Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The University as a Free-Fire Zone
The Texas legislature has considered the problem of violence in universities, and proposes to make everything all better by allowing students to carry weapons on campus (http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2015/03/18/texas-senate-approves-concealed-campus-carry-gun-bill/).
One can see the therapeutic value. If drunken frat boys chanting racist slurs are allowed to open-carry .44 magnums on their hips they will sit down together in Christian fellowship, shoot merrily at the overhead lights, and open a conversation about their culture of puerile cloddishness.
Campus-carry could make maths more interesting: “If Tiffany fires her Glock at a sophomore on a northbound train going 70 miles per hour…”
Or languages: “Class, write an ode to a Kalashnikov in Russian. Keep asking yourself how Pushkin might have worded it.”
Or history: “I hope everyone has brought a black or blue pen and a Lee-Enfield to class today…”
Anatomy and physiology: “Class, we’re short on cadavers for our long-term dissection project. Would someone please go outside and bag a couple of sophomores? Do it for science. Do it for your school. And, hey, try not to mess up so many internal organs this time.”
“Professor Bogdown, me and my little friend here would like an ‘A.”
And that graduate student arguing with the clock in the hallway – yeah, she needs a gun.
Those late-night sessions helping each other cope with life’s challenges would become more efficient: “Biff, me ‘n’ the guys know you’ve been having a rough time, what with failing chemistry and your girlfriend leaving you, so we’ve all chipped in and bought you this revolver. We’re going to leave you alone now. Good luck, buddy.”
Dorm rules might require silencers between midnight and five a.m., except on weekends.
Residence hall supervisors would have to adapt: “Okay, people, I’m tired of stepping over all the corpses in the mornings. Let’s all develop a professional attitude in disposing of dead bodies, okay?”
Those friendly rivalries on the sports fields would change: “In the fourth quarter, the score here at Friendship Stadium stands at Redbrick State Teachers’ University 2,329 killed, 4,356 wounded; Our Mother of Mercy 1,242 killed, 3,054 wounded.”
Veterans coming home from the desert might not be happy to see the university campus as yet another outpost shared with unreliable friendlies.
If the Texas legislature permits the open-carry of firearms, would campuses still be tobacco-free zones?
Given that the death rate of university students during spring break alone is pretty much personified in the “Casualty lists! Casualty lists!” scene in Gone with the Wind, the possession of firearms on the job should be limited to trained law enforcement professionals - the Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency come to mind.
Campus carry – no, it’s really not funny at all. Is there no one in the Texas legislature who has served in law enforcement, in the military, or in emergency medicine?
-30-
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Had Byron Lived a Few Years Longer
Had Byron Lived a Few Years Longer
V:
She stalks in Makeup, like a fright
Of Senior Specials and takeout fries;
And all that’s worst of snark and bite
Meet in her painted layers of guise:
Thus billowed in that fluorescent light
Which Heaven to youthful lads denies.
R:
He talks of Makeup, silly old wight
Of faded beauties – through his old eyes!
Tho’ his slim waist and muscled might
Have long departed – he is no prize!
Thus now of greater width than height
Which Heaven to happy girls denies.
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
V:
She stalks in Makeup, like a fright
Of Senior Specials and takeout fries;
And all that’s worst of snark and bite
Meet in her painted layers of guise:
Thus billowed in that fluorescent light
Which Heaven to youthful lads denies.
R:
He talks of Makeup, silly old wight
Of faded beauties – through his old eyes!
Tho’ his slim waist and muscled might
Have long departed – he is no prize!
Thus now of greater width than height
Which Heaven to happy girls denies.
