Anemones My Footstool
Agnes Patricia
Q'an Tum Liip
Anemones My Footstool
Basil Basil Basil
Justin Thyme
vrijdag 25 juli 2014
maandag 21 juli 2014
EGOS, ONE THROUGH THREE
I have made a sort of list--of contemporary egoists. My three I's would be shocked to find themselves lumped together. But they seem to me to be the three worst, biggest, and most obvious egoists in the world. Not just in the United States, though all three belong there, live there. The three biggest egoists in the world.
Let me start with the easiest one, Donald Trump, a.k.a. "The Donald," "Trump," and "Ass." He calls himself "The Donald." He parades the name "Trump" in gold letters everywhere he can. And he is the world's most absolute ass. If there were a Trump logo, it would show Trump kissing his own ass.
Poor Donald. Self-named "The Donald," a parody of the idea of ego (if there can be such). A man with (as he sees it) awsome power--and his own television program (which he bought) to demonstrate (with personality and dramatic grandeur) that power. (If it weren't unnecessary, he could be called No-Trump.)
The second is almost as easy. LeBron James is a great basketball player. The media crowned him "King James" when he was just a boy, and he wore his crown with embarrassing arrogance. He once volunteered to play--one game--for any European basketball team that wanted to pay him a million dollars for his brief appearance. Soon his reign will be over--is already over, in fact.
There have been other super-star athletes who had titles. Sportswriters called Babe Ruth "The Sultan of Swat"--and he was. But he wasn't an egoist. Muhammid Ali was "The Greatest"--and he gave himself that title. He paraded it, and in the way he paraded it made it a mocking, challenging joke--until he actually became "The Greatest" in his fight with the U. S. Government over the Vietnam War. And Ali remains a great and important world citizen. But he was never just an egoist--even when he called himself "The Greatest."
Paul Hornung was maybe once a candidate for the egoism title, but his stage was smaller, and over time got smaller still. When he was a senior in college he was the Notre Dame team. He kicked off, passed, ran, and punted--and did all four stupendously. The only thing he couldn't do was catch his own passes, or--despite his greatness--make Notre Dame win games.
When the Notre Dame team came onto the field in South Bend, Indiana, they all came rushing out of the tunnel and 50,000 people roared like they were roaring for champions. And then Golden Paul strolled out, all by himself, helmet tucked under his arm, golden curls blowing in the wind, waving to the adoring crowd. Rome was never more thrilling.
But in the NFL, though Hornung was a star, and even a superstar, he had lots of company. And though he was a great running back, that's all he was. Years later, his professional career long behind him, Paul became again a sort of legendary hero in his hometown in Louisville, Kentucky. And there is a huge and wonderful picture of him, at his best, painted on the side of a tall building. And Paul had for years a sports talk show on television, which he hosted from a local bar. The golden curls were gone, his head as shiny as his supersized helmet had been in the glory days. And then one night the golden curls came back. . . .
The third of my three super-egoists is somewhat different from the others. He reached the status that let him be a major egoist by election. Not that he was elected as an egoist, or to be egoist-in-chief. But once Barack Obama was elected President of the United States he became an amazing egoist. He was young, handsome, bright, articulate, personable, and though many Americans hated him for being black, they couldn't do so publicly.
Obama got himself caught in the mire of America almost immediately. Campaigning, he had promised to close the U.S. Concentration Camp and Torture Facility at Guantanamo in Occupied Cuba. He didn't do it. He escalated the U.S. military offensive in the Middle East, despite his campaign promises. And then he introduced drones, and used them to kill people without having to risk American lives. Anybody killed in the American offense in the Middle East had always been identified as a terrorist after his or her death, and Obama continued that policy. Anybody a drone killed was automatically an enemy combatant.
When Bradley Manning exposed U.S. war crimes, Obama declared him "guilty" of a major crime. In saying that--before Manning had even been charged with specific offenses, the commander-in-chief become a dictator. And now he calls Edward Snowden a "traitor" for exposing American war crimes. Mr. Obama was a lawyer. And he must know that to conceal a felony offense is a felony. The legal terms are "misprision of a felony," and "accessory after the fact."
