Quote: "The poems are, of course, pointed. The question for me is: Do I learn from them? Do they open my eyes, either intellectually or emotionally? And do they escape the pitfall of anti-war poetry of over-simplifying in unhelpful ways?"
David Weinberger is on the money here with the lameness of so much anti-war poetry, but he'd've done better to say "the pitfall of typical anti-war poetry of over-simplifying".
There is so much anti-war poetry out there, and, like poetry generally, most of it sucks for every purpose other than self-expression. ("A poet who reads his own verse in public may have other dirty habits," said Robert Heinlein. Had he lived another ten years, he might well have amended it to "posts his own verse on the Internet".) There's nothing wrong with that, but self-expression should, perhaps, be kept to oneself unless one has made an effort to go beyond self-expression to communication with others.
But the best anti-war poetry--Wilfred Owen comes to mind--is among the greatest poetry available to humanity. Owen planned to preface his book with these words:
This book is not about heroes.
English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them.
Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except war.
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry.
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful."
You'll find links to Owen's poetry if you google for it, and you can't go wrong buying the one slim posthumous volume of his work, but here is his best-known work:
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Link:
Joho the Blog: Anti-War Poems
War Poetry Online
Posted by adamsj at 12:51 PM
| Comments (0)
This is a thoughtful essay about the Americans, the space program, technological change, and why we like it. It also inspired a memory from last Saturday with this quote:
"My daughter's first question: Was it the Iraqis, Daddy?"
I had a related reaction. When I got up Saturday, it was almost 10:00 AM, so I turned on NPR to get Car Talk, my wife's favorite show, and one I enjoy as well. But there was Scott Simon, talking to someone he addressed as Commander, and my first thought was, "We're at war." Is it shameful to admit to a burst of relief at the real news before sadness for the Columbia and its crew set in?
Link:
A Nation With Its Feet Firmly Off The Ground (washingtonpost.com)
Quote: "So far...there is little sign that the protests will coalesce into a cohesive antiwar movement with sufficient political power to force the administration to reverse or even seriously rethink its Iraq strategy.
"One reason for the failure of the antiwar crowd to make a more formidable political impact, say analysts, is its diversity. Critics range from the far right to the far left, encompassing politicians as different as former Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. Some administration foes are opposed to war at any time; others belong to what former national security adviser Anthony Lake calls 'the not-yet camp.' "
Of course, if the opposition were all on the right, I do suspect we'd be hearing something like this from the Post:
"One reason for the relative lack of success for the anti-war movement, despite its impressive public support, is that it's made up of the usual suspects--leftists, pacifists, the Chomsky crowd."
Link:
On Iraq, Chorus of Criticism Is Loud but Not Clear (washingtonpost.com)
Quote: "A biology professor who insists that his students accept the tenets of human evolution has found himself the subject of Justice Department scrutiny.
"Prompted by a complaint from the Liberty Legal Institute, a group of Christian lawyers, the department is investigating whether Michael L. Dini, an associate professor of biology at Texas Tech University here, discriminated against students on the basis of religion when he posted a demand on his Web site that students wanting a letter of recommendation for postgraduate studies 'truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question of how the human species' originated."
Link:
Professor's Snub of Creationists Prompts U.S. Inquiry
Must-read quote: "What would the funding stream tell you about blame for the tragedy? In and of itself, I would say nothing at all. What matters is whether the funding was adequate to the mission. You can't tell that from the numbers alone. You would need a reasonable cost estimate for the mission(s), then a determination of whether these costs were met, in terms of dollars and managerial oversight of government employees and contractors. (In case you didn't know, contractors need oversight too.) The maxim here is not 'follow the money,' but follow the pols. What did they know, and when did they know it. What did they demand, and what did they provide?"
Link:
Weblog Entry - 02/02/2003: "HAIL COLUMBIA: A BUDGET WONK RESPONSE"
Because it was too depressing, that's why.
I did send this note to NPR:
I believe Scott Simon just suggested that William Rogers, Richard
Feynman, and Neil Armstrong were bad choices to investigate the
Challenger because they weren't up to date with current technology and
had too great a learning curve to be effective in a short time.
That's interesting--how, then, did it come about that Richard Feynman
was the one who ferreted out the problem with the O-rings?
