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12 days ago
Latin can be dense and boring with sentences that go on forever with complications of grammar including declensions, case, and conjugations (read Caesar or Cicero.) Latin can also be spooky and luscious (the Catholic Latin Mass, Carmina Burana, gregorian chant, and this song by Enya.) Click on the link below for an example (if you load into Window Media Player and get the printed lyrics, please excuse the spelling errors. The lyrics were downloaded from the net:) Song in Latin by Enya.
26 days ago
1. On 9/11/2001, 19 men hijacked airplanes and caused the death of some 2,976 people and some $650 Billion in damages. 15 of the hijackers were Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese and two were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 2. In the hours following that attack air travel in the US was shut down except for a few flights authorized by the Bush White House that returned dozens of Saudi citizens, many of them Bin Laden family members, to their home country. 3. The US attacked Afghanistan, supposedly to capture/kill Bin Laden and to neutralize the taliban/Al Qaeda. In one of the most strategically moronic military moves in the history of warfare, the US chased Bin Laden from where he was into the uncontested Afghan/Pakistan border regions where he escaped. Since that time we have supported a puppet urban Afghan government fighting a civil war against medieval rural warlords while the country continues to live in armed conflict and continues to grow record ...
136 days ago
Kay Ryan, the present US Poet Laureate, is not your average writer. Look her up. Turtle Kay Ryan Who would be a turtle who could help it? A barely mobile hard roll, a four-oared helmet, She can ill afford the chances she must take In rowing toward the grasses that she eats. Her track is graceless, like dragging A packing-case places, and almost any slope Defeats her modest hopes. Even being practical, She’s often stuck up to the axle on her way To something edible. With everything optimal, She skirts the ditch which would convert Her shell into a serving dish. She lives Below luck-level, never imagining some lottery Will change her load of pottery to wings. Her only levity is patience, The sport of truly chastened things. From Flamingo Watching Copper Beach Press, 1994 Copyright Kay Ryan. All rights reserved. Don't we all "live below luck-level never imagining....." Ok, you read it.
194 days ago
Gold Rush, Diamond Fever Most of the huge, easy nuggets (having been picked up) were sold one Saturday night long ago for a song a few drinks of the house whiskey or a piece of long-forgotten ass in a lawless, frontier mining town. The lucky ones who struck it rich are dead; dead or growing old, forgetful. Those who are left sift tons of rock and sand for the occasional flake for what is left over that is precious. You are surrounded by rock and dross, for instance, not a golden vein of purity; and I, both unlucky and unskilled as a collector of precious things, will never declare you an easy catch. The difference is: I chose to dig deep and long for you without a guarantee through piles of worthlessness for a few small pieces of treasure.
243 days ago
Globally: Poor Obama. He is trying his best to be a Democrat in the FDR and JFK style. Although he is talking the talk, he is not walking the walk, IMO. Gitmo is to be shut down (someday), troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq (someday), extra troops are to be deployed to Afghanistan, and the same bail-out policy that GWB started for the banks/Wall Street have been and will continue to apply. Locally: Big hole in my driveway where a VW bus was once parked. I sold it. Other possessions being sold as we speak. What is wrong with me? In My Head: The simpler things get, the better.
