The National Endowment for the Arts organized a conference call of "leading artists" and urged them to be part of the solution. These artists were, of course, those who had received grants from the NEA before and the unspoken suggestion was that if they wanted to keep getting paid for making sculptures out of meatballs, those meatball sculptures should support Cap and Trade and Health Care Reform. The call is seductive. I'm sure I could write an epic-ode-sonnett devoted to controlling carbon dioxide emissions. So please! Donate Fifty Cents to keep Tarzana Joe Conservative!
For all your poetry needs
Aug 27, 2009
Aug 26, 2009
Why wasn't I asked????
Click on the title above to find out how The National Endowment for the Arts is about to become The Department of Propaganda. Let a thousand flowers wither!
Aug 19, 2009
Aug 17, 2009
I Would Shop at Whole Foods (if I could afford it)
I don't know John Mackey from Adam Sandler. He may have committed as many crimes as John Edwards. The last checker who swiped my Paypal at Whole Foods had more metal sticking out of her than the dart board at my local pub. But a man has a right to his opinions. The outcry of the t-shirt left to John MacKey's Wall Street op-ed on Health Reform is amazing, overdone, ridiculous, and misguided. I shop at Whole Foods when I am flush with cash...and that means rarely. However, I think I'm going to buy a chuck of Brie or a hunk of dark chocholate or a bottle of bacteria for my intestines from the good people at Whole Foods. It will cost me, but it's one line I want to cross.
Aug 16, 2009
No Second Cannae
The news this weekend is that the Democrat leadership is retreating from the "government option." Whenever I hear that a party with control of the House, Senate and Executive branch is retreating, I hear the name "Cannae" echo in my brain. It was at Cannae during the Second Punic War that the Carthaginian general Hannibal invented "rope-a-dope." He had the center of his battle line simulate a retreat. The eager Romans charged into the gap anticipating victory. Instead they were encircled by the Carthaginians and slaughtered. So beware when the clever and powerful retreat. Check your flanks.
And as I have called this post "No Second Cannae" I am also reminded of one of my favorite poems, "No Second Troy" by W.B. Yeats. I would have loved to meet her. But I would have checked my flanks.
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
And as I have called this post "No Second Cannae" I am also reminded of one of my favorite poems, "No Second Troy" by W.B. Yeats. I would have loved to meet her. But I would have checked my flanks.
WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
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