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Friday, March 27, 2015
A Morning in March
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Morning in March
This morning is a sonnet sweetly sung
First by the breeze sighing through apple leaves
Then by the sun laughing across the grass
And by murmuring doves and nattering sparrows
Fussing with squirrels under a happy oak
Dressing itself in the fashion of spring
Covering the barrenness of winter with
Young leaves only now learning how to flirt
In anticipation of summer days:
This morning is a sonnet sweetly sung
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Morning in March
This morning is a sonnet sweetly sung
First by the breeze sighing through apple leaves
Then by the sun laughing across the grass
And by murmuring doves and nattering sparrows
Fussing with squirrels under a happy oak
Dressing itself in the fashion of spring
Covering the barrenness of winter with
Young leaves only now learning how to flirt
In anticipation of summer days:
This morning is a sonnet sweetly sung
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
The morning paper and a cigarette,
A cup of coffee to complete the theme
A booth with creaky, cracked leatherette seats
And a sticky-top table stained with stories
A joint called Al’s, just off the interstate
Dry desert cold lingering from the autumn night
Until the sun rises to light the way
To California, and The Hungry i
For now: the desert, a cup of coffee,
The morning paper, and a cigarette
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
The morning paper and a cigarette,
A cup of coffee to complete the theme
A booth with creaky, cracked leatherette seats
And a sticky-top table stained with stories
A joint called Al’s, just off the interstate
Dry desert cold lingering from the autumn night
Until the sun rises to light the way
To California, and The Hungry i
For now: the desert, a cup of coffee,
The morning paper, and a cigarette
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
The morning paper and a cigarette,
A cup of coffee to complete the theme
A booth with creaky, cracked leatherette seats
And a sticky-top table stained with stories
A joint called Al’s, just off the interstate
Dry desert cold lingering from the autumn night
Until the sun rises to light the way
To California, and The Hungry i
For now: the desert, a cup of coffee,
The morning paper, and a cigarette
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Morning Paper and a Cigarette
The morning paper and a cigarette,
A cup of coffee to complete the theme
A booth with creaky, cracked leatherette seats
And a sticky-top table stained with stories
A joint called Al’s, just off the interstate
Dry desert cold lingering from the autumn night
Until the sun rises to light the way
To California, and The Hungry i
For now: the desert, a cup of coffee,
The morning paper, and a cigarette
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
The Great Gatsby
The Tedious Gatsby, Old Sport
I took up Gatsby, and I read,
And now I’m glad that Gatsby’s dead.
I took up Gatsby, and I read,
And now I’m glad that Gatsby’s dead.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
A Letter from France, 1919
Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Letter from France, 1919
At an estate sale I considered buying an old letter, and decided not to. Then I considered it again, and bought it after all. It is written from France on stationery printed “AMERICAN YMCA” and ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.” The envelope is franked “SOLDIER’S MAIL” and features the “OK” and the illegible signature of the censorship officer.
A young man from Orange, Texas, probably a teenager, writes of occupation duty, erratic mail service, the marvels of electricity (few American homes had electricity in 1919), and of frustration because he and his regiment have been kept behind in France for months after their active service in combat.
Although the penmanship from this doughboy of a century ago is elegant, the paper and the ink have both deteriorated and so I may have erred in transcription. The letter is addressed to:
Mrs. M Akins
R. A. Box 69
Orange
Texas
Febuary 5, 1919
My Dear Mother & All:
Well I hope you have heard from me by this time as the last letter I got from you said that you had not heard from me in 3 months and I don’t know what the matter was as I write very often and I sure mail them. Well what kind of weather are you having at home we are having bum weather now it has quit snowing and going to raining but it is not so very cold but last week it was awful cold. Well we are still working on the French roads and I think we are doing fine as you know all of the boys are disgusted as we have been over hear almost 15 months and haven’t got to go home yet and there were some regiments over here that weren’t over here hardly no time and now have gone home and we are still in France and I sure do want to come home awful bad. I sure do want to come home but I guess I will just have to stick it out. Say the country here sure is wonderful you have heard of cave dwellers well there are miles and miles here along the river front some of the prettiest houses you ever seen just dug out in the solid rock and the farms here are all nice all the towns around here have eletcric lights and they sure look old I mean the cave dwellers. And there sure some crooked stretts here and they are about wide enough for a baby buggy.
Well I will ring off for this time and write more the next love to all
Ralph H Akins 17104
30th Company
20th Engineers
American E. F.
Almost a century later we are left wondering about young Ralph, about when he finally got to go home to Orange, what his mom cooked him for supper that first night back, and what he did afterward in life.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Letter from France, 1919
At an estate sale I considered buying an old letter, and decided not to. Then I considered it again, and bought it after all. It is written from France on stationery printed “AMERICAN YMCA” and ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.” The envelope is franked “SOLDIER’S MAIL” and features the “OK” and the illegible signature of the censorship officer.