America has, in its recent history, one warrior president after another--and more than its share of criminal presidents. Since 1958--when American troops (me included) invaded Lebanon in hopes of having a war there--the United States has been at war. Even Gerald Ford sent gun-boats into North Korea. And Jimmy Carter attempted to start a war by trying to invade Iran. Luckily, the North Koreans didn't resist Ford's invasion, and American technology failed Carter, causing all the helicopters carrying troops to crash in the desert, their engines clogged with sand blown up into them by their rotor-blades. And Bill Clinton, too: but only with bombs, so no Americans would get killed. And when the U.S. bombed a bridge in Bosnia that just happened to have a civilian train loaded with Bosnian civilians crossing it when the bomb hit, that was not anybody's fault, because the bridge had been "assigned" as a target by the U.S.command. And the Bushes. The Oil Bushes, murdering for oil.
Becoming the U. S. president, Mr. Obama inherited a murdering job. And though he promised to end the murdering, he continues it--and has made it even more "sophisticated." And as a college freshman taught me in 1960, in my first year as a university teacher, "sophistication" is not a good thing.
But Mr. Obama is sophisticated, and is obviously proud of what he is doing. And he is raising two little girls who will grow up to know what their father has done. His ego is more important to him than anything else. If Mr. Obama were killing "white" people, he would have a problem. But he is killing Arabic people, and they don't count. They are America's new "niggers," these last twenty-five years. And for Mr. Obama, killing them is more important than justice or honor or decency or right. More important, too, than his daughters.
Ego blinds. And it has blinded Mr. Obama.
I have made a sort of list--of contemporary egoists. My three I's would be shocked to find themselves lumped together. But they seem to me to be the three worst, biggest, and most obvious egoists in the world. Not just in the United States, though all three belong there, live there. The three biggest egoists in the world.
Let me start with the easiest one, Donald Trump, a.k.a. "The Donald," "Trump," and "Ass." He calls himself "The Donald." He parades the name "Trump" in gold letters everywhere he can. And he is the world's most absolute ass. If there were a Trump logo, it would show Trump kissing his own ass.
Poor Donald. Self-named "The Donald," a parody of the idea of ego (if there can be such). A man with (as he sees it) awsome power--and his own television program (which he bought) to demonstrate (with personality and dramatic grandeur) that power. (If it weren't unnecessary, he could be called No-Trump.)
The second is almost as easy. LeBron James is a great basketball player. The media crowned him "King James" when he was just a boy, and he wore his crown with embarrassing arrogance. He once volunteered to play--one game--for any European basketball team that wanted to pay him a million dollars for his brief appearance. Soon his reign will be over--is already over, in fact.
There have been other super-star athletes who had titles. Sportswriters called Babe Ruth "The Sultan of Swat"--and he was. But he wasn't an egoist. Muhammid Ali was "The Greatest"--and he gave himself that title. He paraded it, and in the way he paraded it made it a mocking, challenging joke--until he actually became "The Greatest" in his fight with the U. S. Government over the Vietnam War. And Ali remains a great and important world citizen. But he was never just an egoist--even when he called himself "The Greatest."
Paul Hornung was maybe once a candidate for the egoism title, but his stage was smaller, and over time got smaller still. When he was a senior in college he was the Notre Dame team. He kicked off, passed, ran, and punted--and did all four stupendously. The only thing he couldn't do was catch his own passes, or--despite his greatness--make Notre Dame win games.
When the Notre Dame team came onto the field in South Bend, Indiana, they all came rushing out of the tunnel and 50,000 people roared like they were roaring for champions. And then Golden Paul strolled out, all by himself, helmet tucked under his arm, golden curls blowing in the wind, waving to the adoring crowd. Rome was never more thrilling.
But in the NFL, though Hornung was a star, and even a superstar, he had lots of company. And though he was a great running back, that's all he was. Years later, his professional career long behind him, Paul became again a sort of legendary hero in his hometown in Louisville, Kentucky. And there is a huge and wonderful picture of him, at his best, painted on the side of a tall building. And Paul had for years a sports talk show on television, which he hosted from a local bar. The golden curls were gone, his head as shiny as his supersized helmet had been in the glory days. And then one night the golden curls came back. . . .
