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
In underreported news: 1. There is a complicated civil war taking place in northern Uganda. Children at risk of being pressed into unpleasant service by the Lord’s Resistance Army (see also this piece , and this one) have to hide at night, and are thus known as “night commuters.” There were peace talks and hopes … More Night Commuters
coldhearted scientist وداد 