|
| ||||||
Dr. Charles Frederickson: Long Live the King!
All global citizens should join in paying tribute to and celebrating the
myriad achievements of King Bhumipol Adulyadej on the glorious occasion of
His Majesty`s 80th birthday. Born on December 5th, 1927, the Year of the
Rabbit 2470 on the Thai calendar, universally admired King Rama the Ninth is
the longest reigning monarch in the world.
A multi-faceted talent, "Nai Luang" is an accomplished artist, author,
composer, jazz musician, patent-holding inventor and sailor. The strong
ethical values and compassionate moral guidance he constantly demonstrates
have been described as "Dasarajadhamma" � Tenfold Virtue.
The always caring and sharing benevolent ruler has actively promoted
far-reaching sufficiency economy theory and implemented sustainable
eco-friendly rural development reforms. New state-of-the-art IT community
learning centers and boarding schools for orphans and needy children have
been generously established, under royal patronage, in every province
affected by the devastating tsunami as well as in the troubled southernmost
border provinces.
The extent to which the devoted populace respects their "Great" sovereign
could recently be observed when more than one million loyal and faithful
subjects, all wearing yellow shirts (the royal color), visited Siriraj
Hospital to pay homage and sign the get well guest book during his 26-day
convalescence. When discharged, His Majesty sported a pink blazer, shirt and
necktie, and within days, every pink shirt in the kingdom was sold out in a
heartfelt display of allegiance and proud adoration for their beloved,
inspiring ruler.
Long Live the King!
Dr. Charles Frederickson
Conscripted soldiers do gutsy things
Bundled up in boots, leggings, a bright red scarf, and a puffy blue coat, I bounded out of my third-grade classroom. My older brother Charley, who was working on the snow fort with his best friend, Jerry, hollered at me.
"Over here! Dad says if we get the fort done, we can play after school."
A stout figure, wearing a familiar black overcoat and worn leather gloves popped up from the other side of the fort.
"That`s right," Dad said, smiling. A fringe of white hair peeked out from underneath his hat.
My dad was principal of three elementary schools. Two days before, he had come out at recess to help us start the fort, prompted, no doubt, by the sight of umpteen kids waiting our turn to sail across a huge ice slide-despite his previous warnings. Fearful that someone else would break an arm, the way Odell did last week, Dad immediately called an assembly. After he had quieted us with the Boy Scout salute, he told us in what he called "no uncertain terms" that sliding was strictly off limits. He didn`t detail the punishment, and we knew better than to ask. Now everyone was busy working on the fort.
I gave Jerry, that other redhead, one of my looks. He shot a smirk right back at me and kept on packing snow against the wall of the fort.
I could still hear his words, before I got into big trouble yesterday morning right before school started.
"I can slide farther than you," he had bragged.
DECEMBER, 2001
Mina lay awake. The night was cold and the blankets didn`t help to keep her warm. On the other bed, her sister was fast asleep. Mina, shivered as she got out of bed and drew open the curtain. The bright yellow moonlight flooded the room. She looked out onto the garden. Everything lay quiet, bathed in ethereal light. And in the stillness of the night, she suddenly heard the church bells chime. The melodious chimes echoed through the valley, resounding through the conifers, breaking the silence of the dark.
Mina shuddered. It did sound ghostly. `Who could be ringing the bell at this hour?` she thought. `Surely, it`s not Nanjappan, the sexton!`
As unexpectedly as it had the started, the chiming stopped. All was quiet again. Very cold now, Mina snuggled back under her blankets. The chiming had frightened her. She pulled the blankets over her head and was soon fast asleep.
For many days after that, she thought about the bells that had chimed at night. She asked her brother. He said he had heard it too. She dared not ask her sister for she knew what her sister would say: `You and your childish nonsense!` Her mother of course would say that it was her imagination.
She asked her father. He nonchalantly told her that it was a common occurrence, ringing almost every night.
"But, why is that? Don`t you think it is strange? How can Nanjappan stay awake so late? Isn`t he scared? And in winter its so cold. . ." Mina was full of questions.
Next Sunday, Mina and her brother set off for church, before the rest of the family. They loved to be there well before the service started. It was not to meditate or pray but simply to romp around the beautifully laid out graves, in between the old weeping willows. Some graves had intricately carved angels standing guard, others elaborately carved crosses and some were just plain with moss and mildew growing on it. It was cold and damp under the trees. Some mornings, a thin mist hung over the graveyard, adding mystery to the scene. Mina and her brother loved to read the epitaphs. There was so much history there. They often wondered what had made these people leave their country and travel so far. What had they gained? Had they been happy? Sometimes they spotted the grave of a child, sometimes an old woman � how many years did she live in India? They knew from their father`s stories that many of the English had not returned to England after Independence. For them India was home � more than England would ever be.
Too soon, people began to trickle in and it was time for them to get into church. Standing at the entrance was Nanjappan.
"Let`s ask him how he rings the bell at midnight," whispered Mina`s brother to her.
So they asked him. His face remained expressionless. He stared at them for awhile and then motioned them to follow him. Confused, they did as he instructed. He led them to the side entrance. And there stood an old, rickety, wooden staircase. It led to the belfry. The railings looked shaky and weak.
"Do you think I would venture to climb these stairs at midnight? Even during the day it is a great feat. And the nights are so cold, I would not dream of getting out of my house. Have you visited this place at night? It`s very frightening. The weeping willows moving in the cold night breeze seem to be calling you to doom." He shuddered as he finished his speech.