The third of my three super-egoists is somewhat different from the others. He reached the status that let him be a major egoist by election. Not that he was elected as an egoist, or to be egoist-in-chief. But once Barack Obama was elected President of the United States he became an amazing egoist. He was young, handsome, bright, articulate, personable, and though many Americans hated him for being black, they couldn't do so publicly.
Obama got himself caught in the mire of America almost immediately. Campaigning, he had promised to close the U.S. Concentration Camp and Torture Facility at Guantanamo in Occupied Cuba. He didn't do it. He escalated the U.S. military offensive in the Middle East, despite his campaign promises. And then he introduced drones, and used them to kill people without having to risk American lives. Anybody killed in the American offense in the Middle East had always been identified as a terrorist after his or her death, and Obama continued that policy. Anybody a drone killed was automatically an enemy combatant.
When Bradley Manning exposed U.S. war crimes, Obama declared him "guilty" of a major crime. In saying that--before Manning had even been charged with specific offenses, the commander-in-chief become a dictator. And now he calls Edward Snowden a "traitor" for exposing American war crimes. Mr. Obama was a lawyer. And he must know that to conceal a felony offense is a felony. The legal terms are "misprision of a felony," and "accessory after the fact."
America has, in its recent history, one warrior president after another--and more than its share of criminal presidents. Since 1958--when American troops (me included) invaded Lebanon in hopes of having a war there--the United States has been at war. Even Gerald Ford sent gun-boats into North Korea. And Jimmy Carter attempted to start a war by trying to invade Iran. Luckily, the North Koreans didn't resist Ford's invasion, and American technology failed Carter, causing all the helicopters carrying troops to crash in the desert, their engines clogged with sand blown up into them by their rotor-blades. And Bill Clinton, too: but only with bombs, so no Americans would get killed. And when the U.S. bombed a bridge in Bosnia that just happened to have a civilian train loaded with Bosnian civilians crossing it when the bomb hit, that was not anybody's fault, because the bridge had been "assigned" as a target by the U.S.command. And the Bushes. The Oil Bushes, murdering for oil.
Becoming the U. S. president, Mr. Obama inherited a murdering job. And though he promised to end the murdering, he continues it--and has made it even more "sophisticated." And as a college freshman taught me in 1960, in my first year as a university teacher, "sophistication" is not a good thing.
But Mr. Obama is sophisticated, and is obviously proud of what he is doing. And he is raising two little girls who will grow up to know what their father has done. His ego is more important to him than anything else. If Mr. Obama were killing "white" people, he would have a problem. But he is killing Arabic people, and they don't count. They are America's new "niggers," these last twenty-five years. And for Mr. Obama, killing them is more important than justice or honor or decency or right. More important, too, than his daughters.
Ego blinds. And it has blinded Mr. Obama.
CAPTIVITY
I wonder what its like to live for sixty-six years in captivity. That's how long Snoopy the Manitee has been held captive in a marine park somewhere in the United States.
We noble savages speak quite freely of animals "held in captivity" and don't think about it at all.
And in the United States, nobody thinks about the human beings held in captivity at the illegal Guantanamo Bay Torture Facility--for fourteen years now? So that twelve-year old boy who was sent there is twenty-six now? Or is he still alive?
Do we even know how many of them might have been tortured to death? Do we care?
Do we ever even think about them? It was seven log years ago that Mr. Obama promised that he would close down Guantanamo: because it was illegal, unconstitutional. He hasn't closed it--and it is still illegal and unconstitutional.
None of those prisoners has been tried in a court of law. None of them has been charged with a criminal offence. The Lawless Nation we used to know as the United States, champion of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, simply holds and tortures them--in Cuba.
Why in Cuba? Because it is not the United States, and in the United States what is being done to them would be a crime. Mr. Obama and all his torture thugs would be in jail.
But it seems that Americans are comfortable with such criminal acts. We don't mind treason against our constitution.
I feel sorry for Snoopy the manitee, held captive for sixty-six years. But I feel even more sorry for the human beings who have been locked up and tortured for fourteen years at the Guantanamo Torture Facility.
