Neglectful me

I have been using Twitter far too much, and not sharing any of what I read.  I did come across this one this past weekend:

The Poem

It discovers by night
what the day hid from it.
Sometimes it turns itself
into an animal.
In summer it takes long walks
by itself where meadows
fold back from ditches.
Once it stood still
in a quiet row of machines.
Who knows
what it is thinking?

Excerpt From: Donald Hall. “The Selected Poems of Donald Hall.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-selected-poems-of-donald-hall/id949386905?mt=11

The word for today is amorphous, which is one way to describe things, and which is one way this poem made me feel about poetry.

A Very Short Song, by Dorothy Parker

A Very Short Song
                  by Dorothy Parker

Once, when I was young and true,
     Someone left me sad --
Broke my brittle heart in two;
     And that was very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
     Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
     And that, I think, is worse.

I had told myself that I was done with my computer tonight, but then I ran across this gem from Dorothy Parker, so I had to share it.  There is something to be said about breaking someone's heart being worse than having your heart broken.

More selections

A snippet from Tommy Pico's "Nature Poem" that I liked:

I look too much into the mirror of my worst self
so life feels like always breakin in a new pair of shoes

This is from a longer work, but I do like these lines.  For me, it describes those days when I don't feel put together right, and nothing seems to be going quite as I might hope.

While clicking about on my laptop, looking for something other than news to read, I discovered that I happened to have "Macbeth" and reading just a bit found:

Malcolm:

My liege,

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke

With one that saw him die: who did report

That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,

Implored your highness' pardon and set forth

A deep repentance: nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it; he died

As one that had been studied in his death

To throw away the dearest thing he owed,

As 'twere a careless trifle.

I really liked the highlighted section of Malcolm's comment, as there is definitely the implication that someone was a total waste of breath.  

Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" and current events, part 1

I am hoping that this selection of comments on my various readings actually makes a bit of sense.  [All of the emphasis in the quotes is from the source text rather than my own.]

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”

Excerpt From: Thomas Paine. “Common Sense.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/wp2Kx.l

I do feel the Republicans, for whatever reason, are no longer trying to govern the wickedness, rather they are trying to legislate their wants on the general population.  Discussing healthcare, if the Healthcare Industry and Insurance industries weren’t so focused on maximizing profit, but instead focused on reasonable profit, then the whole rigamarole of the healthcare debate would be gone.  What would be a positive step in the current debate would be that in places where insurance companies have pulled out because costs did not allow enough profits (or lead to potential losses), then the government allows people to buy into Medicare at a reasonable price.  If the insurance industry truly has no interest in those markets, then there are no market forces that are impacted, but the citizens in such locations have access to at least one insurance option, even if it is just basic government coverage.

“Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is, that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT, that the crown is not as oppressive in England as in Turkey.”

Excerpt From: Thomas Paine. “Common Sense.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/wp2Kx.l

This quote struck me as so very timely, considering the current President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is working hard to become an autocrat.  While I find that particular power grab distasteful, I am more concerned about a potential power grab here, considering President Trump has such limited understanding of how our government has traditionally worked.  It really seemed to be a surprise to him that Executive Orders wouldn’t allow him to do everything he wanted.  I am most disheartened though by the number of folks who seem to think everything is fine (he has over a 35% approval rating, while not good, it indicates a large number who have no qualms with how he is running things) and that Trump is doing a stellar job, and they don’t realize his constant attacks on the press and judiciary are actually doing harm to our republic, because there are people who believe him whole-heartedly, even after all of his lies.

Both of those excerpts were from the first section of “Common Sense” on the general origins and design of government.  While I have finished the second section, on hereditary monarchy, as well, I did not find any quotes that I wanted to carry over to this effort.

I think as I work my way through Paine’s “Common Sense” there will be additional posts as appropriate.

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.

Are we really surprised?

This latest from Trump:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/business/media/trump-mika-brzezinski-facelift.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

As Americans, can we be truly surprised that our President is issuing such inane and sexist comments?  I do recall telling my mother that I would try to be patient and let things work themselves out, but I lost patience with that when he started nominating his cabinet.  All I can say is that at least the office hasn't changed him, and he is still as infantile as he was prior to being elected.  I really hope that those in my family who voted for him are cringing, because while Twitter is good for venting, this is truly a series of inappropriate tweets from the man who is President.

More for Congressmen?

My brother and I often don't see eye to eye on politics, which is understandable within families.  I am not sure how he voted last year, but I know he really did not want to vote for Trump as of September, so if something happened afterwards that caused him to vote for the Orange Man, then so be it.  I think Chaffetz actually does his party a disfavor in asking for more money, because while paying for two residences can be expensive, it isn't as if it wasn't something that should have been thought about when running for office.  Let's face it, you choose to run for office, maybe more money (a housing stipend) would be a nice thing, but hey, isn't everyone after more money?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/27/politics/jason-chaffetz-congress-housing-stipend-utah-governor/index.html

For this I had to look up "Rogers Group"

John Rogers was an American sculptor of the 19th century who created mass produced sculptures, normally featuring a small number of people in an everyday setting (for the time).

Here is "A Rogers Group" by Robert Frost:

A Rogers Group

How young and unassuming
They waited in the street,
With babies in their arms
And baggage at their fee.

A trolley car they hailed
Went by with clanging gong
Before they guessed the corner
They waited on was wrong.