Mina crouched and tried to clear the stone. Most of the words she could decipher so faint had they become. She read aloud: Here lies the mortal remains of Capt. Mark . . ... of the . . ..Regiment, who was killed by an unknown assailant in his home. Faithful was his service to Our Lord and his Queen. . .
"The land for this church was donated by him. His killer was never found. He cries out for justice," said Nanjappan.
Nimi Kurian
It is questionable as to what Realism is, given the fact that we have just gotten out of the twentieth century and post-modernism, which reflects the refraction of realism into a million smithereens. It was all so easy when John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemmingway laid the foundation stone for modern realistic writing.
What is wrong anyway with, "I`m a swan, I`m a swan." It`s a talking bird, which has just gotten over the fact that it`s no longer an ugly duckling and it represents a fundamental wish of us all to one day wake up to find that we are not misunderstood but have become somebody beautiful, respected by all, and more wonderful than our most wonderful dreams. What is wrong with expressing oneself in verse "to take up arms against a sea of troubles" and as a new Renaissance man find the world in one`s individuality in order to resolve the whole and tackle problems in a way such as to break free with tradition and seek new forms. This was reality before American realism and why was it not less real than the late twentieth century reality?
Twentieth century reality relies on authenticity or the true story, which talking swans and Princes in verse do not exemplify. But how real is real life in the sense of how far one example can be typical of every other example. Take the case of my neighbor in Holland, Mevrouw (Mrs.) Nuss. She unfortunately lost both husband and daughter simultaneously. Many`s the time over a cup of coffee, she told me how they bestrode a moped or miniaturized motorcycle (I had a picture of Biggles` goggles for him and her in braces clinging on for dear death). The fatal moment came and a giant truck rolled over the two. They went in one swipe, like two flies, said Mevrouw Nuss. I had to repress a laugh on the first occasion and many times subsequently but yet it was the story of how Mrs. Nuss became a widow, came to lead a lonely existence and was bereft of her loved ones in one terrible moment. What was funny about it?
James Joyce has an answer. In "A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man". Steven Dedelus wants to know what is tragedy. Tragedy is more than a sad story. It is the telling of the tragedy that makes a single story into a tragedy or a form of art, which can appeal to us all. This is why Hamlet is a tragedy and Mrs. Nuss`s story is simply ridiculous. The events are perhaps equally sad but the artistry of the author renders the one to tragedy and the other to sublime ridiculousness. Hurtfully elitist, you might think.
In an email to Fullosia Press, one of our best poets, Dr. Kelley Jean White (she is a consultant surgeon in Philadelphia) wrote � and I paraphrase clumsily � "I have a four-year old, who has shot a six-year old with a .22" It was electrifying, a tragedy in a line (of verse?) expressing an individual truth as a tragic fact. I do not know if it was meant but it is American realism � one event, coming to stand for all events.
In "If All Men Were Angels", J.D. Collins records that Blondie, an incredibly attractive personage in the book, had her brains beaten out during prison riots. It is a true happening and J.D. wants to put that on record as a tribute to his friend. The young attorney in the book, Ben, finally comforts her and Ben is J.D. himself. It is a tragic story recorded for all, who read the book, and again, the individual event becomes universalized so that it is the unique, which stands for something that could happen to us all.
One criticism, however, that could be leveled at American realism and not at talking ducks or princes in verse is that this realism is sometimes so close to reality that the public cannot see the difference between the story and real life. Authenticity makes the individual event a candidate for tragedy but the tragedy then dictates that the individual event be doctored so that it becomes what it is not.
Some time ago, I caught the last half of �Sunday, Bloody Sunday`, which was a Realistic look at a British massacre in Northern Ireland around 1966. The �facts` were presented as if a documentary were being presented and as if the whole thing were the honest and unadulterated truth. In fact, it was an excellent play, which represented the playwright`s point of view � and nothing more.
The group that was massacred was the �Catholics`. It may be difficult for a US audience to appreciate what a Catholic is. A Catholic is a person born into a certain community, whose destiny e.g. economic, marriage, is shaped by his Catholic vision and who has no way out of his Catholic identity. A US Catholic, who chooses his own Church, practices freedom of religion himself and allows it for others and really from Monday through Saturday is integrated with everyone else is no way comparable with an Irish Catholic, who spends all his life living out a certain, predestined group membership.
Bloody Sunday was the first time that British troops put down Catholic opposition in Northern Ireland. It was not the last time. It was the start of a slippery slope of blood in which the British put down Catholic opposition and were attacked by IRA Terrorists. It was very comparable with the colossal mistake of the American Army to deal with the Moslems in Baghdad and to become the target of Moslem Terrorist attacks. The only difference between Baghdad and Derry was that it was much easier to make all the same mistakes in Baghdad.
Also on TV that same week, was a program on Michael Moore. He has produced many documentaries but it seems he is not above chamfering the �facts`, which are downright fabrications for his stories. They simply make the storyline run better.
What is Joe Public to think if Realists on the one side and �creative journalists` on the other both dictate the truth so it is impossible to see, who is putting forward what. Is this an argument against being Realistic? I tried to write a story about nineteenth century, cowboy bounty hunters operating along the Wall along the Mexican Border. It has the saving grace that it is obviously fictional. Although it lacks all authenticity, it makes a point that we know is a lie.
