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From Her Notes by Nomi Stone : The Poetry Foundation [poem] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:31:14 -0800

"From Her Notes" (Nomi Stone)

My last Sabbath,
I follow the girls, who sneak into
the wedding

tent, scattered with sun
flower seeds and remnants of
celebration. They

each stand up on a
table. Take a crushed beer can
as a microphone,

sing and move their
fifteen-year-old hips. I watch,
clap for them, until

a small face peers in
the door. A boy. His face white
with something. The door

slamming, his very small
fist holding it shut, having
found what was inside

wrong. Enough, I tell
him; enough! He leaves. The girls
dance again, but less

bold. Look: the boy
has come back, is looking you
hard in the eye, through

the crack of the door.
There, in his hand, a neon
plastic BB

gun. He does this for
his grandmother and for his
son.

Spaceship Jesus Will Come Back and Whisk Us Away & Killing the Buddha

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:22:25 -0800

There's a lot here I don't like - this essay is extraordinarily mean to Evangelicals, lumping them automatically with hate, the dismissal of the Book of Revelation isn't as simple a case as he makes it out to be etc. etc. (he seems to reduce any serious complaint about values to one about identity, and doesn't go through the hard work of showing how reasonable complaints become unreasonable wishes). Nonetheless: the author does a very solid job of exposing just how extremist and insane some of mainstream Evangelical culture is, and this should be read and his obvious biases against anyone who has traditional values (i.e. is pro-life) ignored.

Comment Luv

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:16:54 -0700

More bloggers really should be using this service - I was looking for a way to reward my readers for commenting for the longest time, and this goes a long way towards giving something back. Combine this with "dofollow" and people can build pagerank for particular posts of theirs.

I think it's a win-win: I actually am disappointed there aren't that many comluv blogs, and not all of them are dofollow.

Karl Rove: Obama Goes Wobbly on Afghanistan - WSJ.com

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:56:29 -0700

People demonize Karl Rove, but a Democrat could have written this, and it is less a criticism and more a plea:

"Mr. Obama's aides could be worried that by sending more troops to Afghanistan the White House will draw the fury of the left and lose support for its domestic agenda.

That fear is both dangerous and unnecessary. The president can retain liberal support for liberal domestic initiatives regardless of the war. And he can sustain support for the war by assembling a coalition of Democrats who want to win in Afghanistan, Democrats who would reluctantly follow their president�" and almost every Republican.

It's vital that the president build this coalition because without decisive American leadership, international support for confronting terrorism will soon dissipate. The unraveling of Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan might not be far behind.

Mr. Obama is right to ask tough questions about Afghanistan. But he needs to act soon to defend vital American interests in a troubled region that gave safe haven to our enemies before 9/11. Decisive support of his previously announced strategy in Afghanistan is what is required."

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Sarah Palin joins LinkedIn & - Blogs from CNN.com

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:03:44 -0700

This is incredibly tacky. What's next, trying to get the highest score on Pirates v. Ninjas on Facebook?

Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:44:05 -0700

Barack Obama is my President. I'm pro-life, anti-tax, want to win decisively in Afghanistan and want full prosecution of the war on terror, want school vouchers, want decreased regulation, want more conservatives in academia.

But I don't need stupid conspiracy theories about the President's "birth certificate" in order to advance those causes. I can write, I can think, I can vote, I can support candidates opposed to the President and I do give money and overt support to the Republican party. This trash slandering the President really needs to get off SU, and conservatives are irresponsible for promoting it.

Reintroducing Rilke - WSJ.com

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:02:48 -0700

From the page: Mr. Snow concludes "The Poetry of Rilke" with a section titled "Uncollected Poems," adapted from his 1996 translation of the same title. These lyrics, which Rilke rigorously suppressed throughout his lifetime, comprise a full quarter of the new collection. Although most interpretations, including Mr. Zagajewski's introductory essay in this volume, prize "The Duino Elegies" and "Sonnets to Orpheus" over these lyrics, Mr. Snow considers them Rilke's finest.

These include the fragmentary lyric that Rilke eventually used as an epitaph: "Rose, O pure contradiction, delight/ in being no one's sleep under so many/ eyelids."

What does success on the Internet look like?

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:54:42 -0700

From the page: "Part of the reason why mainstream media is entrenched is that money established a mode of discourse, a mode of thought: no one talks about political issues the way I do on television. There's a format, people are used to it, they can get the gist of what everyone's saying without paying attention to a single word.

No amount of money is going to help the Web break that last monopoly, not for some time. What money represents - its impact on all our education - is that learning can be convenient, politics can be user-friendly and entirely about expressing oneself, and entertainment need not challenge us to be better."

Rant: The Banality of Conservatism

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:56:30 -0700

From the page: "I would caution against using a definition of conservatism that gives us a monopoly on ideas, i.e. "there are ideas that migrate throughout time without diminution." Strictly speaking, that what would show up in Socratic thought as the "beings," more than likely (Pangle says the investigation of "what is" can yield some answers more appropriate for particular times)."

Obama calls Kanye a jackass - Patrick Gavin

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:31:56 -0700

Finally, something Obama did that I can agree with.