For the Union Dead
by Robert Lowell
"Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam."
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.
My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized
fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.
Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,
shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.
Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.
Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.
He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.
He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die--
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.
On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year--
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .
Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his "niggers."
The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling
over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages"
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.
Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.
The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.
Tangentially, Slate had a nice slide show the other day on Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who sculpted the Shaw memorial. He was one of the few sculptors of the day who used real African-American men as models, IIRC. He certainly treated all the soldiers in that monument with a tremendous amount of respect.
yep, there was no real arguing with the results over time. I always like the idea that the best "criticism" of a work that you think missed the mark is to create/offer a better work in return.
there is an excellent set of poetry/photo essays on the "Women of Troy" over at this week's Studio 360, and a story of a man who has shaped his life, and name, after Optimus Prime.
If he's done, Edge James isn't a hall-of-famer, is he? Good career yardage stats, but he didn't do it long enough, he was never the best back in the league according to most people (and only among the best three for a year or two, I'd say), was never the key to his offense, and never won a ring.
So, I did not make the drive to my friend's place to watch RHOA. Should I have? I heard Kim's "performance" of Tardy for the Party on the radio, if that's any indication I didn't miss much....
Oh she was awful and she dances worse than Mariah Carey.
Kandi's performance wasn't bad but the reunion was a snoozer. I am however looking forward to my OC girls. Vicki is exactly who I thought she was--a bitch.
Oh yeah, Vicki and Tamra formed an unholy union last season - catty and vicious. Was the OC premiere last night? Anything good happen. Not having cable is bittersweet, I get more things done but I miss out on my guilty pleasures.
I think it is going to be a good season although Jeana is leaving because she is broke and actually has to work now. Jeana was my favorite cast member because she seemed the most "real." Apparently Jeana asked Vicki for a loan and Vicki told her no and they are no longer speaking. Surprise surprise.
Jeana was as credible a simulation of a human being as you're gonna get from these shows. With the housing market being what it is I'm not surprised she's strapped. Although, I'm sure broke in their world means something completely different from broke in the real world.
Links don't work over on the politics channel, so I'll just toss out here: What happened in Tuesday's elections that would give Paterson confidence in running for a new term? Unless he thinks there's a chance that the GOP will put in Palin or Beck against him, in which case he'd be a shoe-in if he somehow made it to the general.
Oh Deb, this is about revenge for Bill Thompson. The WH didn't support Thompson and he lost by only five points. Thompson and Paterson are from the same Harlem crew from what I have heard and this is a big FU to the WH for not only trying to force Paterson out but not supporting Thompson in what could have been a winnable race against Bloomberg.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised about what I read in the NY Times after Bloomberg's victory. Apparently his aides and campaign knew full well how close the race actually was, but were determined to make it seem like it would be a blow out so that Thompson wouldn't get a surge of support from the WH or other prominent democrats. This is what I suspected all along. I knew there was no way Thompson was done by 20%, especially considering the fact that most people just didn't vote.
I guess it's all a case of coulda woulda shoulda now but I bet Bloomberg his thanking his lucky stars the polling wasn't more accurate.
Juan Williams writes in the WSJ today about rapid rise of "ghetto lit" from which the movie "Precious" was adapted. He's not happy with what black people are writing for each other to read.
"The black imagination as revealed in gangster lit is centered on the world of drug dealers— "dough boys" who are heavy with drug money—and the get-rich-quick rappers and athletes who mimic the druggie lifestyle. And there are lots of "ghetto-fabulous" women, referring to themselves as bitches, carrying brand-name handbags and wearing big, gaudy jewelry. Attitude and anger are everything. The dispiriting word "nigger" is used freely by black characters talking about one another. There are guns and drive-by murders; hot sex that emphasizes the pleasure of getting it on with no strings attached; women without husbands and children without fathers; people who brag about being street-smart and then drop out of school and find themselves unemployed.
Much as rap music—also fascinated with predatory sex, anger and violence—has displaced jazz or soul singers on the black music charts, gangster lit now overshadows the common late 20th-century theme of black middle-class striving. As one black journalist, Nick Chiles, told an interviewer: "This phenomenon is like a weed that takes over the whole garden." Any story celebrating the beauty and strength of black family life, the power of education, and the desire to succeed in the workplace and in business—think "The Cosby Show" or Stephen Carter's mysteries set among the black bourgeoisie—is now out of fashion."
Williams' critique seems closed minded to me - both about literature's place in the world as well as the condescension he seems to demonstrate towards those who enjoy pulp. But does he have a point at all? Is there anything in his essay that's worth the time to ponder?
I'm kind of surprised there even exists a gangster lit category; shouldn't Juan be thrilled at this evidence that would-be gangsters like reading? But if it does exist then I would point to the survival of women despite the worst the romance genre could throw at them for decades. Women appear quite capable of escaping into a sexually explicit take on the Cinderella story and then executing corporate takeovers.
Juan Williams has been railing against rap music for god knows how long and it is tiresome. I found his critique condescending and delusional. Was this supposed to be a critique of "Precious" or a "What's STILL wrong with black folks" post by him? He completely misses the point of "Precious" and those promoting it to bring to light the very real issue of abuse in black households.
I am not going to say much more because I will be left with regrets, but Juan Williams can kiss my black behind.
When Their Eyes Were Watching God was first published, well, Wikipedia has quotes. Suffice to say the criticism seems awfully familiar.
I've never understood the impulse that literature has to do only one thing; that it has to be uplifting or it's worthless, that it has to reflect the true (usually miserable) lives of people or it's unrealistic. Fiction goes through trends, as it always has-- how many Young Adult vampire books are out there on the shelves right now, again?-- and complaining about a trend, however much you don't like it, seems right up there with bitching about the weather.
I read what Amazon would let me read of Kwan's Gangsta, and I doubt it has much in common with "Their Eyes Were Watching God." It was not a good book. It might have a good story, but the writing was pretty bad.
The problem I have with Williams' piece is its venue and it's "Gah, can you believe what blacks are reading!" subtext. "Why are they reading this pulp fiction when they should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps!" That's an unfair and unrealistic standard to hold anybody to. Somebody is reading those books with Fabio on the cover.
One could make this argument outside of race, as Harold Bloom frequently did against Harry Potter. I'm sympathetic to that in theory, I wish more people would read Phillip Roth than Dan Brown, but to each his own. Literature isn't for everybody.
Just throwing this out there, are there any writers I'm sleeping on that are writing about the city for those of us who prefer James Baldwin to Vickie Stringer? I'm running out of leads as far as anything coming out now.
And not everything published as 'literature' is of value. I didn't go checking out Gangsta, but I'll take your word that it's crap-- but back in the day, Robert Southey was Poet Laureate of England, and now he's generally remembered as the butt of Lord Byron's jokes.
A lot of my reading is for pleasure so I typically don't go after literature that much. I also do a lot of reading when I'm traveling so I need something that's a light read that I can stay at for hours at a time which is easier to do with Dan Brown book than literature. I also end up buying a lot of books at the Salvation Army, so they typically have the more popular style books.
I guess what I'm saying is literature may not be for me. I should give it a better shot, which is one of the reasons I want a Kindle or Nook. I'm also kind of lazy when it comes to reading, and I have a weakness for fantasy books which there are a ton of. At least if I have easier/cheaper access to those books, I might be more willing to give them a try. Especially the books in the public domain which are free/very cheap.
Libraries are awesome. I used to buy books from Amazon that I thought looked interesting and I never read them. Now I've gone the opposite way: If I can't get it in a library, I don't read it because when I get it from Amazon, I've started reading something else in the meantime. Two cheers for libraries and used book sales!