I must confess that I feel some criticism of Realism is in order, mainly because it is such an important part of the American literary scene. Any school of writing capable of dominating such a scene for so long deserves a kick in the teeth. No one literary stream may ever be allowed to reign undisputed long. However, it must be confessed that realism has brought much to literature and will leave an undying (?), lasting (?), well, anyway, big legacy to posterity(?). The excesses of realism however have left the public befuddled and bloodthirsty, eager for ever more true lies.
Geoff Jackson
memorial day-- at the village store--flags and yellow ribbons grow faded and frayed- only the newer ones, now made in China, are put out for the parade home improvements: merchandise made in china by order of home depot too many flags too many yellow ribbons the old soldiers go home with private remembrances, with private forgettings
Richard Lighthouse: burp let`s get sick drunk i say to a poem. he agrees with a burp. i`ll drink the words then you throw up. wine or cognac, he asks? in our inebriated excellence we`ll mock the blue sky like a hushed lake. we`ll drown sacred words with each toast, then fight the falling like autumn`s last leaf. Edwin Jacques: Christmastide SNOWSTORM Large powder flakes fall as Earth turned to dawn white from north to south this too-frigid morn. East wind howls driving snow along the sky, sound of lost banshees flailing the pine tree. Night comes like a giant shroud, snow is now fine. Wind dies out as if nature has called time. STANDING UP THE CHRISTMAS TREE Every year, December, my brother, Bud, and I took one of our sleds, a length of rope, a saw and an axe to seek our special tree. Each year we brought it home our father would berate us: We cut the wrong tree, too tall, too short, lop-sided. He proceeded to fit our tree into the metal-Christmas-tree-stand. Here Bud and I learned about cursing. We learned curses amounted to sin; because, our mother beat us when she heard us do it. We never learned to not participate. Each year the sky filled with diamonds we gathered our gear went Christmas tree hunting. CHRISTMAS EVE They told me animals can speak at midnight; but, only once each year on Christmas Eve. This year, like all others, my cat and I are together, side by side, on the davenport in front of the fireplace. The clock strikes twelve times. Again I`ll fail, as I`ve failed for years, I must try again. I rub his white fur he raises his blue eyes to mine then lies his head in my hand. I ask him, "Baby, will you speak to me this year?" He says, "Scratch by left ear, right as its base." I did. He stretches his hind legs, closes his eyes and goes to sleep. All the stars glisten the snow is very white.
Geoff Jackson: Dreamland 1. Speed Dream Beating up the stars Mane of milk and honey Faster into endlessness, pure speed Hooves clattering into eternity 2. Breakneck I thought in terms of visions Ambitions Running the last and longest mile Breakneck, my stitch gone 8. Long, in the Distance Do not forsake me At the roll of drums And sound of distant trumpets The glory of red sunset and purple clouds Before the rising of the silver moon | RPPS ETHICAL QUESTION #1: The Attorney General and The Inquisition
Should a person designated as the nation`s chief law enforcer promote torture?
Recently the nominee for Attorney General refused to renounce torture as a measure of state policy. Should a person designated as the nation`s chief law enforcer promote torture? The question is inspired by items submitted by Dr Charles Fredrickson and Awesome David Lawrence.
What do you say?
You know that water boarding is a great interrogation tool. Almost completely effective in eliciting a confession or capital punishment. With its new legal status, we won`t have to export political prisoners for
foreign torture. Maybe we can use it on future terrorist trials like impeachments. Such a waste, though, with
Chaney as successor. Have a nice day.
Bosacker
Blade of sunlight
DEbate dangling from rusty hook
Andy Martin
Demoncrazy is an aberration struggling to reconcile unbridled power of abuse
(CHICAGO)(December 8, 2007) Republican U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin will hold a sidewalk news conference Saturday, December 8 to announce that he has joined calls for an investigation of CIA tape destruction.
"I want to underscore my own concern that CIA records were destroyed," Martin will state. "Like most government agencies, the CIA destroys almost nothing. The claim that the head of DO directed the destruction of tapes is simply not believable. He must be sworn and interrogated. The fact that the existence of the tapes was concealed from the 9/11 Commission is also unbelievable. The argument that the CIA was protecting the identities of interrogators is an insult to the intelligence.
"I am asking the Attorney General to investigate, and I would also suggest that Congress consider creating a bipartisan committee or special commission to investigate the destruction of this evidence. What we do not need to tear this country apart on a partisan basis.
"Republicans should be just as outraged as Democrats that evidence was destroyed, that government agencies (9/11 Commission) and, apparently, courts were deceived. As a former judge, the Attorney General is obviously aware of the seriousness of those implications.
"Senator John McCain and I are of one mind as to the uselessness and counter productivity of torture. There are many ways to deal with recalcitrant witnesses and torturing them is not one of the options. The fact that tapes of these abominations existed, and that conflicting claims are now being made as to who was notified and when, is just the latest installment in a tawdry series of disclosures about an essential government agency that was misused and abused for political purposes during the Iraq era. Make no mistake, we need the CIA, and almost all of the people who work at the CIA are honest and honorable and decent. I have met Porter Goss and I would be very surprised if his hands are dirty. The full truth has to come out to condemn the evil doers, and to exonerate the innocent.
"What no one has yet asked is, �Where were the tapes made?` I think that is the first question I want answered. Were these �interrogations` performed in Amman, as I suspect? Somewhere else? We need a full disclosure of the relevant facts. To date all we have had is another installment of cover-up. I believe that copies of these tapes still exist. We need to coax out these copies from those who have them.
"I strongly support the bipartisan proposal which is going through Congress to ban torture and to disassociate the United States from any questionable techniques in the future. I strongly urge the President to sign such legislation and to avoid any threats of a veto.
