Cherry blossoms, I believe, but probably of an ornamental cherry tree, which means no cherries, just blossoms in spring. Neatness in fall when no cherries mess up the ground. Symbolic of many things--all show, no fruition. 

This one reminds me of a Japanese postcard. 

And the sun peering through the blossoms. All symbolic.

And below the blossoms, on the ground, these dainty little flowers. I like patterns like this. 

Springtime is picture time. A thousand pictures of blooms and leaves and nature. As I have said before, my favorite of Newton's Laws is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. All the blossoms, all the leaves, and everything, everything, winds down, wears out, gives out, and dies. 

 

Other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on Thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed, all my help from Thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of Thy wing.

 

 

Spring is here, then goes away for a few days, then comes back. I wanted to take some pictures of blooms and blossoms that I could be happy with,  but nobody was cooperating. The sun would go behind clouds, the wind would shake everything, the purple little blossoms on some kind of ornamental tree came and went too quickly, and on and on. So I took some pictures anyway. Too many to show to anybody.

 

So another spring to live through, and then some kind of summer to live through, and then on and on, but not for long. Nobody knows for how long. Vita brevis, ars longa… not necessarily. To every thing there is a season. A time to be born, a time to die. We were born when and where we were born as part of a precise plan. And we will die according to plan, on the day, in the way, that was set. That is, unless we do something stupid like bungee jumping and the rubber band breaks; or luging down a crowded street and a car runs us over; or playing Russian roulette; or a hundred other stupid things people do, chancing it, risking death for a thrill. You can cut your life short, but you can’t stretch it out for long. And to even do that you have to make a deal with God, who is in charge of all this. So I wonder: if you get some type of cancer, should you try to beat it, thinking, it’s only right to fight for longer life, and modern medicine is here to assist; or think, well I guess that’s my way, and it’ll soon be my time? I don’t know the answer.

 

In the meantime, I guess I had better quit wasting time and get back to grading a stack of final exams that’s a foot high. And then classes start up next week, and I should make some adjustments to my lectures. Oops, I just admitted I give lectures. I hope the EdD Stasi aren’t monitoring.

 

Do not think that we say that these things are only to be received by faith, but also that they are to be asserted by reason. For indeed it is not safe to commit these things to bare faith without reason, since assuredly truth cannot be without reason.

—Clement of Alexandria

 

Truth is reason. Truth is reasonable. The mysteries of God are not irrational. In fact, they are mysteries only to the willfully ignorant. But God delights in revealing truth to those who earn it, who qualify themselves for it. Use reason as a measure for truth, even in matters of godliness, and the truth is unfolded. The Mystery of the Trinity is not truth, because it has no reasonableness. The truth that the Prophet Joseph taught can be grasped by reasonable minds. Yes, take things on faith until you learn the truth of them by their reasonableness. Truth is reason; truth eternal tells me all the wonders of God.

 

Words, words, words. Words and swords, two-edged, sharp to divide asunder, words: the tools of creation (What? Did you think it was done with a shovel?) Catch a man at his word. Make words into weapons. A word can change so much: Moses with horns because a word was spelt with r instead of without. A word can mean so much—said iambic or said trochaic, changes the meaning. Used with another it means something else, something different. Words can be the dough of dissimulation. If I have been niggardly with words, at times, can anyone blame me? What if, as in le Misanthrope, we only used words in their precise meaning and never played semantics, and only let our words convey the cold, stark truth? I am weary of measuring words so as not to unleash the caustic of hell. I forget sometimes to measure, and off guard I say the wrong words, and out pours the hot and hurting retort. KYDMS.

 

Aphasia: the loss or impairment of the ability to use or comprehend words.

Words are the essence of life. The life of the body, la vie du corps, depends on food, water, air, and physical things. But even alone, a person speaks to himself, thinks in words. Aphasia then is something analogous to stroke. In fact, a stroke impairs the physical usage of parts of the body and often the mind, and therefore can cause aphasia. But aphasia could come from turning away from mental exercise, as when someone ceases reading. I suppose it could happen in some degree just by being around ignorant people whose vocabulary is very limited. Hanging around with stupids could bring a degree of aphasia. Watching TV certainly could. (What is the vocabulary range of anything and everything on TV? Their audience can’t handle anything above the ninth grade.) The cure would be reading a wider range of the right kinds of materials and having conversations with people who have a better vocabulary than you. 