Regarding popular fiction vs. literature, I think it's all relative. I still haven't read Anna Karenina. I'm not on the train to work with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
But I do get more out of Phillip Roth and Cormac McCarthy or Milan Kundera than Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Jonathan Kellerman. The former aren't that much harder to read, and I think they give me a lot more to contemplate. I've learned to like novels with themes and ideas, not just plots. And I love picking them apart with my wife.
Oh Juan can fuck off. I read what I want to read and each book serves a different purpose - from escape to edification. "Gangsta-lit"? Really?? Why on earth would FICTION be the measuring stick for the progress of black america???
Oh, right. Because the Cosby's are the Real Black America.
Oh, right. Because the Cosby's are the Real Black America.
This is the problem and one of the many reasons I cannot stand Juan Williams. So what if the "working class overweight security guard" as Williams describes the woman is reading "gansta-lit?" I thought we wanted people to read more? Is she bothering anyone? Two things Juan should be proud of--the woman has a job and she is reading.
Not everyone can write in the Wall Street Journal but it doesn't mean they deserve to be spit on by the likes of Juan Williams. I'm tired of this crap.
It does strike me that judging by book shelves in grocery stores and at airports a wide swath of white America, not to mention Europe, is fascinated by serial killer lit these days.
I saw a woman reading the book that the movie "Precious" is based upon (according to the book's back cover) on the train yesterday. I admit I read a few words over her shoulder. It seems to be written in the first person from the character Precious's point of view, in 'unlettered'/slang, sort of like Huck Finn's dialogue in that book or like the Russified English that the novel "A Clockwork Orange" is written in. Is that what most 'thug lit' or whatever is like? I have gotten brief glimpses at some of those - they're popular here in NYC and there are subway ads for the latest, I think - and I think they are written slangily (not a word, is it..) but not in imitation 'unlettered' style. Seems like a good opportunity for creativity to me.
They're stories. People are telling different stories to each other in these books. Juan Williams may not like the story, the underlying value system being communicated by the story, etc., but he's got to understand that it's just people telling stories.
A couple of years ago, a guy named Justin Lin wrote and directed a movie ("Better Luck Tomorrow") about seemingly normal Asian-American kids stealing, doing drugs, paying for sex, shooting off guns, and eventually killing someone. At Sundance, a couple of people in the audience lamented the fact that with the platform that Justin had to make a movie, he chose to show these awful Asian-Americans doing awful things. From the back of the room in this Q&A, Roger Ebert roared in fury, "these people have the right to tell whatever story that they want to tell! They don't have to represent the entirety of the Asian experience in America. You would never make that kind of comment to a white filmmaker!" (or something to that effect).
Let people tell their stories. However wild and crazy and sick they may seem.
The odyssey taken by popular African dance music in reaching European and American audiences has been circuitous and often relates more to the vagaries of the music industry and our own provincial tastes. Very little music has ever reached our shores from the small African nation, Benin, formerly Dahomey (the historical Benin Empire, famous for its sculture, actually is located in contemporary Nigeria). In the US, we are familiar with Anjelique Kidjo, who really performs a kind of homogenized pan African style. Less known is the late Gnonnas Pedro who was part of the original Africando, a recording band made up of African singers and New York city salsa musicians.
In recent years, a performing and recording band from the 70s and 80s, Orchestre T.P. Polyrhythmo de Cotonou, has become the darling of Euro djs. As recently as a year or so ago, vinyl put out by the band was garnering $300+ bids on e-bay. They were a verstatile band who could play their brand of psychadelic funk (for which they are most prized), their brand of West Afican salsa, or Congolese rumba with equal aplomb, grounding their whole sound with traditional Vodoun rhythms. They have a huge recorded discography, but aside from a few cd compilations, the best of which is The Kings of Benin Urban Groove on the Soundway label, very little is accessible to the average listener on a limited budget.
In the past four years, German dj Samy Ben Redjeb at Analog Africa has put together several collections of Beninese dance music from that era, and next week Africa Analog will release a new comp of music by TP Polyrhythmo, a band that probably has at this moment the most legendary status among underground African music fanatics. With the band's assistance and consultation, Africa Analog has culled 14 songs from 500 of the band's best recorded songs. In addition, all the cd compilations produced by Analog Africa are accompanied by rigorously documented booklets with interview material, discographies, and photographs. They are a little pricy, but are value rich, even at their prices.
Here is a link to Africa Analog's myspace site. It has 3 songs from the Polyrhythmo recording on the juke box plus a vid of the group on a song that was on one of Africa Analog's earlier compilations: http://www.myspace.com/analogafrica.
"Drums, bells and horns are the fundamental instruments used during our traditional Vodoun rituals - we added guitars and Organs - we modernised those ancients rhythms and combined them with western genres that were on vogue at that time".
Melome Clement - Founder of Orchestre of Poly-Rythmo
that's "fusion" (is there really any other kind of music?)at its best, and their blogspot is quite informative. to me the epochal genius of hip-hop was in the sampling/mixing and i say bring on the mashed-up world...
This weekend is it. Chelsea. United. Top 2 teams in the Premiership, history of bad blood. It's on Sunday at 11am on Fox Soccer and thousands of streams on the internet. If you have any interest in checking out the Premiership, this is the one to watch.
Also, on the subject of my cold, thanks for the advice. The thing that really knocked it out were the Odwalla C-Monster drinks. Each bottle contains 2000% of daily vitamin C intake. The poor cold never stood a chance. Either that, or it just went away on its own.
If it is, as the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokesperson said, a great way to distribute the vaccine then what does that suggest about the ability of public health to inoculate the at-risk populace who doesn't work for companies like these?
I feel like I have been a little too blog pimpy around these parts lately, so I have honestly been deciding not to more often than you might imagine... but after a life of writing, it's really hard for me not to refer to something I've written that I think might add to the conversation...!
Like, stuff I've written about bigotry, and the gay community (see earlier thread).
But the Open Thread feels like a less inappropriate place for such things, so I've decided to go ahead, but to do so here, rather than there:
Argh! I have just realized that the Steeler game this Monday evening is going to be on ESPN and I don't have the cable!! Do they live stream games on their website, or will i have to take a Valium to remain calm while my Stillers are playing on an inaccessible cable channel? (Small kids; can't go out to bar to watch).
Have you got a neighbor with cable? Can you get a babysitter and go to a bar? I sympathize because my husband got cable specifically so he will never miss a Steeler's game.
Have you ever tried to look around the internet for webstreams of NFL games? I'm not, of course, suggesting you break any laws (wink & nudge). But I hear that sometimes you can find stuff on the internet.
Are you in Pittsburg? I know at one time, the NFL had a rule that if a game is on cable, the home market could have a non cable channel carry the game. Not sure if the rule is still in effect and of course, if you aren't in Pittsburg, it wouldn't matter.
I am in Pittsburgh, and will scan the non-cable channels. Hopefully it will be there!
I'd love to get a baby sitter and go out like in the "old days", but frankly, part of watching an 8:30 pm football game for me is falling asleep in my chair and waking up when my husband yells about the good plays. I don;t have the chops to stay out at the bar until midnight anymore (esp on a "school night"). Ahh, those were the days, my friend........
I tried to transcribe this from the video, but I know there are errors, the following is a poem, a bit of spoken word, by poet Lizz Straight, who lives in Tampa. Here is a link to the video in which the woman really slams it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LA0s2GjnEg
“Timber”
Lizz Straight
We
are wordsmiths,
pulling shooting stars from blackness
we do not own.