"Horrendous mistakes have been made. Shameful mistakes. Disgraceful mistakes. As a nation we have been dishonored by those who claimed super powers to ignore the constitution, to violate our laws and to attack the core of our democracy, which is respect for human rights and due process of law. We have laws and we have courts precisely because we cannot trust individuals who hold temporal and temporary power to hold the lines clear and true between that which is allowed and that which is condemned.
"That I why Senator McCain and I stand shoulder to shoulder in demanding an end to torture or the acceptance and toleration of torture. We have seen the consequences.
"I am sure we do not remotely have the entire truth even yet. But we must begin and continue the process of reconciliation and disclosure. The truth can set us free, but only if we expose and confront the truth. The events of the past couple of days indicate that some people in Washington still do not realize it is truth-telling time.
"Finally, on a political level, in a few days we will enter a new year, and a new political calendar. Republican candidates should not be asked to campaign while bearing the burden of continuing disclosures about abhorrent activity. The sooner the full truth is out, the better. If politicians understand little else, they do understand self-preservation," Martin will state.
~ Andy Martin
if i knew better,
Restless on the bed, tossing and turning in his sleep, crying fitfully, surrounded by meaningless slaves dabbing at his forehead, Caligula lay in the big Caesar-purple covered bed at death`s door. Was it brain fever? A virus? Was it an affliction from the gods?
Thoughts twilighted Caligula`s brain soaring like lost birds over oceans of forgetfulness. They peeped in batty night over flat marshes on leathery wings with membranes stretched as Caligula`s exhaustion. Dawn hammered heavy fists at the drapes, day stood without locked out, not a ray penetrating, and mystic night returned as sunset velvet drew back the drapes oft tides to reveal a floating moon, a spangle of stars to infinity. But seldom Caligula slept.
In his brain, Artemis came to touch him, her long quiver full of arrows ready to shoot his soul. Her fingers, cool ready to calm his brow, but, while reaching out, not ruffling his hair or attaining his features, bringing, as it were, no repose. Yet his eyes would follow her round the room as she went and he choked on conversations with her, who was not there. Sometimes, she was a fine conversationalist and would sit on the bed talking of this and that as women do. Then she would disappear and the many corners of the room would seem dark without her. He addressed her as Artemis in Greek and sometimes as Diana in Latin. He was not rightly conscious, which language he thought in, thought in both together and sometimes did not rightly think. Just rocked on the waves of insomnia, wracked by dreams, which were never sweet, stranded by tides of depression and despair but cast up on desert beaches, where he would call and moan in exhaustion and happiness before retreating beneath the waves.
Isis came also. Queen of Heaven. Shining like a moon goddess in a silver crown. Cloak of stars. Milky hands with long fingers cold from assembling the cold parts of her brother`s body. They brushed Caligula`s brow. Sometimes, she spoke Egyptian, which he did not understand and sometimes Greek or even Latin. "Oh, Lady, Lady, lovely Lady of the Night," he prayed to her but his supplicating hands did not even reach her robes and then, she, too, withdrew to ethereal corners and vanished.
And his mother, Agrippina, returned. Also, tall, aloof and white, with long fingers that would have been soothing as when he was a child if only they had brushed his brow. Sometimes, she spoke, "Caligula, Caligula, my son, oh, my son. How I loved you. Did you love your mother? Did you love anyone, my son?" and then, she too would be gone, leaving the pressing sheets of the purple bed, magnificent bed of state, with an incumbent emperor on the point of death.
And so came Cerberus also. A mean cur. Three-headed. Collar clasped in black agate. Eyes of staring black. Teeth of snarling white. Paws scrabbly like rats` feet in their haste to get at Caligula. Cerberus guarded the gates of death. Keeper of the realm of night. Death`s ever guardian crowned in gold. Whimpering to be off the leash. Caligula knew the dog longed to spring at his throat. To rend his jugular. Spill his blood, red on the coverlet of purple, en-staining the Roman Empire to the far corners of the earth. Before catching him with wicked white teeth. Fangs to carry him deep in the bowels of night. A soul lugged off to the Realm of Death.
Across the Styx, his soul would flit on Charon`s flimsy wooden craft, obol paid with what the living laid upon his eyes to keep them shut. Winding Styx, a murderous river route betwixt the living and the dead, encircling Hades like a serpent, a frontier to be crossed in a riverboat paid for by a copper obol to the silent ferryman with no face, indifferently bringing him, Caligula, to the other side. There, where souls flitted as bats. Tweeting and woofing in the ether as they flew hungry for blood and libations to briefly give them human form, so that, remembered in the world of the living on the far, other side, they re-assumed so shortly life and shape before going back to flight on the wings of despair over relentless marshes oozing methane to the reaches of Hell.
And so sat encrowned Hades with a mien of hate on a golden throne with a pomegranate of the same in the light of twilight ready to judge Caligula`s soul and enchain it for his sweet lasciviousness and wanton torture of so many new dead. His features were like a storm at sea and there was no peace or mercy there, nor ever had been. But next him was Persephone. And she had once been mortal. Queen of the Dead, she ruled with icy, white fingers, which reached out to brush Caligula`s brow, but like his other women were not yet intimates to his countenance. Her smile, distant as hills, was lost in the halls of death and did not reach him.