And no one told them so
By way of traveler's aid,
No one was so far touched
By the Rogers Group they made.


This is one of those I liked, and I don't know if I would be one walking by or giving them advice.  I think it would depend on knowing more.  I have told a few drivers after they have parked in a no parking zone, that they should move their car, pointing the sign out to them, but I am less inclined to put my nose in people's business on the street without them asking first, as I will happily try and give directions if asked.

From the Gnostic Gospel of St. Thomas

If you couldn't tell, I read a lot, and a lot of different things.  Amongst the things currently on my reading list is "The Gnostic Gospels" which are those books expunged from "The Bible" for whatever reason.  Saying 34 from The Gospel of Thomas is:

Yeshua said,
If a blind person leads a blind person,
both will fall in a hole.

For some reason this saying speaks to me of much of the current situation in the United States.  I haven't figured out whether the blind person leading is Trump or Bannon or Trump's "base," but I do know someone isn't leading our country in a fashion appreciated by many.

Even Trump is flip-flopping on his direction, as a few weeks ago he lauded the House healthcare bill, while lately he described it as "mean."  I am not sure if this change was due to some bee in his ear, but it is one of his few policy changes I can agree with.  People shouldn't be punished financially for being born with allergies or anything else, but a healthcare bill that doesn't protect those with "pre-existing conditions" from higher charges is not really fair, especially when they did nothing to cause and can do nothing to cure said condition.

Campaigning Techniques

"It also failed to notice the surge in Labour support, because modern campaigning techniques require ever-narrower targeting of specific voters, and we were not talking to the people who decided to vote for Labour.”  -Nick Timothy 

The above quote is from a long article in Politico.  From this comment, I am reminded of the old saying, "missed the forest for the trees."  

Mannerbund and the alt-right

I have been reading "Gay Berlin," a book detailing gay history in Germany, written by Robert Beachy.  I am only about halfway through the book, but I have already come across Hans Bluher and his Mannerbund theory.  The other day, I was over reading at Slate.com, and came across this article on gays and the alt right which mentioned the Mannerbund.  It is interesting in how the Wandervogel, with their swearing allegiance to their leader (15 years before the Wiemar Republic), seemed to presage the Nationalist political parties doing the same to Hitler.  The Wandervogel was a bit like the Boy Scouts, and they didn't want to admit girls either, and they eventually tossed out their gay members (though they would not have used the word "gay").  I can see how the alt-right, by focusing any given groups fears onto muslims, would be able to co-opt some of those group members into their own ranks, especially if they downplayed the anti-gay or anti-whatever bias.  Hitler had a group of homosexuals working for him (Ernst Rohm, amongst them), at least until he decided to have them murdered on the Night of the Long Knives.

Sorry, this entry is a bit of a mess.  I think what I wanted to do was point out the Slate article and how it was interesting that I had just read about the Mannerbund in a book.  Somehow, I got a bit carried away and began discussing what is better covered in the Slate article.  So read that article, but I would also suggest reading something on the Mannerbund as well, as it is an interesting theory.  [Note: Wikipedia for whatever reason just lists Mannerbund as a secret society, which is not really what Bluher proposed when he created his theory.]  When I was looking for an article to link about the origins of the Mannerbund theory, I kept coming across alt-right web pages that like the theory, except the homosexual part of it, one even going so far as to suggest forming Mannerbunds so the geeky meme writers of the alt-right can meet women.

Ocean Vuong, from "Night Sky with Exit Wounds"

There is a poem earlier in this book ("Night Sky with Exit Wounds"), Torso of Air, that I liked quite a bit, but I am going to send you off to see if you can actually locate it elsewhere, since I wanted to quote from a different poem, Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong, right now:

... The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world. ...

I did finish up the book tonight, and for whatever reason, that line about loneliness rather struck me.

My reading has been all over the place.  I actually restarted my kindle unlimited subscription since they were offering me another thirty day free trial.  I cancelled it and removed the books I had downloaded, after totally losing interest in three of the four books I had borrowed.  It occurred to me a day or two after reactivating the service that I really didn't want to spend all summer reading on my kindle.

Speaking of reading, and of poetry, I discovered Tommy Pico's newest effort was released back in May, so I ordered it from my local bookstore.  Upon returning home, I noticed, unlike his earlier work, this one was available in electronic format.  While I have poetry in electronic format, I think it is actually something I prefer in paper, so I didn't cancel any orders or even compare pricing.  What struck me as the funniest thing was that I found the book in the Apple iBooks store, but it never really registered, until after I got home from the bookstore, that it was actually available electronically.  My mind thinks small press and that means no electronic versions.  Obviously, I am wrong, and I am glad such works are available in a variety of formats.

Comey testifies and the British Election

Of course these two have nothing to do with each other, except that they occurred on the same day.  Comey seems to have done what was expected, which was raise all sorts of questions about Trump, while the Brits confounded everyone by seemingly depriving the Tories of the majority required to rule without a coalition.  (I said seemingly because not all the results are in just yet.)  If our constitution allowed for snap elections, I am sure someone could sweet-talk Trump into having one. Nothing like telling him that it will erase doubts about Russian meddling and such, play to his vanity and his sense that he needs to "win" without any doubts.

The one big surprise for today, from the Trump camp, was what appears to be a lack of Twittering during the testimony.  From the sound of it, his team did manage to get him off Twitter long enough to meet with some Christians (Faith and Freedom Coalition).