A young man from Orange, Texas, probably a teenager, writes of occupation duty, erratic mail service, the marvels of electricity (few American homes had electricity in 1919), and of frustration because he and his regiment have been kept behind in France for months after their active service in combat.
Although the penmanship from this doughboy of a century ago is elegant, the paper and the ink have both deteriorated and so I may have erred in transcription. The letter is addressed to:
Mrs. M Akins
R. A. Box 69
Orange
Texas
Febuary 5, 1919
My Dear Mother & All:
Well I hope you have heard from me by this time as the last letter I got from you said that you had not heard from me in 3 months and I don’t know what the matter was as I write very often and I sure mail them. Well what kind of weather are you having at home we are having bum weather now it has quit snowing and going to raining but it is not so very cold but last week it was awful cold. Well we are still working on the French roads and I think we are doing fine as you know all of the boys are disgusted as we have been over hear almost 15 months and haven’t got to go home yet and there were some regiments over here that weren’t over here hardly no time and now have gone home and we are still in France and I sure do want to come home awful bad. I sure do want to come home but I guess I will just have to stick it out. Say the country here sure is wonderful you have heard of cave dwellers well there are miles and miles here along the river front some of the prettiest houses you ever seen just dug out in the solid rock and the farms here are all nice all the towns around here have eletcric lights and they sure look old I mean the cave dwellers. And there sure some crooked stretts here and they are about wide enough for a baby buggy.
Well I will ring off for this time and write more the next love to all
Ralph H Akins 17104
30th Company
20th Engineers
American E. F.
Almost a century later we are left wondering about young Ralph, about when he finally got to go home to Orange, what his mom cooked him for supper that first night back, and what he did afterward in life.
-30-
Saturday, March 21, 2015
What Was in the White House Package?
Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
What Was in the White House Package?
That the Not-So-Secret Service seems to consist only of superannuated frat boys carrying firearms is old news, so there is no surprise about their latest comedy routine from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.
Paging Detective Frank Drebin…
In their latest (as of this scribbling) comedy routine, a couple of the Secret Action Hero lads drove to the White House under the influence of a late night of merriment and good fellowship, and compromised an investigation into a suspicious package (are there any trusting packages?) left at the gates.
If the local coppers / flatfoots / Peelers / gumshoes / Sherlocks / constabulary / Officer Semanskis had been permitted to investigate we would have known all about the package within a day or two. Given that The Happy Hour Cocktail Commandos are in charge, we can only speculate about what was in the suspicious package left at the White House gates. Some possibilities:
1. An advance copy of the new federally mandated cookbook for schools and hospitals: Gruel – It’s Not Just for Victorian Orphanages
2. Transcripts of a former secretary of state’s misplaced emails
3. A map to Vladimir Putin’s secret hideout where he plans world domination, beginning with Disneyland
4. A copy of the U.S. Constitution
5. A book of Hillary’s cookie recipes
6. Pizza
7. The complete The Brady Bunch Meet The Flintstones on DVD, including The Lost Episodes
8. An invitation to join Governor Christie and his wife for a game of bridge
9. The remains of a fence-jumper who misjudged speed, distance, height, and those really sharp spikes
10. The complete edition of late-night TV Secret Service Jokes in three DVDs dropped by a renegade drone
But I must close now. It’s midnight, and there’s a knock on the door. Wonder who it could be…
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
What Was in the White House Package?
That the Not-So-Secret Service seems to consist only of superannuated frat boys carrying firearms is old news, so there is no surprise about their latest comedy routine from The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad.
Paging Detective Frank Drebin…
In their latest (as of this scribbling) comedy routine, a couple of the Secret Action Hero lads drove to the White House under the influence of a late night of merriment and good fellowship, and compromised an investigation into a suspicious package (are there any trusting packages?) left at the gates.