 

 

Professor Duke was a notable at Duke University, a distinguished biology professor. Most of the pre-med students had his classes. He was not one of the Dukes, not one of the Buch’ Duke or James B. Duke, or old Wash’ Duke clan—he was from Heber City, Utah, and I suppose that he would be kin to Kathryn Duke. He had snow white hair and a white goatee on a full and pleasant face. He was a member of the Durham Ward, and had volunteered much of his life in Scouting, in the Church, but even more in the community. He was always quite affable, and admired by everyone.

 

His laboratory classroom had a little office space behind a partition, a bit like a carrel in the library, and above the desk, which abutted the partition, on the wall, under a bookshelf that was just over the desk, was a neatly lettered—if not printed—sign, five-by-seven, that said, “People are no damn good.”

 

I laughed when I saw it. I thought it was humorous—and profound. The most humorous thing about it was that it was put there by a man who was universally considered one of the nicest, kindest, most generous men of his time. Even though a transplant to the South, he was the epitome of a Southern gentleman: a generation earlier would have called him “colonel.” So very few people knew about the sign. I don’t believe I ever told anyone in the Durham Ward about it. But later, as occasion would arise, I would tell the story of a man I once knew—the name didn’t matter—who was not only perceived as saintly, he was indeed saintly; but he had a sign….

 

I was taken aback by people’s reception of my account. They didn’t laugh, or smile. They didn’t think it was funny. I thought they would think it was funny. They were struck by the tragic flaw in an otherwise good person. They were saddened that a good man had gone bad. They just didn’t get it. They didn’t see the humor in it, in the paradox. He had not gone bad. He didn’t have a tragic flaw. He had a sense of humor, along with a wise perspective on humanity.

 

Maybe I didn’t convey how the sign had not changed Brother Duke, Professor Duke, how it was a humorous expression, a paradox, from a wise, generous, kind, saintly man. I suppose it was my fault that people didn’t see the humor. I did. I still do. But beyond the anomaly of the sentiment on the wall of a saint, I saw and still do, a profound verity: People are no damn good, in general, even if in particular there are so many who are, like Brother Duke, good. Mir ekeln die Menschen. Where do you find the highest concentration of good people? In the United States? Why have they voted in a President and a Congress so bound to decimate our core values? Why do people support by their money and their consent the concupiscence of modern entertainment? And is there a more virtuous nation on the earth today? God gave Abraham the chance to save a city if He could find fifty—or twenty—or even ten good people. But they were not to be found. There must be some good people left in this country.

 

 

How can you write something that would intrigue you? How can you intrigue yourself? You write what you know, even if you write the wildest fantasy—so how could you surprise yourself? What great pleasure to read something absolutely intriguing and pleasing, that you had not thought of yourself. But suppose you could write something that, even though it is not intriguing, since you cannot surprise yourself, would be very pleasing, quite satisfying. There’s the satisfaction of having finished something, of accomplishment, but beyond that there could be satisfaction with what you wrote, not just that you wrote it. And much later, having let it slip from the ready shelves of memory, you could be pleased to read what you wrote because of what you said, not because it was you who said it. Ah, but------- what would that be?

 

I broke with regulations (self-imposed) here and put up two pictures that I did not take. 

 

 

 

We have a volunteer Armed Services. There are no conscripts. They are for the most part a decent group (a cross-section of what Americans are), and a committed group—and today, a group that realizes the potential to be called into combat. They know when they sign up what they are going to do. They have a high sense of patriotism. And tha should be capitalized on and developed, nurtured and cultivated.

