1. I would like to endorse this post by Xicano Power and, although I am too tired to write anything very original about the issue, to add my voice to those supporting Kathy Sierra, the blogger who received the death threats, and criticizing the Daily Kos for being dismissive of her situation. I am glad … More On Sophistry
1. Anyone who persists in believing we have achieved a “color blind” society in the United States should read this article by Patricia J. Williams. A fertility clinic used sperm other than the planned father’s to create a child. They used African-descended sperm, to be exact. The family already had such DNA on one side, … More On Pseudo-Intelligence
1. The Friends Committee on National Legislation says: FCNL’s budget team calculates that 41 cents out of every dollar that you pay in 2006 federal income taxes before April 17 goes to the military – to pay for both current and past military activities. That figure is the clearest reflection of how the federal government … More Your Tax Dollars
This evening as I attempted to track down certain modern Faroese poems, I discovered that the language of the Shetland Islands was called Norn, and that it greatly resembled Faroese. I came upon this English-Norn vocabulary list, gathered from informants in 1774: Foula,… … Fugla or Uttrie An Island,… … Hion. Bread,… … Coust. Oat … More Norn
This friend of mine runs and does pull-ups while I race walk and lift weights. We did this the other evening and then drank wine on the porch, having the odd conversation we have each year: his fantasy is to have a Friend With Benefits, and of course we know that friend would be quien … More Oddness of Men, or, Is This Entitlement?
Here is Alice Fulton’s essay Fractal Amplifications: Writing in Three Dimensions (Thumbscrew 12 [Winter 1998-99]: 53-66). In the preamble to her Feeling as a Foreign Language: The Good Strangeness of Poetry (St. Paul: Graywolf, 1999), Fulton suggests that poetic speech is uheimlich in the sense of the undomesticated and ex-centric. It takes place in an … More Alice Fulton
It is windy here, so we will read an autumnal poem. Animistic, I like personified seasons, and I have bolded the lines which brought this poem to mind. To Autumn (1819) Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines … More John Keats
Nothing about pain Except that it is cloistered like a madonna in heat and at the finest impulse grasps and embraces me The little dog that looks from behind a nearby tree Nothing cleans the scab of a healed scar It sleeps warm and comfortable intertwining legs Its desolate silence freezes my strength It casts … More Nada sobre el dolor
Joanna found this article at the Black Electorate, and everyone should read it. Some near random snippets: Among American Conservatives, of any race, it has become a common practice to make derisive reference to so-called “race hustlers”, “racial arsonists”, “shakedown artists”, and “professional victicrats.” The usual targets include Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan. … More On “Race Hustlers”
The Stupendous Woman has inspired me to take the Everything Test, which claims to be the “one test to rule them all.” I do not necessarily agree with the results, but since I am getting some personal questions and the usual insinuations about not being “what I claim to be,” and since these results were … More The Everything Test
coldhearted scientist وداد 