If the local coppers / flatfoots / Peelers / gumshoes / Sherlocks / constabulary / Officer Semanskis had been permitted to investigate we would have known all about the package within a day or two. Given that The Happy Hour Cocktail Commandos are in charge, we can only speculate about what was in the suspicious package left at the White House gates. Some possibilities:
1. An advance copy of the new federally mandated cookbook for schools and hospitals: Gruel – It’s Not Just for Victorian Orphanages
2. Transcripts of a former secretary of state’s misplaced emails
3. A map to Vladimir Putin’s secret hideout where he plans world domination, beginning with Disneyland
4. A copy of the U.S. Constitution
5. A book of Hillary’s cookie recipes
6. Pizza
7. The complete The Brady Bunch Meet The Flintstones on DVD, including The Lost Episodes
8. An invitation to join Governor Christie and his wife for a game of bridge
9. The remains of a fence-jumper who misjudged speed, distance, height, and those really sharp spikes
10. The complete edition of late-night TV Secret Service Jokes in three DVDs dropped by a renegade drone
But I must close now. It’s midnight, and there’s a knock on the door. Wonder who it could be…
-30-
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
A Funeral
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Funeral
The hymns have been sung, and the Gospel read;
We prayed for everyone except the dead
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Funeral
The hymns have been sung, and the Gospel read;
We prayed for everyone except the dead
Friday, March 13, 2015
Old Karamazov
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Old Karamazov
Young Karamazov – once upon a time
Strolled dreaming through the happy hopes of youth
And surely wondered about spring and love
Wrote clumsy verse, perhaps, for a pretty girl
Then fell unfortunately into fashion:
The acquisition of proud vanities
Through the disposition of dreams and souls
Until he was only an old man who
Sat brooding through the bitter schemes of age
Old Karamazov – lost upon a time
Mhall46184@aol.com
Old Karamazov
Young Karamazov – once upon a time
Strolled dreaming through the happy hopes of youth
And surely wondered about spring and love
Wrote clumsy verse, perhaps, for a pretty girl
Then fell unfortunately into fashion:
The acquisition of proud vanities
Through the disposition of dreams and souls
Until he was only an old man who
Sat brooding through the bitter schemes of age
Old Karamazov – lost upon a time
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Welcome to Texas
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Welcome to Texas
Welcome to Texas no bathroom no no
Museum closed left lane closed right lane closed
The clerk has your receipt no bathroom no
Rest stop closed traffic fines double if you don’t
Slow down for the workers who aren’t there
This is the lane for 287 south
But it isn’t ha ha fooled you again
Detour now past the Blackberry beggar
Who must go to the bathroom somewhere here
Welcome to Texas no bathroom no no
Mhall46184@aol.com
Welcome to Texas
Welcome to Texas no bathroom no no
Museum closed left lane closed right lane closed
The clerk has your receipt no bathroom no
Rest stop closed traffic fines double if you don’t
Slow down for the workers who aren’t there
This is the lane for 287 south
But it isn’t ha ha fooled you again
Detour now past the Blackberry beggar
Who must go to the bathroom somewhere here
Welcome to Texas no bathroom no no
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE
Another world beyond the yellow tape:
Chaos and smoke, confusion, blood, and pain
A wreckage of souls, cigarettes, and beer
Grim death encompassed within appointed bounds.
Some order on this side the yellow tape:
Cheeseburgers and fries, sodas in paper cups
MePhones uplifted in Hitlerian salute
Recording the pagan chant: “OMG!”
Sung by life’s postulants surprised to see
Another world beyond the yellow tape
Mhall46184@aol.com
POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE
Another world beyond the yellow tape:
Chaos and smoke, confusion, blood, and pain
A wreckage of souls, cigarettes, and beer
Grim death encompassed within appointed bounds.
Some order on this side the yellow tape:
Cheeseburgers and fries, sodas in paper cups
MePhones uplifted in Hitlerian salute
Recording the pagan chant: “OMG!”