Placing them on
our overworked tongues,
we
spit truth, you see,
grant wishes to freedom seeking souls,
filling their holes
whether they be from bullets
or a prolonged belief in bullshit.
See, women like we
are a rarity.
Shit get rough for socially degraded deities,
still be diamonds nonetheless, then.
Granting lyrical liberation may be the only gift we have left, then.
So many have left
this world
too soon
headed for the next,
lavender wrapped,
with daggers strapped to their backs,
cause even in death, the fighting over. Fuck what
Christianity told us; ain’t no
gender requirements for soldiers.
We are
wond’rous warrior women,
expected to die these humble deaths,
drowned in wine,
left with the stench of pity on our breaths,
husbands to our right,
children to our left,
tuned to a spirit long before
bodies was laid to rest.
Reality silenced the tempest
that sat in the pit
of these
Sequoia trees
of feminity
with poems suffocating behind their lips,
blue now,
unable to whisper.
I wanted to kiss her,
but they say,
“Death is contagious.”
Said “good-bye” to their good fights,
for they lived tougher than God made us.
Fill their mouths with hematite;
place hands over ears
to block the sounds of “settling for
less, waiting to be blessed by more, waiting for Jehovah.”
Had a feeling He’d fuck us ovah,
so part of us journeyed toward
the wayward way of words.
At first just wanted to be heard,
but tongues get tattered over time.
Bags sag under eyes and
sorrow soaks between thighs, and
so many enemies it will please
if we believe that it had to be this way,
that there’s
no s/hero pose for dying.
Even a whore gives up her strut one day
when there ain’t nobody buying, but
instead we choose to bend the rules
and wipe the dirt up off our knees,
swallowing atrocities,
prophesizing poetries,
turning tricks through limericks
laced with
rhyme scheme or lack thereof,
we are willingly taken advantage of.
So use us till you use us up;
lay us down; get a piece
if it will give our people peace.
We will silence insanity
just to
get by.
Too many internal flames to fight;
can’t keep paying for melted mikes;
so we pour libations, chant our pain,
reproduce the root of truth,
sacrifice ourselves
to save you,
sing songs or soliloquies
to celebrate our existence
in the here
and now
and this
is how
we are able to live:
as wordsmiths.
And if we do not write,
we will tapdance to tunes so sickly similar
that one by one
we’ll die the same way all old women do:
wrinkled up and worthless with no purpose
but to prepare Sunday dinner
and remember the flame that once lived in her.
We meet in the forest under full moons
replenishing, remembering,
wiping wet memories from eyelashes,
the product of crashes
from the
same men who caressed our asses
like it was
the only form of communication
that we knew
how to communicate through.
We soothed wounds to the tune
of oh-shoon’s* croon.
The antidote for missile sedatives
is beget within our sweat,
thick like sap
dripping from our foreheads,
wrapped in cloth
colorful and hand-woven.
We shed all emotional clothing,
worship priceless vessels,
and like a tree trunk’s rings,
it is only after the cutting down
that you can truly be amazed by our majesty,
Late today, but, since Ta-Nehisi's colleague doesn't allow comments, I'm going to say this here: Fallows is full of crap. "Shootings are always meaningless"? Still can't figure out a motive for this one, James?
Do you know what the motive was? I haven't spent much time with the news and the last I heard, the motive was not known.
I mean "known," not your theory.
I don't think he's so full of crap. His examples of previous shootings... I remember nearly all of them. And in retrospect, nothing really explains them adequately.
I don't think he means "meaningless" in the sense of not important. Just lacking the kind of satisfying, explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing.
I think that's good - do we really want it to be explainable why someone would open fire on a bunch of people?
Looking in the Times briefly, I see the guy was a religious muslim and so I suppose you could say he was angry about the wars, and didn't want to be a part of them, and hated the army for being about to send him over there. But that doesn't explain it. There have been plenty of soldiers who didn't want to fight for all sorts of reasons, including, I'm sure, so Islamic ones more recently. But they didn't shoot up an army base.
I just see that leap from grievance (legit or not) to the actual act of mass murder as never truly explainable. Just either "evil" or "mentally ill" or both.
And always beyond horrible for the victims and their loved ones and colleagues and everyone else.
I agree, this case is interesting because it blurs the line between insanity and terrorism, which is already blurry to begin with. Can a suicide bomber ever be rational?
David Cullen's "Columbine" is relevant here because one of the things he talks about is how all of the rumors to come out in the early days were debunked. It had nothing to do with the Trenchcoat Mafia, or Hitler's birthday, the perpatrators weren't unpopular or bullied. Klebold was a depressive, and Harris was a psychopath.
Is Nidal Malik Hasan insane? Is he a terrorist? Is there a difference, is it a distinction worth making? I think I'll wait to decide.
That said, I think liberals could be so sensitive to NOT seeing terrorism that they could blind themselves to the obvious truth in this instance. I'm surprised the military isn't more sensitive to this sort of thing. How'd they miss the warning signs?
I'm waiting on judging the warning signs because, as with Columbine and Hitler's birthday and all, some of them seem way too pat. This guy supposedly passed psych screening a few months ago; also, I have trouble believing the military actually treats constantly sounding off about jihad as just free speech and no cause for concern. I'm willing to be proved wrong--maybe he all but taped a sign to his chest and this will be the case that tips the military's inability to deal with crazed psychopaths into the open--but right now I'm leaning toward rapid response urban legend for a lot of it. We've seen plenty of recent cases where the telling details tossed out on day 1 of the news cycle turned out to be wholly illusory a day or week later.
I don't think he means "meaningless" in the sense of not important. Just lacking the kind of satisfying, explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing.
I agree. I've been netflixing Numb3rs (FBI serial) and the notable difference between the crimes of the week investigated there, and the similar real-life crimes, is that these crimes all have a satisfying round up. The thrill shooter wasn't really random. The kid who shot up the school was egged on by a girl who wanted revenge for her rape. The guy who shot up the FBI office was part of a larger plot which they will defeat in a satisfying, bad guy punishing manner. The random violent crimes all have logical backgrounds we can get at through math. As tv it's very satisfying because, as you say, there's "an explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing." The real Columbine and PA school killings do not.
This. In Vermont there was a particularly nasty killing some years back-- two college professors were killed by teenagers looking, they claimed, for the couple's ATM number. It got increasingly clear they killed the two for pretty much the hell of it-- it looked like another Harris/Kliebold, where one kid was just a sociopath and dragged the other in.
I sure don't know the motive, outside of the pre-written "If he's muslim it means this, if he's black it means this, if he's white trash it means this but if white from the right side of the tracks it means this, if he's Asian it means this" that are preformed and ready to be slapped on.
This was addressed in some of the comments to Zengerle's dissent at TNR: What did the Columbine massacre mean? What did the assassination of JFK mean? What did that massacre at the little school in Pennsylvania mean? In terms of telling you something about "those people" and "what the times we live in are driving those people to do", not much. Contra Zengerle, knowing that Kennedy's assassin had spent some time in the USSR does not shine a special light on his actions and make them comprehensible and meaningful.
If he meant it as a political act a la Oklahoma City, then it might mean something in terms of the overall zeitgist or in terms of people "like him." But so far we don't know that. And pasting on preformed narratives does not actually inform us of diddly.