If enough of us protested, maybe we could make him free them. But I guess we don't care. We don't believe in or follow our own laws.
I shouldn't say this, of course. We all know it--though we pretend not to. We don't wake up every morning thinking about those men in the Guantanamo Torture Facility waking up.
I wonder what its like to live for sixty-six years in captivity. That's how long Snoopy the Manitee has been held captive in a marine park somewhere in the United States.
We noble savages speak quite freely of animals "held in captivity" and don't think about it at all.
And in the United States, nobody thinks about the human beings held in captivity at the illegal Guantanamo Bay Torture Facility--for fourteen years now? So that twelve-year old boy who was sent there is twenty-six now? Or is he still alive?
Do we even know how many of them might have been tortured to death? Do we care?
Do we ever even think about them? It was seven log years ago that Mr. Obama promised that he would close down Guantanamo: because it was illegal, unconstitutional. He hasn't closed it--and it is still illegal and unconstitutional.
None of those prisoners has been tried in a court of law. None of them has been charged with a criminal offence. The Lawless Nation we used to know as the United States, champion of democracy, freedom, and the rule of law, simply holds and tortures them--in Cuba.
Why in Cuba? Because it is not the United States, and in the United States what is being done to them would be a crime. Mr. Obama and all his torture thugs would be in jail.
But it seems that Americans are comfortable with such criminal acts. We don't mind treason against our constitution.
I feel sorry for Snoopy the manitee, held captive for sixty-six years. But I feel even more sorry for the human beings who have been locked up and tortured for fourteen years at the Guantanamo Torture Facility.
If enough of us protested, maybe we could make him free them. But I guess we don't care. We don't believe in or follow our own laws.
I shouldn't say this, of course. We all know it--though we pretend not to. We don't wake up every morning thinking about those men in the Guantanamo Torture Facility waking up.
vrijdag 11 juli 2014
RECTAL EXAMS
All the stupid spying that the United States does--on ordinary U.S. citizens and on its closest and most important allies--must be caused by something serious, something seriously out of place. The American "spy culture" is not just stupid; it is asinine.
Dr. Hornback agrees, and recommends rectal exams. American leaders, it seems, must all must have their heads up their asses. The Surgeon General should order his troops to conduct rectal exams on everybody from Obama down to the lowest intelligence officer. The Surgeon General's troops will find their rectums all stuffed with heads: their own heads..
Then the Surgeon General can send out all his Colonels with their Colonoscopes, to perform Colonoscopies. And then? As Thomas Aquinas might have put it, rectum ratio factibilium.
Need I go further? Our language has a long list of coprological idioms that one might quite properly use for Mr. Obama and his government, having to do with fecal eating, fecal-facedness, fecal causes of blindness,etc.
All the stupid spying that the United States does--on ordinary U.S. citizens and on its closest and most important allies--must be caused by something serious, something seriously out of place. The American "spy culture" is not just stupid; it is asinine.
Dr. Hornback agrees, and recommends rectal exams. American leaders, it seems, must all must have their heads up their asses. The Surgeon General should order his troops to conduct rectal exams on everybody from Obama down to the lowest intelligence officer. The Surgeon General's troops will find their rectums all stuffed with heads: their own heads..
Then the Surgeon General can send out all his Colonels with their Colonoscopes, to perform Colonoscopies. And then? As Thomas Aquinas might have put it, rectum ratio factibilium.
Need I go further? Our language has a long list of coprological idioms that one might quite properly use for Mr. Obama and his government, having to do with fecal eating, fecal-facedness, fecal causes of blindness,etc.
dinsdag 17 juni 2014
The Birthday Party School of Literary Criticism
The Birthday Party School of Literary Appreciation
Have you heard enough of
deconstruction, narratology, semiotics, transgresssive transgendering,
flatulitics? It’s much worse than the
older labelling terms and rules—comparatively simple nonsense like iambs and
trochees, sonnet forms, heroic couplet
—which were used as a substitute for
engaging with literature. But both the
new “theoretical” nonsense and the older formalist labels are worthless, and
worse: they distract us. We should forget all the old literary
arithmetic stuff, and we must refuse, abjure, denounce, and in the future
simply ignore all literary “theory” and the literary criticism that uses such. Literature has value—and neither it nor its
readers need literary theory or literary criticism—or rules.