 

Here is my proposal:

As a recruit goes through basic training, I strongly believe that an essential element in that training should be indoctrination in the history and guiding principles of the United States of America. Yes, I used the word indoctrination. I mean just that. It denotes teaching doctrines, and connotes winning the hearts and minds—and wills—of each troop who will wear the uniform of this country and put his life in the service of this country. He should know more about this country, and what it stands for, than the everyday citizen. He should not be called upon to give his life for something he does not completely understand and support. I believe the indoctrination, or training, should continue throughout the length of service. I believe active-duty troops who are not deployed to a combat zone should have this training once a month, and Guard troops should receive this training as a part of each month’s drill. I believe this training should be on the core doctrines of our nation, and on the history of our nation. The first elements of this training should be an understanding of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These should be studied in basic training to a certain extent, then throughout the career of service. Other core documents such as the inaugural addresses of presidents; certain documents elucidating the philosophy of our Founding Fathers; certain documents from moments of great import, such as the Gettysburg Address; and prominent “doctrines” set forth by presidents that have guided national and foreign policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine. Our military should study essential moments and elements in our history. They should study the thought and actions of our Founding Fathers. They should know something, for example, of the setting and the efforts of the Constitutional Convention. They should study major military conflicts of our history, with a view to understanding how our nation is like no other.

 

I believe the training in “Americanism” should be intensive in basic training; but thereafter should be short and sweet, in the monthly sessions. That is, it should be an hour once a month, impactful, packaged and produced in the most interesting way, then delivered partly as a prepackaged presentation, with follow up discussion. Then there should be a reading assignment to be completed before the next month’s session. But with all this, the challenge is to keep it from becoming politicized, co-opted in any way by any faction with an agenda. The agenda is to be knowledgeable about the country they are defending. 

 

The real maker of poems will make a sonnet that obeys all the rules, that entices, enthralls, and overwhelms first by the sound of it, before anybody knows what it is “about.” Then, for those who search but don’t care, the meaning comes into focus: the first meaning, then the second, then another. And it will look like a sonnet. But it will take time to make this sonnet. Because it’s a real sonnet. The maker must be patient, searching for each word as a numismatist searches for that one coin to fill each slot until the collection is perfect. Each word will be chosen for its strength and speed, its ring and tenor, its size and shape, its cleanliness or patina, its endurance and its baggage, its sure-footedness and grace, its poise and athleticism, its clarity and obscurity. At last, the last word will be found, examined, fitted snugly in, and voilà, the sonnet.

 

 

 

We curse our pains and wish them gone, when in fact they are necessary to our development and our compliance to the laws and exigencies of our second estate. (I need to stop making little noises when I stand up, sit down, or whatever, and a little kick of pain grabs me. Just keep it to myself.) Pain can absorb and discharge the immoralities of our disobedience, sucking into itself our peccadilloes and ridding us of them, payment for our improprieties. Of course only sometimes, perhaps rarely, is that the reason or benefit of pain. Pain can simply force us into more humility, or drag us up before the tribunal of our own pride, to have us acknowledge our incapacity to do anything about it but to beg God to palliate it, or remove it. But why should He? Isn’t it one of His gifts, in mercy given, to help us on our way? His Son knew pain, more than we all could ever bear—and did He not learn to bear it from His Father—and ours? Come, pain; settle in; I will not resist more than just my normal grunts and groans.

 

 

 

What the devil?

blow it up and see for yourself...

What the devils? 

Yep, there he is, or there they is.

You knew there really was one. Now you know the secret—he has a double. Not exactly a double, but maybe a Doppleganger. Well, everybody knows there’s more than one. They’re all devils. And they come out on Hallowe’en.

I have the devil in me. I have a condition that if it worsens I will die. But if it doesn’t, I will die a little later. All bodily infirmities are caused by devils. So try as I may to get the devil out of me, there’s still one or two hanging on and causing myasthenia gravis. And one (don’t know their sex, or names, or anything about them) causing my neuropathy. Dang them. I got rid of the ones that were trying to get me to smoke. “Are you stupid?” I said to them. After a thousand times, they got the hint and left. But the ones that said to me, “Don’t get up this early, it’s just church, and it will be the same thing next Sunday,” them I had to chase away more than once. But by the time I got married, they had left me alone. The ones that cause me the most grief now are the ones that don’t say anything. They don’t try to get me to do anything. They just make me hurt and make me not see so good. The doctor said those black things that are in the corner of my eyes sometimes, that run away when I look that way, are just things in my eyes. But I know what they are. Really.