He thrust sleep from the corners of his eyes and with outstretched hands pleaded for a touch of her fingers. He bowed from the waist in Roman obeisance and not in prostration like an Oriental but yet she did not stretch hands to meet his nor even brush the space between with her fingertips. Like a cat`s pink tongue, his stuck out, but parted lips released no sound. His soul knew terror in this fearful space of Hell but his body was heavy and bereft so it was as if the chasm that opened up between him and Persephone was not yet crossed. He seemed to have � not hope � but a chord connecting him to the mortal world. Unlike the other souls here, his soul was still embodied. Like Osiris, he thought. Like Pharaoh, his mummy connected him to the mortal world. His body had not yet been deserted but almost lay behind like a ship in storm, where the seamen were prepared to board the boats.
Sand ran through the sandglass telling time and water clocks sank in pools of forgetfulness. Days advanced. September changed to October and October marched. There was no end to Caligula`s fever.
A bowman reared himself at the end of the bed. His steed was black and rank as sweat and the bowman drew back his bow and bright arrow, grinning like a djinn. Curved sword hung at the horse`s panting flank in a beaded scabbard. But, thought Caligula, the Eastern borders are secured and peace had been conducted with the Parthians. And yet the barbarian advanced, moving from a trot to a canter. The bow drew back, the horse broke into a gallop, the wind tossed its mane and blew out its tail, while its nostrils flared to catch air and its teeth drew back as its legs labored, and the horseman hung at the bed foot as Caligula in horror through wide-staring eyes, gazed at the apparition. And so the fierce hooves moved on and like all else in Caligula`s shadow world, the staring phantoms revolved and returned, first the one and then the other, while the mortal remains of the emperor shuddered on the bed.
*** A held a fingerbowl to Caligula`s hands and grinned ingratiatingly. "How was your meal, master?" Caligula grunted, so A made the effort to bow and scrape, though flattery he guessed would be lost at the present moment. Caligula was indeed becoming better. He was silent or spoke gibberish in long, meaningless bursts but he had stopped ordering everybody to be killed so vestiges of sense seemed to be returning. A was certainly hopeful that Caligula would regain his faculties since this was his great hope of grasping power for himself. As the slave behind the throne, he would be somebody for he would have the ear of his master, which he could then sell to somebody else � though not literally. B had the job attiring his sire. He wrapped woolen loincloths for October was a cold month but togas were out of the question as being too wind around so shorter tunics were the order of the day. Master`s hairiness was a little revolting and the pate was patently balding but B was not very interested. He tried to get up and keep up a conversation with the emperor and soon it was clear that Caligula recognized and liked him. He also bet his hat on winning the imperial ear, though what he wanted to do with the much-vaunted item was not clear. However, for a slave the ear was the way up, so have it, he would. And sell it to the highest bidder. One ear. An emperor`s. Sold. From the genuflecting slave in his master`s livery. C poured the wine but mixed it generously with water. "May it not go down the wrong hole, great Emperor," he said. He, too, had high hopes of the ear and what he might whisper in. There were no ends to the possibilities for a lackey with an emperor, who knew not the difference between the Ides and the Kalends. And as Caligula regained his strength and his senses, it slowly came to him what he was to do in future. But it was difficult. His judgment was surely rocked to the very foundations. He simply had no constancy of purpose. He combined a superordinately high intelligence with an inordinately blurred judgment. Some days he would be sensible and take the right decisions. Other days, he was just crazy and had no idea of what he was doing. It was as if, like the Ancient Persians, he took one lot of decisions sober and reviewed them drunk and the next lot drunk and reviewed them sober. Half the time, Caligula was drunk. As Roman Emperor and Autocrat of the Known World, he was drunk on the throne and simply taking all kinds of spur of the moment decisions. One decision, however, was becoming rooted more and more steadfastly in his brain. It was the decision to get rid of Macro. He didn`t exactly know why he wanted to get rid of the man, but get rid of the man he definitely wanted to. Macro was always there. Macro gave him orders. Who the Devil was running the Empire anyway, him, or Macro. Well he (Caligula) would show him (Macro). He would simply chop off his head. Wipe the smile off his face. Stop his endless criticism. Finish all that pushing around. Moreover, Macro was a commoner. Dispensable. He, Caligula, was of the blood royal. Difference there was and difference there always would be. And that difference would be that Macro would get chopped. Perhaps not immediately but very soon. The slaves pleased him and he needed someone to rule through. The household slaves would do as well as any other. They were malleable. He knew they wanted his ear. Let them have it. He needed slaves. He would have them. They were at his behest and would do his bidding. Much better than independent subordinates such as Macro, who had their own opinions and dared tell him � Emperor Caligula, born to the Purple, Caligula, the Divine, on hobnobbing terms with the Olympians � what to do.
Alan Britt: Christms Reflections EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTMAS, 2002 Doves emerge from corn husks to sip pear nectar from our Christmas tablecloth strewn with pumpkins tumbling through a dark green universe. Tiger-striped gourds and oak leaves also litter this vinyl field of imagination. A tendril from a fist of grapes breaks loose, falls like a soul careening to its watery depths among mollusks and sea slugs Geoff Jackson: Dreamland 7. Come with Me, I`m the Pied Piper I am the Pied Piper I play the tune Come with me to the magic Mountain Lost in hibiscus behind distant hills I will sing you with never a false note Because my heart cries tears of amber To enprism you in my song forever. Geoff Jackson: Kan`t in Lilliput-land: Kan`t mental hospitals. . .?
"What to do now doc. . .?"
"Take another pill, kid. In fact, take a handful. Stop ya thinkin`. Good for ya."
What indeed to do about intelligent people in our mental health systems. Of course, if they`re insane, they can`t think straight. If they`re hyperactive, they have to slow down.
