Google, Blogger, and Thomas Paine

First things first, I was trying to compose this on my iPad, because I had it out and convenient, but after the app crashed three times, I gave up.  Is Google actually going to update the Blogger app, or are they trying to push everyone who doesn't use Android off the platform?  Anyway, rather than continue to get frustrated, I decided to boot up my laptop and see if I could finish what I attempted to start using the rather useless app.

Tonight I had decided to reread or at least review Thomas Paine's "Common Sense."  Of course, I can't get past the first paragraph before I find something pertinent to our current situation:

"...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.  But the tumult soon subsides.  Time makes more converts than reason."

If the powers that be continually carp about "Fake News," eventually people begin to believe it is true, because it becomes "custom."  All I can say is that I hope it doesn't take too long for Time to makes its converts, before our country progresses too much further down this road of single (dysfunctional) party rule.

The above quote can actually be interpreted quite a few ways and can be used to argue that the compromise our country has frequently used to govern effectively is wrong, and if you listen to many of those who support the far right Republicans, they do believe that compromise is wrong.  I honestly believe compromise is pretty much baked into the Constitution, but then again I am sure there are some who would accuse me of "a long habit of not thinking."

Letters of Note: Volume 1 tidbits

How could any volume of significant letters be complete without something from Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet."  The first of these letters is featured in this volume:

“Nobody can counsel and help you, nobody. Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.”

Excerpt From: Shaun Usher. “Letters of Note: Volume 1.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/gAzIX.l

That was an idea I liked when I originally read it in "Letters to a Young Poet" and as I came across it again, I decided to share.  While this blog isn't developing like a diary or even developing anything as coherent as a unifying theme (unless that theme is what currently has caught my attention), I do sort of like the idea of placing all these random bits that I enjoyed from other writers in one place, where I can share, and where maybe someone else will discover the quote, then explore any given author more fully on their own.

Next, we have Dorothy Parker, from a letter written while in the hospital.

“I am practically bursting with health, and the medical world, hitherto white with suspense, is entertaining high hopes—I love that locution—you can just see the high hopes, all dressed up, being taken to the Hippodrome and then to Maillard’s for tea. Or maybe you can’t—the hell with it.”

Excerpt From: Shaun Usher. “Letters of Note: Volume 1.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/gAzIX.l

And that is all I have right now, though in this day "high hopes" would look a bit different.

Trump and LGBTQ stuff

I guess it is touching that Caitlyn Jenner is still naive enough to believe Republicans when it comes to civil rights issues, but I doubt that was the only reason she sided with them.  Any amongst the the GLBTQ spectrum who voted for Trump, I hope you are enjoying what he has done with your trust.  Personally, I think his campaign and presidency has been an embarrassment to this country.  A large percentage of people decided they would really like to forgo the difficulties of compromise and working under the rules laid out by the Constitution and years of precedent, and the treasure the country was received is basically someone upset he can't rule by fiat like he does in his family business.  Kellyanne Conway complained about the ethics requirements for working in the government.  Seriously, if there are people turned off by the ethics requirements of serving in the government, perhaps they shouldn't be in the government.  The administration has surrounded itself with those willing to be abused by Trump (see Jeff Sessions and Sean Spicer) who for some reason believe that abuse is good for the country.  Now Trump is abusing those transgender who serve in the military, because while he never served, he doesn't think they should.  It is acceptable for the military to spend $84 million on Viagra and erectile disfunction, but the $8.4 million for transgender medical care is too much money, at least that is Trump's argument.  I honestly wonder if Trump didn't tweet that transgender and the military crap as a diversionary tactic from the ongoing healthcare debate in the Senate.

Lots of excerpts.

These are bits and pieces I read over the weekend that I liked.  They are from a variety of readings.

The uses of not

Thirty spokes

meet in the hub.

Where the wheel isn’t

is where it’s useful.

Hollowed out,

clay makes a pot.

Where the pot’s not

is where it’s useful.