Sung by life’s postulants surprised to see
Another world beyond the yellow tape
Die Skihutte / The Ski Hut
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Die Skihutte
Upon a shelf a tiny hut awaits
Its tiny skiers on their holiday
A tiny bench sits on the lamplit porch
And someone’s skis are leaned against the wall
The tiny door is closed against the cold
But windows with their shutters open wide
Invite a peek into a tiny world
Of bunks and boots and books and bottles of beer
A pot of stew kept warm beside the fire -
Upon a shelf a tiny hut awaits
Mhall46184@aol.com
Die Skihutte
Upon a shelf a tiny hut awaits
Its tiny skiers on their holiday
A tiny bench sits on the lamplit porch
And someone’s skis are leaned against the wall
The tiny door is closed against the cold
But windows with their shutters open wide
Invite a peek into a tiny world
Of bunks and boots and books and bottles of beer
A pot of stew kept warm beside the fire -
Upon a shelf a tiny hut awaits
Dante
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dante
Dante Alighieri
Wasn’t very merry
Whenever he didn’t feel well
He imagined his enemies in (Newark)
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dante
Dante Alighieri
Wasn’t very merry
Whenever he didn’t feel well
He imagined his enemies in (Newark)
A Flicker of Life
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Flicker of Life
Movies are but flickering images
Sometimes, to the observer, so is life
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Flicker of Life
Movies are but flickering images
Sometimes, to the observer, so is life
On the Desecration of Jewish Cemeteries in France
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
On the Desecration of Jewish Cemeteries in France
An obscenity scrawled upon the gates
Is Satan screaming outrage at the Sh’ma
A booted foot crunching riot-shattered glass
Is only death’s passing futility
A smear of swastikas by unclean hands
Is lambs’ blood on the holy lintels of Heaven
A tombstone tipped onto the grass – a throne
In a mansion promised in the long ago
In a happy Garden of eternal spring
Where blessings are engraved upon the gates
Mhall46184@aol.com
On the Desecration of Jewish Cemeteries in France
An obscenity scrawled upon the gates
Is Satan screaming outrage at the Sh’ma
A booted foot crunching riot-shattered glass
Is only death’s passing futility
A smear of swastikas by unclean hands
Is lambs’ blood on the holy lintels of Heaven
A tombstone tipped onto the grass – a throne
In a mansion promised in the long ago
In a happy Garden of eternal spring
Where blessings are engraved upon the gates
Muster
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Muster
There is no American Legion hall
It was sold long ago to pay the bills
A few old men gather in borrowed rooms
To pledge allegiance to a nation that
Has never pledged her allegiance to them
But still they offer their service and faith
To a wonderfully indifferent nation
And to its equally indifferent God
They muster again on the trail because
There is no American Legion hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Muster
There is no American Legion hall
It was sold long ago to pay the bills
A few old men gather in borrowed rooms
To pledge allegiance to a nation that
Has never pledged her allegiance to them
But still they offer their service and faith
To a wonderfully indifferent nation
And to its equally indifferent God
They muster again on the trail because
There is no American Legion hall
Feeding the Beast
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Feeding the Beast
The doors into the flames are open wide
Now shovel that gossip into the fire
Tittle-tattle no one will ever read
Unless a bit of tattle raises a flag
Whatever is flaggy to administration
Unless a bit of tittle raises eyebrows
Whatever is eyebrowy to administration
It’s all HTML, type it or talk it
So shovel it in, little worker bees:
The doors into the flames are open wide
Mhall46184@aol.com
Feeding the Beast
The doors into the flames are open wide
Now shovel that gossip into the fire
Tittle-tattle no one will ever read
Unless a bit of tattle raises a flag
Whatever is flaggy to administration
Unless a bit of tittle raises eyebrows
Whatever is eyebrowy to administration
It’s all HTML, type it or talk it
So shovel it in, little worker bees:
The doors into the flames are open wide
President Jerry Judge Judy Genn Rush Kardashian
Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
President Jerry Judge Judy Glenn Rush Kardashian
This nation’s non-stop election cycle continues, along with cooking shows and
Kardashians, but, alas, nothing about cooking Kardashians. Politics is no longer Ciceronian or Jeffersonian, but rather Iphonian.
Every four years about 50% of the electorate choose a president. They do not choose the president’s family. The president, not anyone else, should support the president’s family. If the president wants all his relations to go on shopping tours and holidays, he or she can pay for their airline tickets on American or United out of his paycheck, just like an American.
Every four years the other 50% of the electorate choose nothing. They’re probably too busy complaining.
Why does the president have access to a fleet of luxury aircraft? Why so many armored Al Capone-y luxury cars? Where is the candidate who will foreswear these expensive vanities? The airplanes should be refitted as medevacs for the soldiers wounded in this nation’s many undeclared wars, and the look-at-me- cars sold to record producers.