Seen last summer between Oakland and San Francisco:
Bikes on BART Rules
BART's bike rules are intended to allow bicyclists and all BART passengers to make effective use of the system.
* Bikes are allowed on all trains, except on those trains shown in highlighted areas of the BART schedules published in the All About Bart brochure...
* Regardless of any other rule, bikes are never allowed on crowded cars...
* Folded bikes are allowed on the train at all times...
JZip says: Let these two asses be yoked to run the hamster wheel at the Chapel of BART:
Violation of the rules subject to citation under CA Vehicle Code §21113.
Quote: "One of my co-workers just got back from helping his mom get through open-heart surgery. When he got back he said something interesting: 'we got her into one of the top 10 hospitals in the world and then we convinced the head of the department to do the surgery.'
"...But, now, what about the role of prayer?
"Well, I was thinking about the studies. They seem to indicate that prayer makes a difference.
"But, what if prayer is actually not what does it? What if it actually is that people who get prayed for have more friends?"
Link:
Quote: "Just make sure that having a child would have dire financial consequences. That usually seems to guarantee pregnancy."
Link:
For best results [dive into mark]
Quote: "Vedas was a casualty of a new epidemic: a surge in the recreational use of pharmaceuticals, even as the rate of illegal drug use holds steady or declines. The most recent survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says 11.1 million people used prescription drugs for fun in 2000, nearly half of whom were under 25."
It's very sad, this story, and it's going to be used as propaganda (as though this article weren't propaganda):
"But the technology that brought as many as a dozen chatters into the intimacy of Vedas' bedroom was unable to tell them where he was. Internet Relay Chat is anonymous, and no one in the drug users' chat group knew the last name of the young man who called himself Ripper."
But perhaps this can just be marked down to human nature:
" 'It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it,' said his brother...These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world,' he said. 'They forget it's not just words on a screen.' "
Link:
NY Daily News - News - Daily News Exclusive: He takes fatal OD as Internet pals watch
They've issued a kernel patch.
You may have noticed a new weblog listed over on the right, unmedia: principled pragmatism.
While this was found on the ever-excellent MaxSpeak. what caught my eye was this quote from Eric S. Raymond:
"A subtle and clever man."
That's high praise and, given Raymond's recent political bent, praise that surprised me. Then I looked more closely at the quotes, while included this one from Steven Dan Beste:
"Making a major attempt to work in exactly the direction I advocate."
That one really surprised me, but when I checked it, it was there.
I didn't bother checking this from a Little Green Footballs commentator, "The closest thing we've got to a thinking Muslim, so let's not throw him away too soon," as it was obviously all too real.
So what makes this weblog so cool?
Here's example number one, pacifism has its limits:
"Dirk Gently always stressed the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, a philosophy to which I also adhere. This is why during the Martin Luther King Holiday, which commemorates a struggle by a people in the face of brutal oppression from without and extremism within, I am reminded of the Palestinians. Not because I am muslim and so are they, but because they are human and so am I. Some struggles have been lost, others mostly won - but at great sacrifice. And some continue into an uncertain future."
This is a contentious issue, and I'm not used to hearing polite yet partisan, informed debate on it, but here it is in this post and the thirty-nine comments appended to it so far.
Example number two: radiation therapy, wherein Aziz Poonwalla zips from depleted uranium through irradiated meat to "Police Detainment of a Patient Following Treatment With Radioactive Iodine", containing a paragraph of common sense destined to agitate my crunchy granola friends:
"However, other instances of radiation paranoia are completely absurd, such as the fracas over radiation-sanitizing of meat. This is a sensible and completely safe method of removing harmful bacteria and other microorganisms, and if such meat ever passes the hysteria legislation stage, I will only buy meat that has been zapped. I'll never buy non-zapped meat again, given the choice."
Now that I've gratuitously alienated most of my readers, let me get rid of the few I have left with example number three, AWOL Bush:
"Only the most committed partisan would deny that Bush entered the Air National Guard as a pilot to escape Vietnam duty. He was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied, despite scoring only 25% on the aptitude test (the minimum) and long waiting lists for other more qualified applicants.