Right now we don't know much, unless you take seriously the various conspiracy theories and "why I heard that he was always talking about killing everyone in sight as part of a jihad" third hand pass-ons. But barring co-conspirators from Al Qaeda, presently absent, this is one guy going nuts and attempting to commit suicide by MP, not an organized attempt at terror. Perhaps he will claim political motivation and be put in the category of those gunning down abortion doctors and otherwise trying to get a movement going, but we don't know that.
Virginia Tech? Been a wreck
since Richard Speck shot down
7 nurses in Chi town, way back
in the day, the way that UT-Texas sniper fire
showered down his power in a rain of bullets
or Sacto school kids were all undid by an ak
47; Muhammed in slow mo,
McVeigh in one blow, Dahmer, middle class
suicide bombers, say you know the motive;
politico, religio, or socio
pathetic, an emetic; I'm dyslexic
at the reality, another votive for humanity. Insanity--
one day it's Fort Hood, a psychiatrist; why it is
you tell me the Luby Massacre if you want to
pass a scare
just a hair
down the block
that one in 91
with the Ruger and the Glock
who clocked 23 and shot 20 more
before he bought the store himself;
and no one wants to talk about it but
one day later, Orlando, Fla's a murder
incubator, eight more, a score of
copy cat and crazy? Maybe
it's lazy for me to say so
on a planet bent for slaughter,
what ought to be just isn't
but used to be it was
Columbine a flower
a presence and a power
I'd grow in my garden.
You heard the gun nuts say that if more people had guns, Columbine and Virginia Tech wouldn't have happened. Will they finally shut the hell up now? This happened on a MILITARY BASE. Yet he was able to kill 13 people.
No, unfortunately, they'll just call for service members to be allowed to carry at all times on base as well as off. I believe that service members are not allowed to just carry weapons while on base, except MPs.
The fact that you would use this tragedy to push your misguided gun control argument is sickening. What makes it worse is your ignorance of the actual policies of a military base such as Ft. Hood. Contrary to what you might believe, the vast majority of soldiers while on base are forbidden, by policy, from carrying firearms. Firearms can only be accessed if they are signed out from the armory, where they are kept secured unless they are needed for training or security work. The only soldiers actually armed are MP's and soldiers who are training.
Because the soldiers were unarmed. They were sitting ducks. It's the same as it was when I was in the Army Reserve. If those soldiers were armed, no way, Dr. Jihad kills 13 of them and wounds another 30 or whatever.
When he says: "Nobody'll dare say to me, 'eat in the kitchen,' then" i sense a tension, a potential for violence - what's going to happen when he sits at the table? but then he adds, "beside, they'll see how beautiful i am and be ashamed." perfect. just perfect. releases the tension, and takes something about pride into something more transcendent.
and to dare speak directly to the great walt whitman, which i recall is what hughes was doing, is so audacious, proud. to Whitman's, "I hear America singing" and his list of Americans, Hughes says, "I, too, am America." Tingles...
Nigger
Can you kill
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill
Can a nigger kill a honkie
Can a nigger kill the Man
Can you kill nigger
Huh? nigger can you
kill
Do you know how to draw blood
Can you poison
Can you stab-a-Jew
Can you kill huh? nigger
Can you kill
Can you run a protestant down with your
'68 El Dorado
(that's all they're good for anyway)
Can you kill
Can you piss on a blond head
Can you cut it off
Can you kill
A nigger can die
We ain't got to prove we can die
We got to prove we can kill
They sent us to kill
Japan and Africa
We policed europe
Can you kill
Can you kill a white man
Can you kill the nigger
in you
Can you make your nigger mind
die
Can you kill your nigger mind
And free your black hands to
strangle
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill
Can you shoot straight and
Fire for good measure
Can you splatter their brains in the street
Can you kill them
Can you lure them to bed to kill them
We kill in Viet Nam
for them
We kill for UN & NATO & SEATO & US
And everywhere for all alphabet but
BLACK
Can we learn to kill WHITE for BLACK
Learn to kill niggers
Learn to be Black men
DinH this seems to be more your "thing":
Once upon a time there were three billy goats, who were to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was "Gruff."
On the way up was a bridge over a cascading stream they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly troll , with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.
So first of all came the youngest Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge.
"Trip, trap, trip, trap! " went the bridge.
"Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll .
"Oh, it is only I, the tiniest Billy Goat Gruff , and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, with such a small voice.
"Now, I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll.
"Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am," said the billy goat. "Wait a bit till the second Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger."
"Well, be off with you," said the troll.
A little while after came the second Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge.
Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap, went the bridge.
"Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll.
"Oh, it's the second Billy Goat Gruff , and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, who hadn't such a small voice.
"Now I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll.
"Oh, no! Don't take me. Wait a little till the big Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger."
"Very well! Be off with you," said the troll.
But just then up came the big Billy Goat Gruff .
Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap! went the bridge, for the billy goat was so heavy that the bridge creaked and groaned under him.
"Who's that tramping over my bridge?" roared the troll.
"It's I! The big Billy Goat Gruff ," said the billy goat, who had an ugly hoarse voice of his own.
"Now I 'm coming to gobble you up," roared the troll.
Well, come along! I've got two spears,
And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears;
I've got besides two curling-stones,
And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones.
That was what the big billy goat said. And then he flew at the troll, and poked his eyes out with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and bones, and tossed him out into the cascade, and after that he went up to the hillside. There the billy goats got so fat they were scarcely able to walk home again. And if the fat hasn't fallen off them, why, they're still fat; and so,
Oh and I know it's already been said a million times but my thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers at Fort Hood.
I imagine the chaplains and the FRG will be working overtime. I hope everything is done for those affected.
The guys in green need your prayers tonight. It's one thing to come home in a box, but to be at home and placed in a box that really sucks. It always hurts when you loose a soldier, and it hurts the other soldiers in the unit just as hard as it does the family members. After a while there's a bond that develops between people in a unit. After Stephen Speilberg it may be cliche to use the term "band of brothers" when really its more like a marriage, but still soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, they have a special relationship to one another. Bill Mauldin used to call it the club of "them what's been shot at," but it goes beyond that. There exists between every servicemember an unspoken assumption that the guy on your left has your back even if he hates you. Yesterday, that trust was broken.
I hope everything works out o.k. for the guys involved.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
For the Union Dead
by Robert Lowell
"Relinquunt Omnia Servare Rem Publicam."
The old South Boston Aquarium stands
in a Sahara of snow now. Its broken windows are boarded.
The bronze weathervane cod has lost half its scales.
The airy tanks are dry.
Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.
My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized
fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.
Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,
shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage's earthquake.
Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.
Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city's throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.
He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound's gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.
He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man's lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die--
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.
On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year--
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .
Shaw's father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son's body was thrown
and lost with his "niggers."
The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling
over a Mosler Safe, the "Rock of Ages"
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.
Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.
The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.
Tangentially, Slate had a nice slide show the other day on Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who sculpted the Shaw memorial. He was one of the few sculptors of the day who used real African-American men as models, IIRC. He certainly treated all the soldiers in that monument with a tremendous amount of respect.
very nice, maya lin has just finished her own memorial series:
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/11/maya-lins-last-memorial
It's hard to believe the Vietnam Wall was controversial now.
yep, there was no real arguing with the results over time. I always like the idea that the best "criticism" of a work that you think missed the mark is to create/offer a better work in return.
there is an excellent set of poetry/photo essays on the "Women of Troy" over at this week's Studio 360, and a story of a man who has shaped his life, and name, after Optimus Prime.