The President of the United States is not the leader of the free world. If the president were the leader of the free world, the free world would have agreed to this by now. They haven’t. Constitutionally, the president is not even the leader of this country. Let us not elect a Napoleon manque’ but instead a president who wishes to serve the people of this nation.
Let us elect a president who pledges not to play golf, ride a bicycle, or sing with a hillbilly or rock band for the duration of his or her term.
Let us elect a president whose spouse swears a sacred oath not to mess with school lunches or confuse his or her moods and whims for a Delphian Oracle.
Let us elect a president who repudiates all executive power over toilet tanks and light bulbs, and who sacks the EPA as quickly as Monica’s boyfriend sacked the White House travel agency staff (who didn’t deserve it).
Let us elect a president who is at least as friendly to Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, and our many other friends and allies as he is to China, Viet-Nam, Arabia, Qatar, Cuba, Turkey, Indonesia, and all other tyrannies.
Let us elect a president who once had a real job or who served in the military.
Let us elect a president who will not compromise the dignity of the office by granting faux-absolution to turkeys and messing about with groundhogs. Look, Mr. or Madame President, do your job and leave comedy to Congress.
Let us elect a president who understands that the practice of medicine is predicated on the doctor-patient relationship, not on a money-sucking third party.
Let us elect a president who will never attack another nation without a Congressional declaration of war as required by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. This nation thought badly of Japan for attacking us without a declaration of war in 1941. Sauce for the goose…
Let us elect a president who knows that there is no such law as a War Powers Act, only the War Powers Resolution, and a resolution is only smoke drifting in the wind.
Let us elect a president who looks to God, to the at least 6,000 years of human civilization, to the realities of history, and to the Constitution, not to some transient ideological screed he or she read in his sophomore year.
Let us elect a congress equally wise and discerning. And let us be worthy of the good government we say we want.
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
President Jerry Judge Judy Glenn Rush Kardashian
This nation’s non-stop election cycle continues, along with cooking shows and
Kardashians, but, alas, nothing about cooking Kardashians. Politics is no longer Ciceronian or Jeffersonian, but rather Iphonian.
Every four years about 50% of the electorate choose a president. They do not choose the president’s family. The president, not anyone else, should support the president’s family. If the president wants all his relations to go on shopping tours and holidays, he or she can pay for their airline tickets on American or United out of his paycheck, just like an American.
Every four years the other 50% of the electorate choose nothing. They’re probably too busy complaining.
Why does the president have access to a fleet of luxury aircraft? Why so many armored Al Capone-y luxury cars? Where is the candidate who will foreswear these expensive vanities? The airplanes should be refitted as medevacs for the soldiers wounded in this nation’s many undeclared wars, and the look-at-me- cars sold to record producers.
The President of the United States is not the leader of the free world. If the president were the leader of the free world, the free world would have agreed to this by now. They haven’t. Constitutionally, the president is not even the leader of this country. Let us not elect a Napoleon manque’ but instead a president who wishes to serve the people of this nation.
Let us elect a president who pledges not to play golf, ride a bicycle, or sing with a hillbilly or rock band for the duration of his or her term.
Let us elect a president whose spouse swears a sacred oath not to mess with school lunches or confuse his or her moods and whims for a Delphian Oracle.
Let us elect a president who repudiates all executive power over toilet tanks and light bulbs, and who sacks the EPA as quickly as Monica’s boyfriend sacked the White House travel agency staff (who didn’t deserve it).
Let us elect a president who is at least as friendly to Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom, and our many other friends and allies as he is to China, Viet-Nam, Arabia, Qatar, Cuba, Turkey, Indonesia, and all other tyrannies.
Let us elect a president who once had a real job or who served in the military.
Let us elect a president who will not compromise the dignity of the office by granting faux-absolution to turkeys and messing about with groundhogs. Look, Mr. or Madame President, do your job and leave comedy to Congress.
Let us elect a president who understands that the practice of medicine is predicated on the doctor-patient relationship, not on a money-sucking third party.
