MTheads

He Must Be Wicked To Deserve Such Pain

This is a great story poem by Robert Browning.  Here's the whole thing.  The line is from Shakespeare's King Lear, so says Wikipedia.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came

My first thought was, he lied in every word.  

   That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

   Askance to watch the working of his lie 

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford 

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

   Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

[...] 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

   In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

   Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

   Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

[...]

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;

I never saw a brute I hated so;

   He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

Some Like It Swiss

This Wall Street Journal article is about some of the repercussions Switzerland faces because of its recent referendum on the banning of new minarets on mosques.

It needs to be said -- Switzerland did not ban the Muslim religion or the building of mosques. They banned overtly Muslim architecture.  Their country is Swiss culturally and they'd like it to look like it.  They have a vested interest in keeping their cantons and villages and countryside looking medieval, picturesque, and Swiss!   Why should the desires of a small group for superficial representations of an imported institution trump the desires of the Swiss to keep their traditional landscape?

Sure, the voters may have been influenced by such factors as prejudice against a religion whose adherents often fail to integrate with their new home country, or by the riots of young Muslims in France, or by the problems many European countries have with their home-grown Islamic extremists.  Sovereign countries should be proactive in protecting those institutions and customs which make them them. 

Perhaps the Swiss would like to be in charge of shaping their country rather than letting the chaotic forces of immigration, political correctness, and outside pressures shape it for them.  I bet if the Swiss had voted to ban McDonald's or keep out Super Walmarts (who knows, maybe they have!), they'd be feted as humanitarians and win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Stupid Picture Tuesday!!!

We're not sure why he decided to stand on one leg.  But he kept this up for three straight days.  Amazing.  Since I always seem to be busy Friday nights, I think I'll post these pictures whenever I can.

Get Thee Behind Me, Government

I generally blog more about politics than I have recently.  But I'm really busy here.  And maybe being in Moscow makes me more ambivalent about what happens way over there to you poor suckers.  I'm actually pretty happy about all the gridlock in the Government.  I hope nothing gets done for awhile.  Let's watch the United States continue to function while our Government proclaims itself the only entity able to save us from our greedy, profligate, and impotent selves.  I'd like to see our nation climb out of our economic malaise without any more "help" from the Government.  

I'm very disturbed about President Obama's frequent references to the higher value of public over private work.  If I had the time, I'd find all his quotes and print them -- maybe another post.  But he obviously values the non-profit and public kinds of work over the private.  This is a ridiculous and dangerous belief system as it undermines the meritocratic and innovative nature of our capitalist system in favor of a bloated and politically driven bureaucratic system.  Bleeecccchhhhh.

Get thee behind me, Government.

Epic Put Down

Clerimont's Song

Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As, you were going to a feast;

Still to be powered, still perfumed--

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:

Such sweet neglect more taketh me,

Than all th'adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Johnson  1572-1637

Is It Something I Said??

This Living Hand

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--

I hold it towards you.

John Keats 1819-20

A nice poem for a cold Moscow evening.  It makes one want to know the whole story, if there is one.

That Would Go Great With Some Spicy Mustard

This was my dog's reaction upon hearing Obama's proposal to forgive government student loans after 20 years for people in the private sector, and after 10 years for people working in the public sector.  Way to be fair!  

Outside of the military, what public sector jobs are going wanting?  What jobs do they have problems attracting many more applicants for than positions?  Why the unfair assumption that public employees are somehow more sacrificing?

Now it's proposed that the private sector, which is already the source of all government revenue, gets another 10 years to pay down the debt of public employees.  Why don't we all just work for the government?  The pay and benefits are good.   Someone else pays your debts.  And best of all, you don't have to be part of the dirty game of creating wealth.  Sort of like enjoying meat but being ignorant as to how it got to your table. 

Try an Insecticidal Soap

The Sick Rose

O Rose thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake, 1794

Mr. Blake took his gardening seriously.  You should read his tulip blight poem.

I love scary poems.  I have a little volume of scary poems called Poems Bewitched and Haunted by Everyman's Library Pocket Poets which I read frequently. 

The Inchworm

Here's a little poem written by my son and me.  Prepare to be moved.

The Inchworm

The inchworm climbs the chair, 

To reach up to the pear;

-- Oh no, he falls!

-- Down, down, down

But since he has a seemingly gelatinous body it doesn't hurt him.

The inchworm climbs the chair,

To reach up to the pear;

-- Oh no, he falls!

-- Flip, flop, flack,

This time he lands on a tack.