If he's done, Edge James isn't a hall-of-famer, is he? Good career yardage stats, but he didn't do it long enough, he was never the best back in the league according to most people (and only among the best three for a year or two, I'd say), was never the key to his offense, and never won a ring.
Agreed. Terrell Davis was better than Edge at his peak and has two rings and I've never heard much of a clamor for him to be in.
So, I did not make the drive to my friend's place to watch RHOA. Should I have? I heard Kim's "performance" of Tardy for the Party on the radio, if that's any indication I didn't miss much....
Oh she was awful and she dances worse than Mariah Carey.
Kandi's performance wasn't bad but the reunion was a snoozer. I am however looking forward to my OC girls. Vicki is exactly who I thought she was--a bitch.
Oh yeah, Vicki and Tamra formed an unholy union last season - catty and vicious. Was the OC premiere last night? Anything good happen. Not having cable is bittersweet, I get more things done but I miss out on my guilty pleasures.
I think it is going to be a good season although Jeana is leaving because she is broke and actually has to work now. Jeana was my favorite cast member because she seemed the most "real." Apparently Jeana asked Vicki for a loan and Vicki told her no and they are no longer speaking. Surprise surprise.
Jeana was as credible a simulation of a human being as you're gonna get from these shows. With the housing market being what it is I'm not surprised she's strapped. Although, I'm sure broke in their world means something completely different from broke in the real world.
Links don't work over on the politics channel, so I'll just toss out here: What happened in Tuesday's elections that would give Paterson confidence in running for a new term? Unless he thinks there's a chance that the GOP will put in Palin or Beck against him, in which case he'd be a shoe-in if he somehow made it to the general.
Oh Deb, this is about revenge for Bill Thompson. The WH didn't support Thompson and he lost by only five points. Thompson and Paterson are from the same Harlem crew from what I have heard and this is a big FU to the WH for not only trying to force Paterson out but not supporting Thompson in what could have been a winnable race against Bloomberg.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised about what I read in the NY Times after Bloomberg's victory. Apparently his aides and campaign knew full well how close the race actually was, but were determined to make it seem like it would be a blow out so that Thompson wouldn't get a surge of support from the WH or other prominent democrats. This is what I suspected all along. I knew there was no way Thompson was done by 20%, especially considering the fact that most people just didn't vote.
I guess it's all a case of coulda woulda shoulda now but I bet Bloomberg his thanking his lucky stars the polling wasn't more accurate.
Juan Williams writes in the WSJ today about rapid rise of "ghetto lit" from which the movie "Precious" was adapted. He's not happy with what black people are writing for each other to read.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574514260044271666.html
"The black imagination as revealed in gangster lit is centered on the world of drug dealers— "dough boys" who are heavy with drug money—and the get-rich-quick rappers and athletes who mimic the druggie lifestyle. And there are lots of "ghetto-fabulous" women, referring to themselves as bitches, carrying brand-name handbags and wearing big, gaudy jewelry. Attitude and anger are everything. The dispiriting word "nigger" is used freely by black characters talking about one another. There are guns and drive-by murders; hot sex that emphasizes the pleasure of getting it on with no strings attached; women without husbands and children without fathers; people who brag about being street-smart and then drop out of school and find themselves unemployed.
Much as rap music—also fascinated with predatory sex, anger and violence—has displaced jazz or soul singers on the black music charts, gangster lit now overshadows the common late 20th-century theme of black middle-class striving. As one black journalist, Nick Chiles, told an interviewer: "This phenomenon is like a weed that takes over the whole garden." Any story celebrating the beauty and strength of black family life, the power of education, and the desire to succeed in the workplace and in business—think "The Cosby Show" or Stephen Carter's mysteries set among the black bourgeoisie—is now out of fashion."
Williams' critique seems closed minded to me - both about literature's place in the world as well as the condescension he seems to demonstrate towards those who enjoy pulp. But does he have a point at all? Is there anything in his essay that's worth the time to ponder?
I'm kind of surprised there even exists a gangster lit category; shouldn't Juan be thrilled at this evidence that would-be gangsters like reading? But if it does exist then I would point to the survival of women despite the worst the romance genre could throw at them for decades. Women appear quite capable of escaping into a sexually explicit take on the Cinderella story and then executing corporate takeovers.
Negro, please.
Juan Williams has been railing against rap music for god knows how long and it is tiresome. I found his critique condescending and delusional. Was this supposed to be a critique of "Precious" or a "What's STILL wrong with black folks" post by him? He completely misses the point of "Precious" and those promoting it to bring to light the very real issue of abuse in black households.
I am not going to say much more because I will be left with regrets, but Juan Williams can kiss my black behind.
When Their Eyes Were Watching God was first published, well, Wikipedia has quotes. Suffice to say the criticism seems awfully familiar.
I've never understood the impulse that literature has to do only one thing; that it has to be uplifting or it's worthless, that it has to reflect the true (usually miserable) lives of people or it's unrealistic. Fiction goes through trends, as it always has-- how many Young Adult vampire books are out there on the shelves right now, again?-- and complaining about a trend, however much you don't like it, seems right up there with bitching about the weather.
I read what Amazon would let me read of Kwan's Gangsta, and I doubt it has much in common with "Their Eyes Were Watching God." It was not a good book. It might have a good story, but the writing was pretty bad.
The problem I have with Williams' piece is its venue and it's "Gah, can you believe what blacks are reading!" subtext. "Why are they reading this pulp fiction when they should be pulling themselves up by their bootstraps!" That's an unfair and unrealistic standard to hold anybody to. Somebody is reading those books with Fabio on the cover.
One could make this argument outside of race, as Harold Bloom frequently did against Harry Potter. I'm sympathetic to that in theory, I wish more people would read Phillip Roth than Dan Brown, but to each his own. Literature isn't for everybody.
Just throwing this out there, are there any writers I'm sleeping on that are writing about the city for those of us who prefer James Baldwin to Vickie Stringer? I'm running out of leads as far as anything coming out now.
Well, 90% of everything published is crap, so.
Literature isn't for everybody.
And not everything published as 'literature' is of value. I didn't go checking out Gangsta, but I'll take your word that it's crap-- but back in the day, Robert Southey was Poet Laureate of England, and now he's generally remembered as the butt of Lord Byron's jokes.
A lot of my reading is for pleasure so I typically don't go after literature that much. I also do a lot of reading when I'm traveling so I need something that's a light read that I can stay at for hours at a time which is easier to do with Dan Brown book than literature. I also end up buying a lot of books at the Salvation Army, so they typically have the more popular style books.
I guess what I'm saying is literature may not be for me. I should give it a better shot, which is one of the reasons I want a Kindle or Nook. I'm also kind of lazy when it comes to reading, and I have a weakness for fantasy books which there are a ton of. At least if I have easier/cheaper access to those books, I might be more willing to give them a try. Especially the books in the public domain which are free/very cheap.
You can check out books from the library for free. No need to purchase a kindle.
Libraries are awesome. I used to buy books from Amazon that I thought looked interesting and I never read them. Now I've gone the opposite way: If I can't get it in a library, I don't read it because when I get it from Amazon, I've started reading something else in the meantime. Two cheers for libraries and used book sales!
Regarding popular fiction vs. literature, I think it's all relative. I still haven't read Anna Karenina. I'm not on the train to work with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
But I do get more out of Phillip Roth and Cormac McCarthy or Milan Kundera than Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and Jonathan Kellerman. The former aren't that much harder to read, and I think they give me a lot more to contemplate. I've learned to like novels with themes and ideas, not just plots. And I love picking them apart with my wife.
