Mar. 5th, 2003

rfmcdonald: (Default)

  • The excellent live music.

  • John Smith's poetry readings. (Poem posting to come.)

  • Chatting with Lee Ellen Pottie, back from her doctorate studies at UNB-Fredericton and ready with advice re: graduate school. Yes, I'll look into the OGS (God, it'd be good if I actually made a profit!); no, I won't expect things to be automatically perfect; in any case, I'm aware of how far I've come since last I've seen her.

  • Teridian's inspired reading of Green Eggs and Ham. Ah, but for a photo.

  • Dr. Furlong's fun with dialects.

  • My successful completion of my Nelligan readings.

rfmcdonald: (Default)
. . . It is colder now,
there are many stars,
we are drifting
North by the Great Bear,
The leaves are falling,
The water is stone in the scooped rocks,
To southward
Red sun grey air:
The crows are
Slow on their crooked wings,
the jays have left us:
Long since we passed the flares of Orion.
Each man believes in his heart he will die.
Many have written last thoughts and last letters.
None know if our deaths are now or forever:
None know if this wandering earth will be found.

We lie down and the snow covers our garments.
I pray you,
You (if any open this writing)
Make in your mouths the words that were our names.
I will tell you all we have learned,
I will tell you everything:
The earth is round,
There are springs under the orchards,
The loam cuts with a blunt knife,
Beware of
Elms in thunder,
The lights in the sky are stars –
We think they do not see,
We think also
The trees so not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us:
The birds too are ignorant.
Do not listen.
Do not stand at dark in the open windows.
We before you have heard this:
they are voices:
They are not words at all but the wind rising.
Also none among us has seen God.
(. . . We have thought often
The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather
Pointed to one tree but it was not so.)
As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous:
The wind changes at night and the dreams come.

It is very cold,
there are strange stars near Arcturus,
Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky

(Nota Bene: The formatting is different. Unfortunately, HTML is stupid this way.)
rfmcdonald: (Default)
Via the Head Heeb: Umberto Eco discusses war, terrorism, Europe and America in Ha'aretz.

Demosthenes points out that the Internet makes claims that (for example) dissenting with your country's foreign policy is treason all the more easily puncturable.

Steven Den Beste tries to explain why Daniel Davies' excellent mockery of his intellectual weaknesses (he seriously talks about "Old Europe" and he calls himself a Jacksonian?), his addiction to Tom Clancy-style technothriller scenarios and desire to see them happen, and his long-standing tendency to engage in flame wars is unfair, really and truly it is!

UPDATE: A good case is made by a conservative why the South Koreans will not enthusiastically welcome a second Korean war, and what will happen to the United States' alliance system if Dubya does decide to go in
rfmcdonald: (Default)
From The New York Times:

March 5, 2003

New Study Supports Idea Stalin Was Poisoned
By MICHAEL WINES

MOSCOW, March 4 — Fifty years after Stalin died, felled by a brain hemorrhage at his dacha, an exhaustive study of long-secret Soviet records lends new weight to an old theory that he was actually poisoned, perhaps to avert a looming war with the United States.

That war may well have been closer than anyone outside the Kremlin suspected at the time, say the authors of a new book based on the records.

Read more... )
rfmcdonald: (Default)

You Have the Power to Turn Things to Stone!


What's Your Magic Power?
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Love


What Are You Seeking?
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Sorry?

Mar. 5th, 2003 07:11 pm
rfmcdonald: (Default)
Via To The Point: A fascinating article by Marina Warner about what it means to be sorry in the early twenty-first century.
rfmcdonald: (Default)
From Atrios:

Christians are great. Devout Christians are great. Devout fundamentalist Christians are great. Devout evangelical Christians who are light on the evangelical are fine. Theocrats are not. People shoving their religious beliefs down my throat, giving me no respect for mine, and wishing to put religion into the public schools are not fine. People who would rather violate federal anti-dscrimination regulations than receive federal funding are not fine. People whose sick beliefs make them want to inflict torture on others by attempting to "cure" young gay and lesbian kids in "conversion camps" are not fine.


Anti-clericalism can be fun, though.
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