So someday I’ll be thinking, ‘I gotta get those devils outta here,” and I’ll slip up and say, ‘I gotta get the devil outta here.” And that will be the end. The End. 

  

Book burning in America

One of the most famous acts of barbarism by the Nazis (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National-socialist German Worker Party) was the famous book burning ceremony.

 

The epitome of fascist brutality against humanism. (This is a fasces, the symbol of the Fascist Party in Italy under Mussolini….) 

 

 

 Who are the fascists in Amerika today? Who are the atavistic new bookburners of today? Well, today it’s books, and it’s DVDs, and who won’t let certain items get out, because they are afraid of what the public might learn, feel, do, after being exposed to the ideas.

 

How about “The Path to 9/11”? Why is that not out there for the public discourse, free speech, and all that?

 

It’s ABC-Disney, who under pressure gave in to censorship to appease the Clintons, when threatened with a lawsuit that would pull the broadcast license from all ABC affiliate stations if certain things were not deleted. Amazing that the show aired at all. And now under even more pressure, ABC-Disney refuses to release the show on DVD, when it is a guaranteed money-maker. The show when it aired had the highest ratings. The DVD would really make them money. But they won’t release it. Why? Afraid of ideas? What about free speech?

 

  And who is trying to stop people from getting on the radio to speak their mind about politics, culture, and whatever?

DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.(Listen to the interview.)

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, Obama's campaign urged supporters to call the radio station to complain.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."

Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response was strong.

"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," he said. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."

Christenson said the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show and declined the request.

 

So bookburning, welcome back. And who’s doing it? The people who want to make the “Fairness Doctrine” federal law. That would be a law that makes anybody who speaks their mind have to pay for their opponent to say whatever he wants to say. Fair?

 

Socialism is creeping up, creeping, it’s up to our necks.

 

 

 

Families Are Forever

—   but not right now —

Click on the pictures. Then arrow back here. Don't X the picture because you exit the site.
The things around the pine cone are awesome viewed large.


Who are you?
"Hi. I'm Jim, and I used to kill people for a living." That's what Jim would say sometimes when I would introduce him to friends of mine.
That's how he defined himself at the moment. So he said it.
What about you?
Hi, I'm John, and I'm an optimist.
Hi, I'm Linda, and I'm depressed.
Hi, I'm Tom, and I am really self-confident.
Hi, I'm Martina, and I was abused as a child.
Hi, I'm Allie, and I'm really mixed up about morality.
Hi, I'm Scott, and I'm an addict.
--Hi Scott, hello Scott, hi Scott, as it goes around the circle. That last one really happens, just like Jim really happened.
But some people exude what they are, in their own self-perception, without saying it out loud. And it's just as obvious.
So what do you do? Work on what your definition is. Work on what your self-perception is. Work on what your dialogue is when you meet people.
You can be in charge of what you are. You make your etre-pour-soi as well as your etre-pour-autrui.

With whistle and steam the train came alive, lurched, and began moving away from Paris, from the Gare de l’Est, away from the crowds and noise and bustle and fear and rush and smoke and anomie of October 1918. Soon it would be trudging through fields and mists and rain and trees and farms and steeples of Aube, or Champagne, taking everybody home. All the strangers going home.

The train grew stronger, surging out of the city, and the speed increased the clicking of the wheels and swaying of the cars. Guy was not content with his bench or the compartment or the people in it, and got up slowly, painfully, and grabbed his sack from overhead, and slid the door open, as they all watched, and went out into the corridor. There was a window down, and the chill wind was flowing in, filled with the smell of the train smoke, but with a hint of hay now and then. Further ahead another window was open and a man was smoking, and blowing the smoke out the window into the mist and fumes rushing by. The tobacco smoke came in the window in front of Guy in tiny wafts. He stood there for a minute or two, and moved down the corridor, going towards the back of the train, looking into the compartments further along.