Oh Juan can fuck off. I read what I want to read and each book serves a different purpose - from escape to edification. "Gangsta-lit"? Really?? Why on earth would FICTION be the measuring stick for the progress of black america???
Oh, right. Because the Cosby's are the Real Black America.
Oh, right. Because the Cosby's are the Real Black America.
This is the problem and one of the many reasons I cannot stand Juan Williams. So what if the "working class overweight security guard" as Williams describes the woman is reading "gansta-lit?" I thought we wanted people to read more? Is she bothering anyone? Two things Juan should be proud of--the woman has a job and she is reading.
Not everyone can write in the Wall Street Journal but it doesn't mean they deserve to be spit on by the likes of Juan Williams. I'm tired of this crap.
It does strike me that judging by book shelves in grocery stores and at airports a wide swath of white America, not to mention Europe, is fascinated by serial killer lit these days.
It kinda creeps me out a bit. On tv, too. Isn't there a show on CBS that is all about cops finding a different serial killer each week?
I saw a woman reading the book that the movie "Precious" is based upon (according to the book's back cover) on the train yesterday. I admit I read a few words over her shoulder. It seems to be written in the first person from the character Precious's point of view, in 'unlettered'/slang, sort of like Huck Finn's dialogue in that book or like the Russified English that the novel "A Clockwork Orange" is written in. Is that what most 'thug lit' or whatever is like? I have gotten brief glimpses at some of those - they're popular here in NYC and there are subway ads for the latest, I think - and I think they are written slangily (not a word, is it..) but not in imitation 'unlettered' style. Seems like a good opportunity for creativity to me.
They're stories. People are telling different stories to each other in these books. Juan Williams may not like the story, the underlying value system being communicated by the story, etc., but he's got to understand that it's just people telling stories.
A couple of years ago, a guy named Justin Lin wrote and directed a movie ("Better Luck Tomorrow") about seemingly normal Asian-American kids stealing, doing drugs, paying for sex, shooting off guns, and eventually killing someone. At Sundance, a couple of people in the audience lamented the fact that with the platform that Justin had to make a movie, he chose to show these awful Asian-Americans doing awful things. From the back of the room in this Q&A, Roger Ebert roared in fury, "these people have the right to tell whatever story that they want to tell! They don't have to represent the entirety of the Asian experience in America. You would never make that kind of comment to a white filmmaker!" (or something to that effect).
Let people tell their stories. However wild and crazy and sick they may seem.
That's a really excellent movie, too. John Cho (of Flash Forward, Harold & Kumar, and Star Trek) has a side role and everyone's really good.
The odyssey taken by popular African dance music in reaching European and American audiences has been circuitous and often relates more to the vagaries of the music industry and our own provincial tastes. Very little music has ever reached our shores from the small African nation, Benin, formerly Dahomey (the historical Benin Empire, famous for its sculture, actually is located in contemporary Nigeria). In the US, we are familiar with Anjelique Kidjo, who really performs a kind of homogenized pan African style. Less known is the late Gnonnas Pedro who was part of the original Africando, a recording band made up of African singers and New York city salsa musicians.
In recent years, a performing and recording band from the 70s and 80s, Orchestre T.P. Polyrhythmo de Cotonou, has become the darling of Euro djs. As recently as a year or so ago, vinyl put out by the band was garnering $300+ bids on e-bay. They were a verstatile band who could play their brand of psychadelic funk (for which they are most prized), their brand of West Afican salsa, or Congolese rumba with equal aplomb, grounding their whole sound with traditional Vodoun rhythms. They have a huge recorded discography, but aside from a few cd compilations, the best of which is The Kings of Benin Urban Groove on the Soundway label, very little is accessible to the average listener on a limited budget.
In the past four years, German dj Samy Ben Redjeb at Analog Africa has put together several collections of Beninese dance music from that era, and next week Africa Analog will release a new comp of music by TP Polyrhythmo, a band that probably has at this moment the most legendary status among underground African music fanatics. With the band's assistance and consultation, Africa Analog has culled 14 songs from 500 of the band's best recorded songs. In addition, all the cd compilations produced by Analog Africa are accompanied by rigorously documented booklets with interview material, discographies, and photographs. They are a little pricy, but are value rich, even at their prices.
Here is a link to Africa Analog's myspace site. It has 3 songs from the Polyrhythmo recording on the juke box plus a vid of the group on a song that was on one of Africa Analog's earlier compilations: http://www.myspace.com/analogafrica.
"Drums, bells and horns are the fundamental instruments used during our traditional Vodoun rituals - we added guitars and Organs - we modernised those ancients rhythms and combined them with western genres that were on vogue at that time".
Melome Clement - Founder of Orchestre of Poly-Rythmo
that's "fusion" (is there really any other kind of music?)at its best, and their blogspot is quite informative. to me the epochal genius of hip-hop was in the sampling/mixing and i say bring on the mashed-up world...
Thank you thank you... listening now to these guys on myspace. Wonderful stuff.
Here is a link asking for help with superhero themed songs which could some T-NC family help: http://ask.metafilter.com/137035/Leave-The-Mask-On
This weekend is it. Chelsea. United. Top 2 teams in the Premiership, history of bad blood. It's on Sunday at 11am on Fox Soccer and thousands of streams on the internet. If you have any interest in checking out the Premiership, this is the one to watch.
3-1 Chelsea.
Drogba, Rooney, Drogba, Lampard
Also, on the subject of my cold, thanks for the advice. The thing that really knocked it out were the Odwalla C-Monster drinks. Each bottle contains 2000% of daily vitamin C intake. The poor cold never stood a chance. Either that, or it just went away on its own.
I'm surprised that no one has commented on the distribution of H1N1 vaccine to select companies in the NYC area for distribution to their at-risk employees.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jemnWB5veRnM9evI2vqkMks9HwkwD9BPM93G0
If it is, as the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokesperson said, a great way to distribute the vaccine then what does that suggest about the ability of public health to inoculate the at-risk populace who doesn't work for companies like these?
see yesterday's open thread..
I feel like I have been a little too blog pimpy around these parts lately, so I have honestly been deciding not to more often than you might imagine... but after a life of writing, it's really hard for me not to refer to something I've written that I think might add to the conversation...!
Like, stuff I've written about bigotry, and the gay community (see earlier thread).
But the Open Thread feels like a less inappropriate place for such things, so I've decided to go ahead, but to do so here, rather than there:
1) an op/ed I wrote for the Chicago Tribune awhile ago about what I feel stands at the core of most homophobia, and how it hurts those on the receiving end: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/not-who-you-love-but-how/
and 2) some anti-DADT blog ranting in which I discuss at further length the homophobia trajectory that I referred to on the earlier post: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/do-tell/
Aside from anything else, you guys are such a great, smart commenting community -- I love to have you occasionally wandering over my way, too!
Argh! I have just realized that the Steeler game this Monday evening is going to be on ESPN and I don't have the cable!! Do they live stream games on their website, or will i have to take a Valium to remain calm while my Stillers are playing on an inaccessible cable channel? (Small kids; can't go out to bar to watch).
Have you got a neighbor with cable? Can you get a babysitter and go to a bar? I sympathize because my husband got cable specifically so he will never miss a Steeler's game.
Have you ever tried to look around the internet for webstreams of NFL games? I'm not, of course, suggesting you break any laws (wink & nudge). But I hear that sometimes you can find stuff on the internet.
Are you in Pittsburg? I know at one time, the NFL had a rule that if a game is on cable, the home market could have a non cable channel carry the game. Not sure if the rule is still in effect and of course, if you aren't in Pittsburg, it wouldn't matter.