But what if they`re just having ideas. It`s very common for geniuses to be misunderstood. And geniuses wind up in mental asylums like everybody else. In fact, often more frequently. They are treated by doctors, who themselves are intelligent, sensitive people. Or are they?
Doc`s are used to being at the top of the pile. They`ve been told all their lives that ain`t no one smarter. So, when some smart aleck pops �em an idea they don`t understand, they pop him a pill to shut him up. It`s only human nature. No one likes a wise guy.
And we can assume that those in hospital � unless they`ve had a micky-finn from politicos unscrupulos - are in need of help. They`re very confused people. They can`t order their thoughts. They jump from one thing to the next. They associate. They don`t think logically.
D`you got me? Not only insane people think like this but also geniuses. By and large, doctors do not deal with geniuses. By and large, we geniuses � and I include the Reader, of course, just to keep him on my side � are few and far between. Most of the boobies examined by doctors are ordinary people with a slate loose, who just think they have ideas. A pill indeed and a good night`s sleep will shut them up. Not so, these obdurate ravers with ideas. They will need a handful of pills, a shot, a straight jacket and maybe Electro-Convulsion Therapy but shut them up we shall and so shall society be saved from another Kant (yes, he was a nut-o), H.C. Andersen (those stupid fairy-tales had to come from somewhere), Alexander the Great (probably thought he was Julius Caesar or General Patton) to mention just a few creative manic-depressive geniuses.
Come to think of it, geniuses in the world at large do not fare much better. Their world is often that of �Down and Out in Paris and London` (George Orwell), which is a world of washing and cleaning in sleazy hotels. Universities will not have them either, not even University Departments of English, which you might have thought might have put up with writers. Well, they kicked Steinbeck out after only a semester. Quite rightly so. The world of letters was never the same after him. And if he had been enrolled in the Establishment, we might never have had, �The Grapes of Wrath`.
Geniuses are left to wander in the wilderness, where no one listens to them. Genius level apparently starts at IQ 160. The mentally retarded clock in at approximately 60. Average, of course, is 100. Someone with IQ 110 is doing quite nicely with a reasonable job, car and home and family etc. Whoa. This guy is mid-way between mentally retarded and genius. If normal people come into contact with the mentally retarded e.g. in order to teach them or take care of them, they sure as heck have to modify their language and way of speaking in order to be intelligible to someone, who is mentally retarded. Uh, huh, a genius is goanna have to speak pretty slow in order to be understood by ordinary people. He is going to have to develop all kinds of skills, whereby he can communicate. Or he will simply be seen as an idiot. Just as mentally retarded people reject those, who do not speak "their language".
But what will happen to a genius if he finishes up in a mental hospital. He will not curb his mouth nor discipline his ideas. He will seem absurdly energetic and hyperactive. The Lilliputians, the doctors and nurses, will bind him fast and work at scaling him down. And the pill-drawers of psychopharmaca are full of medications to blast your brains away and transform anyone from monkey up into a zombie. A genius will be overlooked, re-classified and made normal. His lot will now be to go around the mentally retarded institute of the normal world and live with backward normals. If he can`t adjust to that he will get more pills. The doctors will never listen to him because they are too stupid. They just are not used to taking care of clever people.
Is it such a problem? Are we not elitist to worry about geniuses? Well, the genii that stay in the lamp will never grant society Three Wishes. We will never know what they might have done. The trashcan of the mental hospitals, the kitchen midden of our modern century, will not be gone through by archeologists of the future with a fine toothcomb to see what society has thrown away in terms of genius. They will simply be people whose ideas are lost for ever more. People of rich potential, whose lives have been lost and wasted. Not the genie in the bottle but the genie down the drain. And the drain, and the draining board, and the washed out pill bottles and syringes, are the mental hospitals.
~ Geoff Jackson.
| jd collins: English Andy
I looked out the window of the reception area of the office. The black and blue clouds obscured the eastern horizon, but the sky had lightened. Once the sunrise it might chase the clouds away. I looked at the clock and damned myself for accepting an early morning appointment. Who was this Mr. McDonough? What was his emergency that I needed to get up so early? "Why should I care?" I asked myself. As soon as I asked the question, I thought of my friend, kind of friend, from law school. What was his name? Red Rahilly" I had had an early morning appointment with him. It was the last year of law school. I had to teach him just enough how to pass a test. He wasn`t that cooperative was he? "Why should I care, Red?" I had asked Red. "You haven`t listened to a word I said. Have you Red?" I challenged Red. I looked out the east facing glass windows of the law school cafeteria at welt black and blue clouds covering the horizon. The blazing late spring sun ought to melt that annoyance away. I turned to Red whose hair still held a reddish brown glow despite all his years. What was he, all of 40? I chuckled. I regarded him as ancient.