There was one, with only three people. He slid the door open, nodded his head, with “M’sieur, —dames.” An old couple nodded, and watched, as he put his sack up above his head and sat down on the bench where there was only one person, across from the bench where there were two. He looked at them. They looked at him. The two persons across from him were an withered like apples on the ground, dressed all in black. The old woman looked weary, and wore the wrinkles of sadness around her eyes. There was no more light in her eyes. She looked at him as though he were some old photograph, squinting at him, sighing. The old man looked back out the window, and shut his eyes. Between them was a sack of clothing, but well could have been the sack they carried potatoes in from the shed to the house.

The person on the bench with him, next to the window, who had not looked at him when he came in and put his sack up above his head, was a young woman dressed against the chill, with a large hat, black plumes, lace, and a shawl; and it was hard to see what she looked like. Guy sat, straight, then slumped and slid towards the edge of the seat, and put his legs out straight, careful not to be anywhere near the legs across from him. The old woman pulled her legs closer to the bench anyway.

The train made its clacking and creaking noises, and swayed just a little, and Guy dozed off. When he awoke, rain was streaking the window, and it seemed almost twilight because of the grey skies roiling so close to the trees and the rain dragging the light down into the ground with it. As he opened his eyes he realized his head had fallen to his right, and he was staring out the window; but in the corner of his eye he saw the young woman looking intently at him. As soon as he opened his eyes, though, she turned away. ‘She has been watching me as I slept,’ he thought, and wondered if he had done anything while asleep to worry about. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he said things.

In that brief glimpse, he saw her eyes. Now he closed his eyes again and tried to recapture her eyes in the moment before she turned away. They were beautiful. He tried to remember them. They were enchanting. He opened his eyes again, and she was looking at him again. Yes, her eyes were astoundingly beautiful. And now he could see her face, round, surrounded by plumes and shawl and hat and hair. She was beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman Guy had ever seen in all his twenty years. She offered a hint of a smile, as a sort of ‘hello,’ and then turned toward the window again.

Guy stared, and as he stared out the window into the grey rain and countryside, he could sometimes see her reflection, as something very dark would pass by outside making a mirror effect. He stared without worrying about anyone saying something about how rude it is to stare. He didn’t care. There were so many things now that he didn’t care about. And more people stared at him now than he had ever stared at in all his life. He stared at the young woman’s cloak, and shawl, and hat, and hat pin, and dress, and little purse, and gloved hands, petite.

His neck hurt, so he turned back straight and unbuttoned the top button of his uniform. He looked down at his puttees, with his legs stretched straight out again, and quickly put his left ankle over his right ankle, covering a stain that had not come out with washing. Washing and washing.

His head drooped, and before his chin touched his chest he was asleep again. So tired. So tired. He slept long and deep.

He dreamed. He dreamed of this and that, things that made sense and things that might have made sense. He dreamed of the pleasant feel of a woman’s skin, a woman’s hand touching his. It was such a warm dream.

He awoke, but didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t move. No one knew he was awake now. But he was awake, and yet he was still feeling that beautiful feeling of the warmth of a woman’s hand on his hand. On his right hand. Was he awake? Yes, he was awake. He felt the train. He heard the train. And he felt a hand on his right hand, and it moved ever so slightly, moving on his hand to cover his hand better. He did not move. He dared not move. He didn’t open his eyes. The young woman had her hand, without her glove, on his hand. She squeezed his hand so very gently. He did not move.

“Pauvre enfant,” he heard the old woman across from him say in a whisper, with some missing teeth.

The young woman’s hand was warm, and tighter now. He opened his eyes. He saw her hand. He felt her hand. He slowly turned to her, not moving anything but his head and his eyes. He looked into her eyes. She smiled, and squeezed his hand.

It had grown darker outside, and the rain was still streaking across the window of the train, jostling through the fields and forests, heading home.

Who was she? Why was she doing this? He dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. She still clung to his hand, and smiled, a bit of a sad smile, really. He looked at her. She was so beautiful. He looked at the window behind her, and saw his reflection. ‘How could she be holding my hand?’ he thought. ‘Look at me. Inhuman. Ghastly. Half a face. A gruesome wreck of what used to be me. How can she look at me, and hold my hand?’

But she did. He felt the warmth of her soft hand. He felt her skin, her care, her kindness. It was such a comfort. He didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes again; but did not sleep.

