Not usually a big fan of conspiracy theories, but I was struck by (and recommend) Franklin Foer's recent article in Slate on Donald Trump and Russia. I did not realize, for example, that because Western banks will no longer have anything to do with Trump (due to his record of nonpayment and bankruptcy) he now gets most of his borrowed capital from ( Read more... )

Individualism cannot be maintained as the foundation of a society if it looks to only legalistic justice based upon contracts, property, and political equality. Such legalistic safeguards are themselves not enough. In our individualism we have long since abandoned the laissez faire of the 18th Century-the notion that it is "everyman for himself and ( Read more... )

1. If, as I am told some physicists suggest, things can simply pop into and out of existence at random in the vacuum of space, can this provide us with a useful model of political discourse ( Read more... )

It's June, and it's no longer Poetry Month, but the Dog doesn't care.

I was outside this morning and it's sunny and cool and it improved my mood. And I thought of this, from Wallace Stevens:

The Plot Against the Giant

First GirlWhen this yokel comes maundering ( Read more... )

I love Bernie (not quite enough to have voted for him). But, really, this is Bernie.

Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), from his preface to his collected novels:

. . . But the classes of tastes, feelings, and opinions, which were successively brought into play in these little tales, remain substantially the same. Perfectibilians, deteriorationists, statu-quo-ites, phrenologists, transcendentalists, political economists, theorists in ( Read more... )

That is why we come to this place. We stand here in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry. We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war ( Read more... )

I guess there is no real reason to think or post here (especially twice) about a 40-year old musical event, but I take and chew on this stuff as it crosses my path. :)

In the last post I was talking about a piece (Knee Play #1) that I liked from an opera (Einstein on the Beach) that overall left me cold. But I've been listening to the whole ( Read more... )

Belated Poetry Month greetings to any friends still around!

I owe a couple of apologies to people who commented on my last post - I sort of disappeared due to a personal adventure and I’ve always had trouble resuming threads after a break. It was nice to hear from pauraque and shezan. Um, last fall ( Read more... )

From today's NY times:

“I feel that ‘healthy’ infantile omnipotence is the most important asset for dealing with life’s stresses and potential trauma,” Dr. Krystal wrote in a chapter he contributed to “Living With Terror, Working With Trauma: A Clinician’s Handbook,” edited by Danielle Knafo and published in 2004. “It is the emotional mainspring ( Read more... )