Red loved to plat off his status as a legend. "What is it like?" he asked with a playful twinkle in his eye, "to meet one: face to face?" Our attempts at studying thus for had regressed into reminisces. I did try to hold a weighty tome in the palm of my hand to remind Red of the purpose at hand." Easing back into the semicircle backing of the bright red lounge chair, knotting his hands behind his head and kicking away the weighty to mess on the low coffee table, Red snickered, "there`s nothing those books can teach you. You must learn it from feel-for a situation and for people. All law is telling stories-let me tell you about a feller I used to sail with." "Ugh." I loked out the east facing sliding glass panels of the basement of the law school. "Law in many respects is anecdotal: tell me a story. Civil practice is less of the stuff of legend." Outside below the slope on which the law school stood, the sun had not crested the haze occluded horizon. "Law and people`s attitudes change but much of the nuts and bolts: the essential concepts of civil practice remain the same. One day this futuristic glass and steel tower will seem silly and dated, but the manner of framing a building will remain." Red looked away from the glass framed purplish sky across the somber black tiled cafeteria floor. "I was always amazed by this cafeteria. Why did the achool put racks of books down here? Give me a Corpus Juris and a side of baloney! Heck, what this place needs is less theory and more learning in the practical arts of managing people and situations. "Hey look, Red we`re studying civil procedure not domestic relations." Red`s hair, still a dark reddish brown hue despite his age of forty, the are earned him the title Grandpa from most of the students in the school who tended to be in their late twenties, returning veterans for the most part. Looking out the glass windows to the East where the sun would soon cross the horizon Red remembered "This time of day reminds me of English Andy, a chief mate I used to sail with." "We have four hours to cram the last semester into your hard head so that you graduate--." "English Andy used to like to go aft and pray at this hour." "You`ll be beyond prayer," I reminded Red of the ponderous tomes sitting on the end table in front of us. "English came home one morning - like this early from a cruise." Red eased back in the huge semi-circular lounge chairs knotting his arms behind his head and kicking his feet on the ankle high coffee table that bore the weight of the tomes, his face beaming with the complete satisfaction of a higher level of consciousness. The rising sun lent a blanched weather beaten glow to Red`s face. Red with that look of disinterested self-satisfaction said "Laddie, there`s nothing those books can teach you. You must learn it by a feel for the person and the situation." "Red, you`re the oldest guy in the school but until you pass this course you can`t hide behind the implication of wisdom of age."
I sighed. I knew I`d have to listen to the entire story another time before. . . "It was my last cruise. . .right before I started here in law school. . .when it happened. . ." Almost thirty years later, I was thinking of Red when a client came in to discuss an appeal. "Yes, Mr. Andy McDonough, what seems to be the problem?" I looked at Mr. McDonough carefully. He had the same ruby complexion which had been washed out by exposure to wind and salt. "You were," I looked over the etched face, "in construction. . .no. . ." I hesitated, "a seaman." "Yes and that would be how the trouble started I engaged another lawyer, a former seaman like myself, and thirty years ago, I got a deed from my ex and my lawyer never filed it - my ex turned around and sued me some dozens years later to get the house back. You want to hear the story? I came home and. . ." "Now English Andy," Red reflected in the law school basement had a sturdy grip on the two tow lines: self control as well as appearances. Many of the seamen, heck they would have drawn their cutlasses. Andy just tossed her overboard. (Maybe you mean overbroad?) I`m in touch. He`s soon to file for divorce."
Thirty years ago, Red concluded his seaman`s tale where it began, "Lad, books teach you nothing. You learn by a feel for people and the situation." In the present tense, English Andy`s eyes took a spin around the office and glances solemnly on the books. "You`re lade up to the bilges in books. Tell me, Barrister, do you read them?"
Lynn Lifsun: Home For The Holidays AFTER THE VISIT
flat blue hills
Dr. Charles Frederickson: His Holiness the Dalai Lama In this disquieted Age of Desperation, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, an always smiling, living icon, emerges as an inspirational apostle of dauntless pragmatic optimism and cheerfully enlightened hope. His profound faith in the power of peace suggests that with truth, courage and determination as weapons, our restless troubled world can and will be liberated from contentious struggles, freed from hateful fear. Advocating non-violent means to mollify conflict, the Dalai Lama declares: "The very concept of war is out of date; destruction of your neighbor is essentially destruction of yourself." Vast "Ocean of Wisdom" seeking in-depth intellectual and spiritual attainment, His Holiness professes common sense religious beliefs, simply based on benevolent kindness. The Dalai Lama stresses compassionate love, calm patience, tender mercy and tolerant forgiveness as the keys to unlocking doors to one`s soulful anima, the inner self. Never too late to overcome unbearable oppression or to right uncivil wrongs, he envisions cross-cultural understanding promotion of ethnic diversity reaching its highest potential in the 21st Century. For the New Year 2008, may all global citizens join together in harmonious unity, mutually resolving to help make our shared ever-shrinking eco-planet a more livable and lovable place, ensuring safer, saner and more secure tomorrows for future generations.
Pax vobiscum!
Awesome David Lawrence: TOO EASY ON DEMOCRATS Perhaps I`m the only one who feels that Ann Coulter is too easy on Democrats. She treats them as redeemable, amusing, cuddly miscreants. The Democrats are the butt of her humor. But she doesn`t realize that Democrats are no joke. That twisting governmental logic and facts to garnish political power is exposing our country to defeat. That their mad rush to office is at the expense of our honest Republican efforts to make the world a better, safer, place. Silly Democrat boys. They`ll grow up after the first nuclear bomb drops on our cities. They`ll walk on the bones of their neighbors and realize that a little preemptive counter terrorism could have prevented all this waste. Why sweat it? Let Democrats go easy on traitors, suicide bombers, pedophiles, rapists, serial killers and terrorists. Let them lose the definition of the country that borders are meant to provide. Let them create a civilization of semi-reformed criminals at the expense of innocent victims. Let them reverse all values. Let them be hip-hop, let good be bad, let nigger become a commendable word. Let free speech enslave us to the right to hate speech. Let Democrats enter a bizarro reverse world like Elaine does in a Seinfeld episode. As for torture, let Democrat`s petite, ignorant consciences worry about using it on a creepy terrorist. Let them fuss and fret about forceful confessions when they could save the lives of thousands of innocent citizens. Let them not water board Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Give him water skiis. Let him vacation at a Caribbean Resort. Let him gain twenty pounds at Club Guantanimo and read his daily Koran. Let John McCain, a misguided Republican, worry more about his principles than our lives. Let him use his being tortured in Hanoi
michaela sefler: PRIMARY One universal principle, ruling; a singular point of beginning. The primordial breath primary movement; communication of divine origin. Urging movement of pure beginning towards a unified whole, a complete flawless expression. Love and kindness liberating the limitations of living. And all man are part of a collective; coming and going seeking to finalize.