Let us elect a president who will never attack another nation without a Congressional declaration of war as required by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. This nation thought badly of Japan for attacking us without a declaration of war in 1941. Sauce for the goose…
Let us elect a president who knows that there is no such law as a War Powers Act, only the War Powers Resolution, and a resolution is only smoke drifting in the wind.
Let us elect a president who looks to God, to the at least 6,000 years of human civilization, to the realities of history, and to the Constitution, not to some transient ideological screed he or she read in his sophomore year.
Let us elect a congress equally wise and discerning. And let us be worthy of the good government we say we want.
-30-
Do Luddies Read?
Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Do Luddites Read?
If in the past a tyrant wanted to eliminate a book not acceptable to his ego or his ideology he had to go to a great deal of bother to discredit books and their writers. Seizing and burning books meant organizing government or military departments to search out copies, although many university students were (and still are) eager to volunteer in ideological censorship.
With gadgetry our culture has progressed from burning books (which, after all, pollutes the air) to deleting books from the disinformation superhighway by clicking an app.
One of the early sellers of electronic books discovered that it was selling a book without the permission of the copyright owner. The book was not only withdrawn from sale, but all the copies already sold were made to disappear instantly from the little plastic boxes of all the people who had bought the book. The purchasers were given credit, and all was well except for this disturbing reality: any book, or even all of them, can be made to disappear from any electronic reader at any time.
Books on any sort of electronic device can be altered or deleted by someone else upon command. The book you begin to read can be changed before you finish it. Any titles you read can of course be monitored by anyone who is interested in knowing what you are up to.
And this is nothing new, except for improved efficiency in shoving unacceptable words down the Orwellian memory hole. In church, for example, some familiar hymns have been altered for contemporary sensitivities. Church committees and publishers have sometimes determined that our ancestors were wrong, and have then changed or eliminated words, phrases, and entire songs very dear to generations of worshippers.
Destroying art is an ISIS / Taliban thing, not our thing, even when prefaced with “as arranged by…”
However, the words in the printed hymnal do not change while you are holding the hymnal. Any printed book in your hands can be determined by you to be a bad book or a good book. But nothing about that physical book is going to change except for the inevitable decay of physical matter through fire, immersion in water, or the passage of years. The contents of an electronic edition, however, could be whatever the publisher or service provider wants them to be at any moment.
Resistance both to snooping and to changing words and songs and texts is not a matter of being a Luddite, but a reasonable desire that the editors and purveyors of those words and songs and texts remember that they are not Shakespeare, John Newton, or Lord Byron. Ms. Grundy and her doppelganger Josef Goebbels don’t rate a veto on art, music, and faith.
An electronic book is even more ephemeral than Radio Shack™. There is much to be said for – and by – that printed book on the shelf.
And, hey, Luddites – happy bicentennial!
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987.
Finn, Peter, and Petra Couvee’. The Zhivago Affair. New York: Pantheon Books. 2014.
Manning, Molly Guptill. When Books Went to War. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pubishing Company. 2014.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1960.
Slonim, Mark. Soviet Russian Literature: Writers and Problems, 1917-1967. New York: Oxford University Press. 1967.
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Mhall46184@aol.com
Do Luddites Read?
If in the past a tyrant wanted to eliminate a book not acceptable to his ego or his ideology he had to go to a great deal of bother to discredit books and their writers. Seizing and burning books meant organizing government or military departments to search out copies, although many university students were (and still are) eager to volunteer in ideological censorship.
With gadgetry our culture has progressed from burning books (which, after all, pollutes the air) to deleting books from the disinformation superhighway by clicking an app.
One of the early sellers of electronic books discovered that it was selling a book without the permission of the copyright owner. The book was not only withdrawn from sale, but all the copies already sold were made to disappear instantly from the little plastic boxes of all the people who had bought the book. The purchasers were given credit, and all was well except for this disturbing reality: any book, or even all of them, can be made to disappear from any electronic reader at any time.
Books on any sort of electronic device can be altered or deleted by someone else upon command. The book you begin to read can be changed before you finish it. Any titles you read can of course be monitored by anyone who is interested in knowing what you are up to.
And this is nothing new, except for improved efficiency in shoving unacceptable words down the Orwellian memory hole. In church, for example, some familiar hymns have been altered for contemporary sensitivities. Church committees and publishers have sometimes determined that our ancestors were wrong, and have then changed or eliminated words, phrases, and entire songs very dear to generations of worshippers.