"And it isn't even clear if Bush even served out his National Guard duties, there is abundant evidence and press investigation to suggest he went AWOL."
It's one thing to engage in polite, forceful discourse. It's another thing to engage in partisan advocacy. It's yet another thing to be able to do both well--and Aziz Poonwalla does so.
I like this site a lot--check it out for yourself.
Link:
unmedia: principled pragmatism
Dana Milbank, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, January 28, 2003: "In other words, Iraq must prove a negative, and is refusing to do so."
JZip, JZip Staff Writer, Friday, January 24, 2003: " 'Just remember, son," Cheney replied, while sharpening his nails on the Great Seal of the United States, "they still haven't disproved a negative, and I doubt they ever will.' "
Links:
'Background' Checks (washingtonpost.com)
JZip: Tactics of Mistake, Iraqi-Style? (or, Mr. Graeme Goes To Baghdad)
I don't let anyone call me a geek.
Quote: "In a column in the Daily Princetonian, Prof. John Fleming recently opined that 'even at Princeton, one will frequently hear echoes of a national culture that rewards people with an undisguised passion for knowledge and exact intellectual application with such appellations as nerd, geek and wonk.' "
Link:
Deep thinkers missing in action | csmonitor.com
Quote the first: "For Hrabowski at UMBC, anti-intellectualism in higher education was summed up perfectly in the response to a recent speech he gave to a group of academics.
" 'I was making the case that universities should be celebrating the student who is accomplishing a lot in English literature as much, or more, than the student who's a great basketball player,' he says. 'Well, when I said that, they just laughed. They laughed! That's the problem we face.' "
Quote the second: "The University of Arkansas will honor Frank Broyles, the athletic director, as this year's recipient of the Chancellor's Medal..."
Links:
Deep thinkers missing in action
UA Announces Recipients Of Chancellor's Medal
Quote: "In Georgia, the trend is as pronounced as anywhere: A new study from Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta says that 32 percent of white elementary school teachers left their posts at predominantly black schools in 2001 - up from 18 percent in 1995.
"Moreover, they left well-to-do black districts at about the same rate as poorer ones.Recent studies in Texas, California, and North Carolina reach the same conclusion. The effect, critics say, is that black students aren't getting an equal shot at good schooling."
Link:
White teachers flee black schools | csmonitor.com
Quote: " '[W]e always pitch the music on two levels - for those who understand that Beethoven's 9th Symphony was not written for recorder and accordion and for those who think he did a very good job writing such a nice piece especially for us.' "
Link:
Snickering in the strings section | csmonitor.com
And if you've wondered about the RIAA's death wish, here is is in black and white: "Frank Creighton, who directs antipiracy efforts for the Recording Industry Association of America, said that money did not have to be involved for copying to be illegal. While mixes on cassette tapes may not have inspired the wrath of the record industry in the past, Mr. Creighton said, digital mixes have better sound quality. And given the proliferation of CD burning for friends and relatives, 'it would be naïve of us to say that we should allow that type of activity,' he said.
"Mix makers counter that they are not hurting the music industry and are perhaps even doing it a favor by helping lesser-known artists get heard [emphasis added]. Some fear that in its zeal to stop piracy, the industry could take away freedoms that music buyers have enjoyed for years, possibly hurting itself in the process."
Note the quote:
helping lesser-known artists get heard
That is exactly what mix tapes and CDs do, and is exactly why Big Music hates them.
Artists--those annoying pests who get in the way of selling Mass Quantities of Crap--are the bane of Big Music. Just remember--it was David Geffen, not Courtney Love, who killed Kurt Cobain.
Link:
For the Mix Tape, a Digital Upgrade and Notoriety
Quote: "In his futuristic scenario, the Semantic Web offers controlled access to American health care data, plus databases charting the location and status of rivers, underground water, forests and local vegetation, along with economic data on local industries and what they produce -- all marked up in special vocabularies. Those allow scientists to run global queries across the Web, fishing randomly for correlations that might exist between where the sick people lived, worked and played -- such as a polluted stream or industrial dump. Even more fanciful, Berners-Lee described all sorts of analytical tools the scientist could use, tools that might replace our aging Web browsers, letting us display data by color codes, by geographic maps or by types of sources searched."
Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints, as surely as the creative urge is the destructive urge, every liberatory technology is also a technology of control.
(Note to self: Try not forget that.)
Link:
The Lord Of the Webs (TechNews.com)
Quote: "Administration officials said the AIDS epidemic has become a major cause for evangelical Christians, a crucial part of the president's political base because so many of them are affiliated with missions in Africa. Conservative politicians' concern about the disease has risen steadily over the past year as they became convinced that AIDS in the developing world is a massive humanitarian crisis that in most cases has nothing to do with the morality of the victims."
It's hard to object to spending to fight AIDS, so good for Bush spending the money.
But the flip side of this policy is the Bush administration's policy on AIDS in America, where so many of the people dying are, in the view of conservative Christians, deserving victims.
Read that paragraph up there again:
Conservative Christians want to help some people with AIDS--the people whom they want to convert to Christianity, people who meet their moral standards.
Are they going to stop hating gay people? Are they going to ease up on the wretched IV drug abusers? And can they help those people's infected children while killing their parents?
Shakespeare would, perhaps, have said this on the subject:
The quality of mercy is now strain'd,
It droppeth like a crumb from off the table
Unto the crowds beneath;
Link:
Unlikely Allies Influenced Bush To Shift Course On AIDS Relief (washingtonpost.com)
JZip: Good News About AIDS, For A Change
JZip: Better Dead Than Pink?
Quote: "His compassion reaches all the way to Africa, where he will take modern medicines to AIDS victims: 'This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature.' Could such a paragon of benevolence lead the world into the plague of war, which would disrupt or end lives and snarl the economies of several continents?
"Yes, he could, and he plans to."
Of course, McGrory, like all us liberal types, is too kind--how do we know that "sparing innocent people from a plague of nature" isn't really Bush's environmental policy?
Link:
Humanitarian Warrior (washingtonpost.com)
Quote: " 'Network theory has become a bit of a fad,' Mr. Watts conceded after hanging up the phone. 'I spend half my time telling people I think it's relevant to a lot of problems people care about and half my time trying to tone down the hype.' "
Link:
Connect, They Say, Only Connect
Quote: "The federal government, which has generally stood by as media companies of all types have consolidated, apparently decided that the swap of assets and the closing of so-called alternative newspapers was anticompetitive on its face and required an immediate remedy."
Why would the Justice Department do this?
Quote: "[I]n Los Angeles, the former mayor, Richard Riordan, has formed a group that expects to begin a weekly in June." Riordan is a Republican.
Any more questions?
Link:
Papers Agree to Pact on Collusion Allegations
Quote: " Theresa 'Momma Tee' Lassiter, a Pinellas County activist, confirmed Tuesday that she worked for Lockheed Martin. But she described her role as a 'community liaison' and called allegations that she harassed Dodge and Gifford-Meyers 'totally false.' ...
"The suit states that Lassiter also asked Gifford-Meyers, who had one child and was visibly pregnant with her second, 'How would you like to wake up tomorrow and not be a mother anymore?' ...
"But Lassiter's attacks got to her, the suit states. Her bi-polar disorder flared up. She suffered from insomnia. She asked her bosses for a transfer, which they granted. Despite the move, she was scared all the time, her husband said.
"Gifford-Meyers, 41, killed herself a few weeks after giving birth to her daughter."
Link:
Tampabay: Dodge, attorney's estate sue Lockheed Martin
via the Utne Reader
"Damn," said President Bush, as he whipped through his daily calisthenics under the watchful eyes of Dick Cheney, "that Sudden Hoosier fellow is a sneak, isn't he?"
"Just remember, son," Cheney replied, while sharpening his nails on the Great Seal of the United States, "they still haven't disproved a negative, and I doubt they ever will."
Quote: " 'It may be technically possible that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium,' said one expert familiar with the investigation of Iraq's attempted acquisition. 'But you'd have to believe that Iraq deliberately ordered the wrong stock and intended to spend a great deal of time and money reworking each piece.' "
U.S. Claim on Iraqi Nuclear Program Is Called Into Question (washingtonpost.com)
Quote: "The Emory vaccine, created by virologist Harriet Robinson with colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, is one of a few to use a new two-step strategy. DNA fragments from HIV are injected into the deltoid, where muscle cells convert them into proteins recognized by the body's 'killer cells.' That is followed several weeks later by a booster shot of another virus carrying HIV proteins."
