight.
The room is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They sway in the moon’s radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.
When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart’s blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.
Happy Birthday
Shari Lewis
(1933 – 1998)
Ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children's television show host
(1933 – 1998)
Ventriloquist, puppeteer, and children's television show host
The programs featured such characters as Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, Lamb Chop, and Crowie. Lamb Chop, (pictured here) served as a sort of sassy alter-ego for Shari.
Ms. Lewis may have been my earliest crush. Certainly she is one of the reasons I so much wanted to be a puppeteer.
Ms. Lewis may have been my earliest crush. Certainly she is one of the reasons I so much wanted to be a puppeteer.
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