We folded our pain

Into origami frogs

And tried to laugh

When they wouldn’t jump

Poem? Or not? It was meant to be a poem. Does it work? Poe's criterion, "the rhythmical creation of beauty" is the supreme test. Does this pass? He didn't say rhyme, but never wrote anything that didn't. And is rhyme necessary? Yes. Unless... and so is this one of those "unless" times?

atapaxis

Ἀταραξία

Ataraxia

Aaaaahhhhhhh……!!!!! Easy does it. Thass it. Ooohhhh yeah. No worries. Hmmm? Whass that? Naahhh, not to worry.

物 の 哀 れ

mono no aware

"the pathos of things"

There are things easily said in one language that may take a page to say in another. Winter turns to spring, and there is the symbolism of hope, of renewal, of life, of fertility, of continuation.

物 の 哀 れ is Japanese, and sounds like , mono no aware and means "the pathos of things"… The Japanese talk about this at hanami, when they go to the best place to see the sakura, the cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossoms fall from their delicate cling to the center of the blossom, the part that is clinging to the branch, that is the dark and twisting lifeline to the blossoms. Then for some reason, at some time, they fall, like snowflakes, or like time, they fall at 5 cm / sec. … and Japanese go to places where there are hundreds or even thousands of cherry trees loaded with blossoms, and they have a festival all about it, hanami, going to look at the blossoms.

Why talk about mono no aware at hanami? Hanami is looking at the blossoms, but also eating some green tea ice cream and throwing back a few cups of sake, or just a normal party with chips and Coke, and it’s a party; but mono no aware is quite philosophical, even bearing a tinge of Zen sadness if you think about it. The pathos of things, meaning the suffering of things, or more for us the empathy for things, is really a rumination on the transitoriness of things, such as cherry blossoms, that last but a few days. As St James says, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, then vanisheth away. Like the cherry blossoms, we will live for a little time on this earth, and then drop. Or like the cherry blossoms, a lifelong friendship may just cease clinging to the branch, and fall. Or a passion held between two hearts, like the sakura, will fall, at 5 cm / sec and be gone. Gone.

The only thing that can capture the blossom forever is art.

Nobody is more sincere than a dupe.

What does it take to be a dupe? Stupidity? Maybe a little; but sometimes a dupe is quite intelligent in one arena, while being very gullible in another. I think a true dupe is really quite sincere. The true dupe is a believer, but a quickly converted believer, who doesn’t need much evidence. Or maybe they need evidence, just enough, and if the evidence is convincing because they are already predisposed towards that idea, then they go for it.

The worst dupes of all are the dupes of political factions. The dupes in the ‘between-the-wars’ period who were enamored of Hitler and his ideas on a better Germany—especially Brits and Americans who supported him and defended him, were monumentally wrong. But even worse than those dupes were the thousands or millions of people living in the free world—remember that phrase? –we don’t use it any more—too bad—it’s still true—who were the dupes of the commies. I knew them. I went to college with them. I taught college with them. Americans, well-to-do Americans with PhDs in history or sociology or political science, or botany, or English lit, living a comfy life, the life of academe, sheltered and perverted as it was, turning their hearts to murderous commie ideologues and regimes. Standing up for them and condemning us. “The USSR has never been an aggressor nation,” she told her history classes semester after semester. What a wicked woman she was. And what I mean is, she was wicked to say that. I also mean, she was committing some hidden wicked little sin, like adultery, that makes people more prone to becoming the dupes of evil empires and ideas.

In fact the worst dupes of all are those who stand up for the ideas and policies of Beelzebub. They defend abortion, and want ZPG (zero population growth) and would kill off millions by starvation to save a patch of nice green forest somewhere. Like Stalin killed his forty million in the Ukraine, the likes of Al Gore want to do the same today in the name of saving the planet. Of course, hypocrisy must have something to do with being a dupe. But that’s another issue.