I am in Pittsburgh, and will scan the non-cable channels. Hopefully it will be there!
I'd love to get a baby sitter and go out like in the "old days", but frankly, part of watching an 8:30 pm football game for me is falling asleep in my chair and waking up when my husband yells about the good plays. I don;t have the chops to stay out at the bar until midnight anymore (esp on a "school night"). Ahh, those were the days, my friend........
I went out for the first MNF games this season, and it hit me hard the next day. I'm not sure I have seen the end of a MNF game this season.
I tried to transcribe this from the video, but I know there are errors, the following is a poem, a bit of spoken word, by poet Lizz Straight, who lives in Tampa. Here is a link to the video in which the woman really slams it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LA0s2GjnEg
“Timber”
Lizz Straight
We
are wordsmiths,
pulling shooting stars from blackness
we do not own.
Placing them on
our overworked tongues,
we
spit truth, you see,
grant wishes to freedom seeking souls,
filling their holes
whether they be from bullets
or a prolonged belief in bullshit.
See, women like we
are a rarity.
Shit get rough for socially degraded deities,
still be diamonds nonetheless, then.
Granting lyrical liberation may be the only gift we have left, then.
So many have left
this world
too soon
headed for the next,
lavender wrapped,
with daggers strapped to their backs,
cause even in death, the fighting over. Fuck what
Christianity told us; ain’t no
gender requirements for soldiers.
We are
wond’rous warrior women,
expected to die these humble deaths,
drowned in wine,
left with the stench of pity on our breaths,
husbands to our right,
children to our left,
tuned to a spirit long before
bodies was laid to rest.
Reality silenced the tempest
that sat in the pit
of these
Sequoia trees
of feminity
with poems suffocating behind their lips,
blue now,
unable to whisper.
I wanted to kiss her,
but they say,
“Death is contagious.”
Said “good-bye” to their good fights,
for they lived tougher than God made us.
Fill their mouths with hematite;
place hands over ears
to block the sounds of “settling for
less, waiting to be blessed by more, waiting for Jehovah.”
Had a feeling He’d fuck us ovah,
so part of us journeyed toward
the wayward way of words.
At first just wanted to be heard,
but tongues get tattered over time.
Bags sag under eyes and
sorrow soaks between thighs, and
so many enemies it will please
if we believe that it had to be this way,
that there’s
no s/hero pose for dying.
Even a whore gives up her strut one day
when there ain’t nobody buying, but
instead we choose to bend the rules
and wipe the dirt up off our knees,
swallowing atrocities,
prophesizing poetries,
turning tricks through limericks
laced with
rhyme scheme or lack thereof,
we are willingly taken advantage of.
So use us till you use us up;
lay us down; get a piece
if it will give our people peace.
We will silence insanity
just to
get by.
Too many internal flames to fight;
can’t keep paying for melted mikes;
so we pour libations, chant our pain,
reproduce the root of truth,
sacrifice ourselves
to save you,
sing songs or soliloquies
to celebrate our existence
in the here
and now
and this
is how
we are able to live:
as wordsmiths.
And if we do not write,
we will tapdance to tunes so sickly similar
that one by one
we’ll die the same way all old women do:
wrinkled up and worthless with no purpose
but to prepare Sunday dinner
and remember the flame that once lived in her.
We meet in the forest under full moons
replenishing, remembering,
wiping wet memories from eyelashes,
the product of crashes
from the
same men who caressed our asses
like it was
the only form of communication
that we knew
how to communicate through.
We soothed wounds to the tune
of oh-shoon’s* croon.
The antidote for missile sedatives
is beget within our sweat,
thick like sap
dripping from our foreheads,
wrapped in cloth
colorful and hand-woven.
We shed all emotional clothing,
worship priceless vessels,
and like a tree trunk’s rings,
it is only after the cutting down
that you can truly be amazed by our majesty,
so masterfully,
we write.
* ocean’s
Late today, but, since Ta-Nehisi's colleague doesn't allow comments, I'm going to say this here: Fallows is full of crap. "Shootings are always meaningless"? Still can't figure out a motive for this one, James?
Do you know what the motive was? I haven't spent much time with the news and the last I heard, the motive was not known.
I mean "known," not your theory.
I don't think he's so full of crap. His examples of previous shootings... I remember nearly all of them. And in retrospect, nothing really explains them adequately.
I don't think he means "meaningless" in the sense of not important. Just lacking the kind of satisfying, explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing.
I think that's good - do we really want it to be explainable why someone would open fire on a bunch of people?
Looking in the Times briefly, I see the guy was a religious muslim and so I suppose you could say he was angry about the wars, and didn't want to be a part of them, and hated the army for being about to send him over there. But that doesn't explain it. There have been plenty of soldiers who didn't want to fight for all sorts of reasons, including, I'm sure, so Islamic ones more recently. But they didn't shoot up an army base.
I just see that leap from grievance (legit or not) to the actual act of mass murder as never truly explainable. Just either "evil" or "mentally ill" or both.
And always beyond horrible for the victims and their loved ones and colleagues and everyone else.
I agree, this case is interesting because it blurs the line between insanity and terrorism, which is already blurry to begin with. Can a suicide bomber ever be rational?
David Cullen's "Columbine" is relevant here because one of the things he talks about is how all of the rumors to come out in the early days were debunked. It had nothing to do with the Trenchcoat Mafia, or Hitler's birthday, the perpatrators weren't unpopular or bullied. Klebold was a depressive, and Harris was a psychopath.
Is Nidal Malik Hasan insane? Is he a terrorist? Is there a difference, is it a distinction worth making? I think I'll wait to decide.
That said, I think liberals could be so sensitive to NOT seeing terrorism that they could blind themselves to the obvious truth in this instance. I'm surprised the military isn't more sensitive to this sort of thing. How'd they miss the warning signs?
I'm waiting on judging the warning signs because, as with Columbine and Hitler's birthday and all, some of them seem way too pat. This guy supposedly passed psych screening a few months ago; also, I have trouble believing the military actually treats constantly sounding off about jihad as just free speech and no cause for concern. I'm willing to be proved wrong--maybe he all but taped a sign to his chest and this will be the case that tips the military's inability to deal with crazed psychopaths into the open--but right now I'm leaning toward rapid response urban legend for a lot of it. We've seen plenty of recent cases where the telling details tossed out on day 1 of the news cycle turned out to be wholly illusory a day or week later.
I don't think he means "meaningless" in the sense of not important. Just lacking the kind of satisfying, explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing.
I agree. I've been netflixing Numb3rs (FBI serial) and the notable difference between the crimes of the week investigated there, and the similar real-life crimes, is that these crimes all have a satisfying round up. The thrill shooter wasn't really random. The kid who shot up the school was egged on by a girl who wanted revenge for her rape. The guy who shot up the FBI office was part of a larger plot which they will defeat in a satisfying, bad guy punishing manner. The random violent crimes all have logical backgrounds we can get at through math. As tv it's very satisfying because, as you say, there's "an explanatory meaning that makes complete sense of the whole thing." The real Columbine and PA school killings do not.
This. In Vermont there was a particularly nasty killing some years back-- two college professors were killed by teenagers looking, they claimed, for the couple's ATM number. It got increasingly clear they killed the two for pretty much the hell of it-- it looked like another Harris/Kliebold, where one kid was just a sociopath and dragged the other in.