The world was much better—and we were
much better and more useful—when the study of literature meant reading for understanding
and appreciation. Our aim was modest and
respectable then: we served art, rather
than shit on it, and we read literature in order to learn more about life.
Literature has value, and there are
good reasons why we should study it.
Criticism has its place, of course:
we should all read critically, thoughtfully, analytically. But what most literary critics do is—at best—an
irrelevant elaboration of the footnote, a sort of self-important
distractionism
.
.
There was once an important
footnote—and it is a most important bit of Keats criticism. Douglas Bush wrote—in a footnote to the old
Riverside edition of John Keats—“When Keats writes about ‘thinking,’ he means a
sympathetic understanding of the human condition.”
The Birthday Party School of Literary
Appreciation is dedicated to reading poems, novels, stories, and plays. And essays, biographies, and autobiographies. You can attend—or start your own branch. Why not begin with Keats? Friday, 31 October 2014 will be the 219th
birthday of John Keats. Call a meeting—or just invite
your friends. Read and talk about some
of Keats’s poems. You might even refer
to his letters. And celebrate—with
perhaps “a draught of vintage”—those poems, and their author.
Bert
Hornback
vrijdag 6 juni 2014
VIOLENCE
Another murder. Another young man with a gun, killing somebody. And Americans are sad, horrified, etc. For sixty years America has been killing people--innocent people, like the tens of thousands of people it murdered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like that little girl covered with napalm, burning alive in Vietnam--and some damnable American journalist took her picture instead of trying to help her. If there is a hell, he should have a very special place!
Americans bomb the world. Their shameless hypocritical leader uses drones to kill anybody anywhere--and after they are dead, the USA declares them "enemies."
All the young Americans who kill their classmates are doing is following the leader. Killing is the American thing to do: and this president has taken such to a higher leve than we have ever known. Harry Truman had the excuse of ignorsnce. The wonderfully named "Obamba" knows exactly what he is doung.. And to cluck and sigh at this latest act of violence is gross hypocrisy.
Stop the president's murders! Stop the Sixty Years War.
Open your eyes, Americans. You TEACH violence and murder. It's the American Way. And until YOU quit supporting such you will cause more and more murders like the ones in Seattle.
Don't cringe, and sigh. STAND UP AGAINST YOUR COUNTRY'S MURDEROUS VIOLENCE. And then you can start to deal with the horrific violence among your fellow-citizens, in your country.
Bert Hornback
Another murder. Another young man with a gun, killing somebody. And Americans are sad, horrified, etc. For sixty years America has been killing people--innocent people, like the tens of thousands of people it murdered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, like that little girl covered with napalm, burning alive in Vietnam--and some damnable American journalist took her picture instead of trying to help her. If there is a hell, he should have a very special place!
Americans bomb the world. Their shameless hypocritical leader uses drones to kill anybody anywhere--and after they are dead, the USA declares them "enemies."
All the young Americans who kill their classmates are doing is following the leader. Killing is the American thing to do: and this president has taken such to a higher leve than we have ever known. Harry Truman had the excuse of ignorsnce. The wonderfully named "Obamba" knows exactly what he is doung.. And to cluck and sigh at this latest act of violence is gross hypocrisy.
Stop the president's murders! Stop the Sixty Years War.
Open your eyes, Americans. You TEACH violence and murder. It's the American Way. And until YOU quit supporting such you will cause more and more murders like the ones in Seattle.
Don't cringe, and sigh. STAND UP AGAINST YOUR COUNTRY'S MURDEROUS VIOLENCE. And then you can start to deal with the horrific violence among your fellow-citizens, in your country.
Bert Hornback
donderdag 29 mei 2014
JOHN KERRY: ON BEING A MAN
Mr. Kerry wants Edward Snowden to "man -up," and go back to the United States to face what Mr. Kerry calls "justice."
Mr. Obama has already said that if Edward Snowden comes home, he--Mr. Obama--will not seek the death penalty for him.