Geoff Jackson: Christmas �April is the cruelest month," but now the Year cranks down to shortest day. Far off, the pain of spring re-birth, and, close at hand, barren winter. Light is scarce. Here in Denmark, we lie at the very southerly latitude of Alaska so windswept skies are cloud-logged and what little light there is, is filtered. But still our winters are mild for we paddle in the warm Gulf Stream that toasts our toes before disappearing with a giant �plunk` somewhere off the coast of Greenland in a great pumping mechanism to drag masses of water southwards to sunnier climes. December is the faltering of light. So, in our houses, flicker candles. In our hearths roar fires. In our hearts burns a spark of hope that the year will be re-kindled. Christmas is the feast of lights. Yuletide was a great lighting of bonfires as if fire here on Earth could call to fire in the Heavens to re-awaken the dead sun so that he could light another course, run another year, bring swale summer to the meadows and die again at Christmas so that the whole could kick-start yet again. Christmas is the start of our religious year, Easter � the East, the Rising sun � is its fruition. Adonis, the Sacred King, must die so that the crops will grow again and there will be re-birth. Dionysis will be torn by maenads, the male principle is rent by the female, for men are always uneasy with the women with whom they share their lives. Osiris holds the keys to the Land of the Dead and offers resurrection in the next life. Yes, it was easy for the early Christians to incorporate the older myths into their worship. And who knows but that the incorporation of the old forms does not represent the continuation of some very fundamental truth about religion. Once I gazed upon some rock paintings at a cave in P�rigaud in southern France. All kinds of prehistoric animals and prehistoric man gazed back at me. Fifty thousand years ago, our forefathers in Europe went deep into the bowels of the Earth to worship animals and the spirits of nature in order to ensure the success of the hunt. This was close to the start of it all. The start of Christmas. The star of Bethlehem in the Middle East, the cradle of civilization. The moment of birth leading East to Easter, the celebration of rebirth, what T.S. Eliot is saying, when he writes, �April is the cruelest month`. And the second cruelest month has to be December, the shut-down of light, the moment of death and the moment of the rising of the star, a point of light to represent birth. Christmas trees are not very old really � �Oh, Tannenbaum, oh, Tannenbaum`, had its origins in Germany in the eighteenth century. But yet trees have been a symbol of life much longer. �The holly and the ivy and the running of the deer.` The mistletoe that crowned the mighty oak and under which the girls get kissed, perhaps in some leftover of a fertility rite. But the Christmas tree`s green represents growth and life. With a mighty tug, we have pulled up the forest to plant it in our houses. At the moment of the death of the Year, we want the green Christmas tree to symbolize life. And jolly it is, a focus for ourselves and for our families. And so comes Christmas once again. In the unusually inclement weather of the mid-West from Illinois to Oklahoma. To warm, mild, dark Denmark. Is this the Atlantic �El Ni�o` that blows warm weather to Europe and cold weather to the States? The mighty Year cranks to a close and soon will crank up again and light will return. Lux mundi. The Light of the World. Christmas. Geoff Jackson
Michael Lee Johnson: Bird Feeder Baby, born just a sparrow- first flight from balcony to tree limb. A chip of corn falls from the feeder to the ground. -2007- Mary Chandler: A HOME FOR CHRISTMAS Zola grabbed the flour sack towel, wiped the foggy window, and pressed her face against the glass. Paul should have been back by now. An icicle crashed from the rooftop through the snow and shattered against an apple crate outside the one-room clapboard rental near Weiser, Idaho. The year was l934, the coldest winter Zola could remember. "Daddy?" four-year-old Charlene asked, rushing to the window.
Michael Lee Johnson: Willow Tree Night and Snowy Visitors Winter is tapping on the hollow willow tree`s trunk-- a four month visitor is about to move in and unload his messy clothing and be windy about it-- bark is grayish white as coming night with snow fragments the seasons. The chill of frost lies a deceitful blanket over the courtyard greens and coats a ghostly white mist over yellowed willow leave`s widely spaced teeth- you can hear them clicking like false teeth or chattering like chipmunks threatened in a distant burrow. The willow tree knows the old man approaching has showed up again, in early November with an ice packed cheeks and brutal puffy wind whistling with a sting. -2007- lyn lifshin : the four freedoms IF MY GRANDMOTHER WOULD HAVE WRITTEN A POST CARD TO ODESSA she would write her name in salt, salt and mist, an SOS from the ship sea wind slaps with night water. Somehow I`m dreaming of Russian pines. I don`t dream of the houses on fire, babies pressed into a shivering woman`s chest to keep them still. Someone had something to eat the color of sun going down behind the hill late summer, rose, with its own sweet skin. They are everywhere in America. If the lilies bloom in our town of darkness, just one petal in an envelope would be enough ~ lyn lifshin | ||||
|
|
||||||