Link:
ajc.com | DeKalb/Rockdale | Emory scientist's AIDS vaccine tested in humans
Quote: "There are certain writers who are so great you can never throw them off. I'm not in that category."
Link:
Norman Mailer Ruminates on Literature and Life
Quote: "The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, whose opinion interprets law in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, has ruled that people on probation may be barred from using computers and the Internet."
Link:
No word on how many reporters laughed.
Quote: "Karl Rove, the White House's senior political strategist, said today that President Bush was a populist whose call for the elimination of taxes on stock dividends was aimed at 'the little guy.'
"In a wide-ranging session with reporters, Mr. Rove suggested that the president ranked with Theodore Roosevelt as an environmentalist..."
Link:
Top Strategist Terms Bush a Populist About Taxes
Quote: "The attack described by Mr. Blaze, which is known by some locksmiths, leaves no evidence of tampering. It can be used without resorting to removing the lock and taking it apart or other suspicious behavior that can give away ordinary lock pickers."
Link:
Quote: "Mr. Rumsfeld added: You look at vast numbers of other countries in Europe. They're not with France and Germany on this [war with Iraq]. They're with the United States.' "
Link:
U.S. Set to Demand That Allies Agree Iraq Is Defying U.N.
Quote: "Officials assured concerned citizens that the major automakers are working on an anti-virus patch and will have them available at dealers later this week. Until then they suggest only refueling with virgin nozzles, or in absolute fuel emergencies, using a nozzle condom with auto-viruscide.
"The assurances haven't lessened rising levels of fear at gas stations all over the country. 'I was pumping away, without a care in the world,' said Clayton Morris of Baltimore, 'when I realized I forgot my nozzle condom. I panicked and pulled out. I shot gas all over the car and my feet. I think I may have infected my shoes.' "
Link:
BBspot - Automobile Virus Spreading Through Gas Nozzles
Quote: " 'When he and his wife discovered in 1986 that they had contracted HIV, the most horrible thought was that it was a disease connected with the sin of homosexuality,' according to the summary. 'They didn't want anyone to think they were homosexual because they knew what the Bible said about homosexuality.' "
Perhaps I should admire someone who has a faith so strong that he's more concerned that someone might think he's a sinner than that his children might have contracted an incurable fatal disease.
But I don't.
That's as much kicking of this man as I care to do while he's down. After all, as he says, "The effect of HIV/AIDS infection will, in all probability, result in the early death of 4 of our 5 immediate family members." What could be worse than that? How can one not feel for them? His beliefs--many of which are repugnant--don't mean that he and his family deserve to suffer and die of AIDS.
No one deserves to die of AIDS.
It's notable that this man discovered he'd contracted AIDS in 1986. Had the Reagan administration taken prompt and decent action toward AIDS, it's possible he and his wife might've found out he was infected in time to prevent her infection. Had research begun in time and been properly funded from the start, therapy might've kept their children from infection.
It's a sad story--I can't bring myself to hate the man.
But the worst of it, from a public policy perspective, is this: "The commission's co-chairman, Tom Coburn, said...Thacker's views on homosexuality were irrelevant to the commission's efforts to stop the epidemic." So the co-chairman of the presidential AIDS commission thinks that a man with bigoted beliefs about homosexuality is an appropriate choice to serve on that committee.
We're going backward from the Reagan era:
Reagan had many gay friends and, while governor of California, was a moderate on gay rights issues, making his inaction on AIDS exceptionally disappointing.
I wonder if President Bush has any gay friends? I don't mean after this debacle--he's surely losing them if he ever had them. But has he ever had any gay friends?
Link:
AIDS Nominee Withdraws From White House AIDS Panel (typo silently fixed in the second quote)
This just isn't right!
Quote: "Royal Philips Electronics demonstrated a prototype of an Internet radio that was not only capable of naming the band Pearl Jam as its music streamed past but also distinguishing a version of a tune that it played at a concert in Verona, Italy, from the same tune recorded in Milan."
Link:
Instead of a D.J., a Web Server Names That Tune