Destroying art is an ISIS / Taliban thing, not our thing, even when prefaced with “as arranged by…”
However, the words in the printed hymnal do not change while you are holding the hymnal. Any printed book in your hands can be determined by you to be a bad book or a good book. But nothing about that physical book is going to change except for the inevitable decay of physical matter through fire, immersion in water, or the passage of years. The contents of an electronic edition, however, could be whatever the publisher or service provider wants them to be at any moment.
Resistance both to snooping and to changing words and songs and texts is not a matter of being a Luddite, but a reasonable desire that the editors and purveyors of those words and songs and texts remember that they are not Shakespeare, John Newton, or Lord Byron. Ms. Grundy and her doppelganger Josef Goebbels don’t rate a veto on art, music, and faith.
An electronic book is even more ephemeral than Radio Shack™. There is much to be said for – and by – that printed book on the shelf.
And, hey, Luddites – happy bicentennial!
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1987.
Finn, Peter, and Petra Couvee’. The Zhivago Affair. New York: Pantheon Books. 2014.
Manning, Molly Guptill. When Books Went to War. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pubishing Company. 2014.
Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1960.
Slonim, Mark. Soviet Russian Literature: Writers and Problems, 1917-1967. New York: Oxford University Press. 1967.
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Rainbows
Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Rainbows
Rainbows are nice, and no one has to sign up with Mega-Tentacle Wireless to see one.
At the beginning of Lent the matter of the rainbow in Genesis 9:11 is often one of the appointed readings:
I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth. And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds: And I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that beareth flesh: and there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh.
Although the Romantics (with a capital ‘R’), were usually hostile to revealed religion, Wordsworth is one of the more congenial and accessible of that rowdy lot. In one of his first poems he connects the rainbow with humanity:
“My Heart Leaps Up”
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So let it be when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I would wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
In this little poem of indeterminate line, meter, and rhyme, Wordsworth connects the rainbow intimately to three ages of a man’s life on earth: childhood, maturity, and old age. The adult speaker delights in rainbows just as he did when he was a little boy, and hopes that he always will. He maintains that the joys of childhood are important to the development of the man, and that these joys are part of a life of harmony and balance, or “natural piety.”
Rainbows aren’t scheduled. They appear at will, usually around dusk on a rain spring or summer day, and then disappear quickly. Langston Hughes says that “Poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.” Conversely, rainbows are like poems. To go for the camera is to lose the rainbow, and even if not, the pictures of the rainbow don’t really match the real rainbow. Might as well catch the Wordsworthian moment while it lasts.
And, as Christina Rossetti says,
There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these
-30-
Mhall46184@aol.com
Rainbows
Rainbows are nice, and no one has to sign up with Mega-Tentacle Wireless to see one.
At the beginning of Lent the matter of the rainbow in Genesis 9:11 is often one of the appointed readings:
I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth. And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations. I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, my bow shall appear in the clouds: And I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that beareth flesh: and there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh.
Although the Romantics (with a capital ‘R’), were usually hostile to revealed religion, Wordsworth is one of the more congenial and accessible of that rowdy lot. In one of his first poems he connects the rainbow with humanity:
“My Heart Leaps Up”
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So let it be when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I would wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
In this little poem of indeterminate line, meter, and rhyme, Wordsworth connects the rainbow intimately to three ages of a man’s life on earth: childhood, maturity, and old age. The adult speaker delights in rainbows just as he did when he was a little boy, and hopes that he always will. He maintains that the joys of childhood are important to the development of the man, and that these joys are part of a life of harmony and balance, or “natural piety.”
Rainbows aren’t scheduled. They appear at will, usually around dusk on a rain spring or summer day, and then disappear quickly. Langston Hughes says that “Poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.” Conversely, rainbows are like poems. To go for the camera is to lose the rainbow, and even if not, the pictures of the rainbow don’t really match the real rainbow. Might as well catch the Wordsworthian moment while it lasts.
And, as Christina Rossetti says,
There are bridges on the rivers,
As pretty as you please;
But the bow that bridges heaven,
And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
Is prettier far than these
-30-
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