Cut doors and windows

to make a room.

Where the room isn’t,

there’s room for you.

So the profit in what is

is in the use of what isn’t.

Excerpt From: Ursula K. Le Guin. “Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching.” Shambhala Publications. iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

I think why I like the Lao Tzu is probably pretty evident.  It has been a long time since I have read the Tao Te Ching, and this is a translation with commentary that I have not read before, so it is nice, and very much like poetry.

On to the next one.  I liked this bit from Rumi too:

Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God,

God is in the look of your eyes,

in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,

or things that have happened to you

There’s no need to go outside.

Excerpt From: Barks, Coleman. “The Essential Rumi - reissue.” HarperCollinsPublishers. iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

Moving towards more modern philosophers, I do like Camus, and this snippet is from his essay "State Terrorism and Irrational Terror": 

“Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism.”

Excerpt From: Camus, Albert. “Albert Camus Collection.” iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

I think the Camus is highly relevant currently because while Trump obviously has contempt for everyone not him, his opponents need to remember not to hold him in contempt.  Those who ran against him in the elections seem to have held him in contempt, and see where it landed us.

This last bit describes just about anyone who reads.  In the text, it was mystery novels, but for certain readers it really could be anything.

“Whereas his taste in other books was rigorous, demanding to the point of narrow-mindedness, with these works he showed almost no discrimination whatsoever. When he was in the right mood, he had little trouble reading ten or twelve of them in a row. It was a kind of hunger that took hold of him, a craving for a special food, and he would not stop until he had eaten his fill.”

Excerpt From: Auster, Paul. “The New York Trilogy.” Penguin, 2017-04-14T17:03:10Z. iBooks. 

This material may be protected by copyright.

Youthful Frost

First, I am making the assumption that the Library of America edition of Robert Frost is in chronological order, or reasonably so.  Most of their collections at least make that effort, so I am taking it as a safe guess.  "Into My Own" is the first poem in A Boy's Will, and the last stanza caught my attention.  After leaving home, very few folks would encourage friends and family to find them later, with a bit of braggadocio regarding how little he has changed.

The last stanza a Robert Frost's "Into My Own":

They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

If the above stanza did turn out to be true for him, and that after leaving home he truly only became more sure of what he already knew, then I don't know whether to be happy for him or sad.

Something from Rilke

This comes from Rainier Maria Rilke's "Duino Elegies" and is specifically from the ninth elegy, lines 36-38:

                          ...Is not the secret purpose
of this sly earth, in urging a pair of lovers,
just to make everything leap with ecstasy in them?

Nothing great in my own personal revelation interpretation, but it made me smile, and sometimes smiles are nice.

[This is from the JB Leishman and Stephen Spender translation.]

Inspector Clouseau vs. Donald Trump

With Trump visiting France for Bastille Day, I can't help be think for a better comparison of Trump's six months as President than Inspector Clouseau, since Trump seems to be just as accident prone, and just as determined to do it his way, oblivious of the consequences.  It is this apparent obliviousness that actually bothers me most.  I honestly do not believe that Trump has the best interests of the United States in his mind as he parades himself around the world, so he doesn't look beyond the pictures of him standing with other world leaders.  Seeing that he looks good in those pictures is all that really matters.  I have never received the visceral impression that the United States is so totally isolating itself as I am feeling now, and our world is too complex for that, though I don't think, aside from Twitter, Trump actually lives in today's world.

On a related note, I do hope the Republicans in Congress realize that dictatorships are made when you choose party over country, consistently overlooking glaringly questionable behavior, but making no effort to enforce accountability.

La Cage aux Folles

The French version "La Cage aux Folles" was released nearly forty years ago, in 1978, and watching it now, I find it interesting that so many of the social foibles that were lampooned then are still such bugaboos today.  I guess I find it interesting, that today, even after marriage is allowed in so many places, that there are government and religious sorts that could still be realistically slotted into the roles of the girls's parents.