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Monday, May 05, 2008

Thursday, April 17, 2008

  • Currently Reading
    Robert Browning's Poetry (Norton Critical Editions)
    By Robert Browning
    see related
    Well, well, Spring has sprung. 75 degrees, and I'm enjoying every drop of sunshine. All right, so I hope everyone did their taxes and can get something back from Uncle Sam. In any event, I want say a few things about yesterday's SCOTUS ruling about lethal injection. For those who were living under a rock, the high court ruled that lethal injection (the most common for of execution in the US) did not violate the Constitution's 8th Amendment, which provides for safeguards against "cruel and unusual punishment". Let me get one thing clear. There is nothing, nothing kind or common about capital punishment. It is barbaric, savage, and antithetical to all that this country should stand for. But on the flip side, this is a court working for a man, who as governor of Texas, executed 405 inmates in 6 years. No governor of Texas (or of any other state in the country's history) had ever signed that many death warrants. Yet Texas has one of the highest murder rates in the country, whereas Michigan, which has never executed a person in 171 years, has one of the lowest murder rates, even if you factor Detroit into the equation. I welcome those who disagree with me to speak up, but before you do, answer this question for me. Why do we kill people to show that killing is wrong?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4hcCs78_kE

    Ok, poetry time. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

    The sea is calm to-night.
    The tide is full, the moon lies fair
    Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
    Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
    Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
    Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
    Only, from the long line of spray
    Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
    Listen! you hear the grating roar
    Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
    At their return, up the high strand,
    Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
    With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
    The eternal note of sadness in.

    Sophocles long ago
    Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
    Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
    Of human misery; we
    Find also in the sound a thought,
    Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

    The Sea of Faith
    Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
    Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
    But now I only hear
    Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
    Retreating, to the breath
    Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
    And naked shingles of the world.


    Ah, love, let us be true
    To one another! for the world, which seems
    To lie before us like a land of dreams,
    So various, so beautiful, so new,
    Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
    Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
    And we are here as on a darkling plain
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
    Where ignorant armies clash by night.

    Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) "Dover Beach"


Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Monday, March 24, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

  • Currently Reading
    Regeneration
    By Pat Barker
    see related
    Well, it is the 5th anniversary of the illegal, unjustified war in Iraq. I hope that you remember that which Americans were responseible for this war when you "vote your consciences" in 8 months.