You who sit in silence

Who cannot slice your words

Who wince at joy and hide

Black crumbs of hurt inside

Who moan the dingy portents

Who sing the mournful lay

Who cry white cotton tears for

Knights to turn your way

To slay the vine that holds you

To free your shrunken heart

To make the scales fall from your eyes

To take the wind out of your sighs

To prime the hope of some new start

To pick the best of morning dew

To straighten up the frame

Someone to call your name

Get up and go do something. Shake it off. At least go outside for a few minutes. But if you want to change things, go out there and help somebody else. Too many people sit and dream about things, fueled by watching movies and TV—I wish I could say by reading books, but you’re too lazy for that. Reading takes moving your eyes across the lines, down to the next line, over to the end, back and down, over, back and down; but more than that it takes a mental exercise that watching TV doesn’t. TV watching you just stare at the strike zone, and you don’t have to process words into visuals in your imagination. No o- o- . That would be effort. Don’t want to do that.

So break away. Snap the flimsy cords that bind you down to inactivity, and get up. At least go outside. But more than that, go help somebody. I mean, it just infuriates me. You know?

So what would it take to be a cultured person?

Narrow it down: what reading would turn somebody into a cultured person?

Even further: What should you have read by the time you are 25 to be a cultured 25-year-old? And then 30? And then 40? And maybe by 50 you really are cultured, because you’ve read the list for the 25, the 30, the 40, and you’re still going.

But this all excludes music, and painting, and history, and language, and all the arts and sciences, that make somebody a cultured person.

A cultured person knows how to say junta.

A cultured person knows how to use the word zeitgeist, and ennui, and Weltschmerz, and Schadenfreude, and hubris.

A cultured person knows something about Mao’s little red book.

A cultured person has listened to Bach’s St Matthew Passion, if only on CD.

But those are only examples, minutiae in a vast wash of culture.

Back to reading. Reading is fundamental. Too bad it is not fundamental to get out of high school. Too bad it is not fundamental to get into college. Too bad it’s not fundamental to even graduate college.

College is to accelerate becoming a cultured person. Unfortunately, there is so much emphasis on skill, on specialization, that culture is not something that is transmitted, or acquired, in college anymore, in general. Even the college professors are culturally illiterate, specialized, like insects.

So the problem with making a list of books that a cultured person should have read, is reading itself. Reading is going to be a lost art for the masses before long. They will communicate with signology, with txtmsgging and I/M-ing language. b4 u no it thy wll nt b rding n e mor.

Reading will be the Sibboleth of the future. It has been a sifter in the past, and will be in the future. Look at those peoples who either had no written record that was sacred and kept as a core, as an anchor to their language, as opposed to those who did. One great example is the Mulekites. They had no scriptures, and in fact, nothing of significance in writing, when they left the Old Country and came to the New World. After generations, they were illiterate; and their oral language suffered from not having a written language. And their culture was only the culture of the rising and the immediate past generation; they could not claim any classics, any scripture, any great writing as a foundation to their language or their culture.

Saul Bellow asked, “Where is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” The Zulus, in fact, had no written language, and therefore no rich heritage of literature. Their culture was their immediate survival, accompanied by the traditions that were passed along from generation to generation. But who’s to say that three generations back, the traditions weren’t slightly different? There’s no written, no reliable, account. And where is the art of literature for the Zulus? Where is the psychology, the theology, the sociology, the history, the allegory, the morality, the humanity that literature is? To read Tolstoy’s War and Peace is to see a vision, to be transported into the hearts and minds of humans, of people, of a nation, of a civilization; it is to live another life in a capsule—and another, and another. Where is that for the Zulus? They have no literature.

And then there were the followers of Alma, and Mosiah, who had a cherished tradition of the written word—they had scriptures. They had the mind and will of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, unchanging, available, immutable, to guide them not only in theology, in spirituality, in congregations of faith, but also to serve as the touchstone for all writing, and all language.

Look at the English speaking world, with its King James Bible. It has been the guiding voice for language since 1611. All of Western civilization revolves around the Bible, and the English world comes out of the KJV in its literature.

The time will come when only the elite, the intelligentsia, will be able to read actual English, and only the faithful will be able to read scriptures. Look at the difficulty people have with the KJV right now, and its Elizabethan English. We are changing now as much in our language, away from Bible language, in one year, as it took a hundred years to change before the Great War.

Soon only certain people will want to read, or be able to read. It will be a separator.