I sure don't know the motive, outside of the pre-written "If he's muslim it means this, if he's black it means this, if he's white trash it means this but if white from the right side of the tracks it means this, if he's Asian it means this" that are preformed and ready to be slapped on.
This was addressed in some of the comments to Zengerle's dissent at TNR: What did the Columbine massacre mean? What did the assassination of JFK mean? What did that massacre at the little school in Pennsylvania mean? In terms of telling you something about "those people" and "what the times we live in are driving those people to do", not much. Contra Zengerle, knowing that Kennedy's assassin had spent some time in the USSR does not shine a special light on his actions and make them comprehensible and meaningful.
If he meant it as a political act a la Oklahoma City, then it might mean something in terms of the overall zeitgist or in terms of people "like him." But so far we don't know that. And pasting on preformed narratives does not actually inform us of diddly.
Right now we don't know much, unless you take seriously the various conspiracy theories and "why I heard that he was always talking about killing everyone in sight as part of a jihad" third hand pass-ons. But barring co-conspirators from Al Qaeda, presently absent, this is one guy going nuts and attempting to commit suicide by MP, not an organized attempt at terror. Perhaps he will claim political motivation and be put in the category of those gunning down abortion doctors and otherwise trying to get a movement going, but we don't know that.
Virginia Tech? Been a wreck
since Richard Speck shot down
7 nurses in Chi town, way back
in the day, the way that UT-Texas sniper fire
showered down his power in a rain of bullets
or Sacto school kids were all undid by an ak
47; Muhammed in slow mo,
McVeigh in one blow, Dahmer, middle class
suicide bombers, say you know the motive;
politico, religio, or socio
pathetic, an emetic; I'm dyslexic
at the reality, another votive for humanity. Insanity--
one day it's Fort Hood, a psychiatrist; why it is
you tell me the Luby Massacre if you want to
pass a scare
just a hair
down the block
that one in 91
with the Ruger and the Glock
who clocked 23 and shot 20 more
before he bought the store himself;
and no one wants to talk about it but
one day later, Orlando, Fla's a murder
incubator, eight more, a score of
copy cat and crazy? Maybe
it's lazy for me to say so
on a planet bent for slaughter,
what ought to be just isn't
but used to be it was
Columbine a flower
a presence and a power
I'd grow in my garden.
About this Fort Hood thing:
You heard the gun nuts say that if more people had guns, Columbine and Virginia Tech wouldn't have happened. Will they finally shut the hell up now? This happened on a MILITARY BASE. Yet he was able to kill 13 people.
No, unfortunately, they'll just call for service members to be allowed to carry at all times on base as well as off. I believe that service members are not allowed to just carry weapons while on base, except MPs.
@pizzaeagle,
The fact that you would use this tragedy to push your misguided gun control argument is sickening. What makes it worse is your ignorance of the actual policies of a military base such as Ft. Hood. Contrary to what you might believe, the vast majority of soldiers while on base are forbidden, by policy, from carrying firearms. Firearms can only be accessed if they are signed out from the armory, where they are kept secured unless they are needed for training or security work. The only soldiers actually armed are MP's and soldiers who are training.
This. And very poor taste.
Because the soldiers were unarmed. They were sitting ducks. It's the same as it was when I was in the Army Reserve. If those soldiers were armed, no way, Dr. Jihad kills 13 of them and wounds another 30 or whatever.
I've been waiting to post this all week.
The voice of an earlier movement to those in Maine. Somehow this seems apropriate.
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
Gets me everytime.
Doesn't it though......
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
CHOICES
If i can't do
what i want to do
then my job is to not
do what i don't want
to do
It's not the same thing
but it's the best i can
do
If i can't have
what i want . . . then
my job is to want
what i've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want
Since i can't go
where i need
to go . . . then i must . . . go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral
When i can't express
what i really feel
i practice feeling
what i can express
and none of it is equal
I know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry
Written by Nikki Giovanni
When he says: "Nobody'll dare say to me, 'eat in the kitchen,' then" i sense a tension, a potential for violence - what's going to happen when he sits at the table? but then he adds, "beside, they'll see how beautiful i am and be ashamed." perfect. just perfect. releases the tension, and takes something about pride into something more transcendent.
and to dare speak directly to the great walt whitman, which i recall is what hughes was doing, is so audacious, proud. to Whitman's, "I hear America singing" and his list of Americans, Hughes says, "I, too, am America." Tingles...
Some more Nikki Giovanni:
Not exactly my thing.
DinH this seems to be more your "thing":
Once upon a time there were three billy goats, who were to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat, and the name of all three was "Gruff."
On the way up was a bridge over a cascading stream they had to cross; and under the bridge lived a great ugly troll , with eyes as big as saucers, and a nose as long as a poker.
So first of all came the youngest Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge.
"Trip, trap, trip, trap! " went the bridge.
"Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll .
"Oh, it is only I, the tiniest Billy Goat Gruff , and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, with such a small voice.
"Now, I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll.
"Oh, no! pray don't take me. I'm too little, that I am," said the billy goat. "Wait a bit till the second Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger."
"Well, be off with you," said the troll.
A little while after came the second Billy Goat Gruff to cross the bridge.
Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap, went the bridge.
"Who's that tripping over my bridge?" roared the troll.
"Oh, it's the second Billy Goat Gruff , and I'm going up to the hillside to make myself fat," said the billy goat, who hadn't such a small voice.
"Now I'm coming to gobble you up," said the troll.
"Oh, no! Don't take me. Wait a little till the big Billy Goat Gruff comes. He's much bigger."
"Very well! Be off with you," said the troll.
But just then up came the big Billy Goat Gruff .
Trip, trap, trip, trap, trip, trap! went the bridge, for the billy goat was so heavy that the bridge creaked and groaned under him.
"Who's that tramping over my bridge?" roared the troll.
"It's I! The big Billy Goat Gruff ," said the billy goat, who had an ugly hoarse voice of his own.
"Now I 'm coming to gobble you up," roared the troll.
Well, come along! I've got two spears,
And I'll poke your eyeballs out at your ears;
I've got besides two curling-stones,
And I'll crush you to bits, body and bones.
That was what the big billy goat said. And then he flew at the troll, and poked his eyes out with his horns, and crushed him to bits, body and bones, and tossed him out into the cascade, and after that he went up to the hillside. There the billy goats got so fat they were scarcely able to walk home again. And if the fat hasn't fallen off them, why, they're still fat; and so,
Snip, snap, snout.
This tale's told out.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With no disrespect intended to either party, I have to say that this is one of the better internet burns I have seen.
Thanks you guys.
Langston Hughes was so very, very good--sweetness. Thanks Sorn.
Oh and I know it's already been said a million times but my thoughts and prayers go out to the soldiers at Fort Hood.
I imagine the chaplains and the FRG will be working overtime. I hope everything is done for those affected.
The guys in green need your prayers tonight. It's one thing to come home in a box, but to be at home and placed in a box that really sucks. It always hurts when you loose a soldier, and it hurts the other soldiers in the unit just as hard as it does the family members. After a while there's a bond that develops between people in a unit. After Stephen Speilberg it may be cliche to use the term "band of brothers" when really its more like a marriage, but still soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, they have a special relationship to one another. Bill Mauldin used to call it the club of "them what's been shot at," but it goes beyond that. There exists between every servicemember an unspoken assumption that the guy on your left has your back even if he hates you. Yesterday, that trust was broken.
I hope everything works out o.k. for the guys involved.
This is great for anyone who hasn't seen it. The guys at the university of Chicago have come up with an Academic sentence generator.
http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/toys/randomsentence/write-sentence.htm