What the United States calls justice --as Mr. Kerry should know--includes the illegal torture facility at Guantanamo Bay in illegally Cuba. It includes using unmanned drones to kill people who--after they have been killed--are determined always to have been "enemies" of the United States.
The prisoners at Guantanamo--some of them there, now, for fourteen years--have never been tried in a court of law, not even a United States court of law! They have been declared--without trial--to be "enemies" of the United States.
And now Mr. Kerry thinks Edward Snowden should "man-up" and go back to the United States. He would quickly get sent off to Guantanamo, where he could safely be tortured for the rest of his life.
If Mr. Snowden were not in Russia, Mr. Obama would by now have used one of his American drones to murder Mr. Snowden. He has already killed one United States citizen with a drone. (Never mind "trial by jury"--that doesn't mean anything is a rogue state.)
We might remember that when Bradley Manning was first apprehended, and put in solitary confinement, and tortured--in his native country, as a United States citizen: even before anybody started talking about the perhaps necessity of bringing him to trial, Mr. Obama announced that Manning was in prison "because he broke the law."
When the president of a country declares someone guilty before he is even charged with specific offenses, before he is tried in court for any offenses, that country is a lawless rogue state. Mr. Obama might as well declare himself for what he is: a dictator, a lawless head of what has become a lawless state.
When will the United States recover itself? It can still reform. Its people aren't evil people. Americans protested against Lyndon Johnson and his war in Vietnam, and brought him down. When Richard Nixon's National Guard opened fire on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio and killed four young people, the whole nation was horrified.
But now? Well, the United States has been at war constantly since 1991. Maybe now nobody knows how to stop being at war. Maybe that's why most American citizens ignore it. Maybe they figure they are lucky to be Americans--because so far Mr. Obama hasn't used his drones IN the United States.
Stay where you are, Edward Snowden. And when you are given the Nobel Peace Prize, accept it in absentia. Or go to Oslo with Mr. Putin walking in front of you and behind you.
Mr. Kerry wants Edward Snowden to "man -up," and go back to the United States to face what Mr. Kerry calls "justice."
Mr. Obama has already said that if Edward Snowden comes home, he--Mr. Obama--will not seek the death penalty for him.
What the United States calls justice --as Mr. Kerry should know--includes the illegal torture facility at Guantanamo Bay in illegally Cuba. It includes using unmanned drones to kill people who--after they have been killed--are determined always to have been "enemies" of the United States.
The prisoners at Guantanamo--some of them there, now, for fourteen years--have never been tried in a court of law, not even a United States court of law! They have been declared--without trial--to be "enemies" of the United States.
And now Mr. Kerry thinks Edward Snowden should "man-up" and go back to the United States. He would quickly get sent off to Guantanamo, where he could safely be tortured for the rest of his life.
If Mr. Snowden were not in Russia, Mr. Obama would by now have used one of his American drones to murder Mr. Snowden. He has already killed one United States citizen with a drone. (Never mind "trial by jury"--that doesn't mean anything is a rogue state.)
We might remember that when Bradley Manning was first apprehended, and put in solitary confinement, and tortured--in his native country, as a United States citizen: even before anybody started talking about the perhaps necessity of bringing him to trial, Mr. Obama announced that Manning was in prison "because he broke the law."
When the president of a country declares someone guilty before he is even charged with specific offenses, before he is tried in court for any offenses, that country is a lawless rogue state. Mr. Obama might as well declare himself for what he is: a dictator, a lawless head of what has become a lawless state.
When will the United States recover itself? It can still reform. Its people aren't evil people. Americans protested against Lyndon Johnson and his war in Vietnam, and brought him down. When Richard Nixon's National Guard opened fire on antiwar demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio and killed four young people, the whole nation was horrified.
But now? Well, the United States has been at war constantly since 1991. Maybe now nobody knows how to stop being at war. Maybe that's why most American citizens ignore it. Maybe they figure they are lucky to be Americans--because so far Mr. Obama hasn't used his drones IN the United States.
Stay where you are, Edward Snowden. And when you are given the Nobel Peace Prize, accept it in absentia. Or go to Oslo with Mr. Putin walking in front of you and behind you.
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