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Archive for March, 2008
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Group Rights
Posted on March 30, 2008 | View CommentsArticle 27 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights reads:
In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with the other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion, or to use their own language.
In Jack Donnelly’s Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 2nd ed., he mentions this article while pointing out that it is the people constituting these minorities and not the minorities as minorities that possess these rights.
Nothing particularly groundbreaking, just interesting. He addresses self-determination in a later chapter; I’ll report on what I find there when I get there.
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Je Recueille de Beaux Objets
Posted on March 27, 2008 | View CommentsJust watched The Science of Sleep.Yeah, it was a bit difficult to work through, to be honest, but it was still one of those perfectly strangely wonderfully beautiful films that I like so well.
It occurs to me that a lot of my “art life” has been spent adoring films like this, or music like Edith Piaf, Bessie Smith and Cinematic Orchestra, or sculpture like Claudel’s “Waltz” and paintings like Wyeth’s “Christine’s World.” I suppose that these sorts of things inspire the quickest and deepest emotional responses; it’s that odd love/sad thing that happens. Billie Holiday makes me want to climb a tree and cry while doing it. There must be a name for that emotion.Let’s call it “cry” + “love” = CROVE. Billie Holiday’s music is crovely.Sweet.
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4000
Posted on March 27, 2008 | View Comments4000 today in the Fertile Crescent
From Laurence Binyon’s For the Fallen:
They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them. -
What is Poverty?
Posted on March 26, 2008 | View Comments -
Scattering of Authority
Posted on March 20, 2008 | View CommentsMy old discussion about the Empire Superstructure has come back to me during a presentation about heterarchy. Yes, it is what it sounds like. I am now quite enamored of the idea. What was not discussed during the lecture is how the nature of power shifts. Some actors have a monopoly on power or advice during only a few given points. These times of power can change by the day. I wonder if we can therefore conceive of the international system as being a half-ordered, constantly-shifting system of governance. We’d better hope so, because there are things that we need each other for.
At the end of the lecture on hetarchy, I wrote in my notebook that hetarchy was, quite simply, a quantum theory of non-power-endpoint (shifting) international organization with a focus on the absolute necessity of superordination. Let’s be honest: There is probably someone or something that can do Job X better than I or my organization can. Perhaps we would be well off to apply the model to the micro scale, too, like in cities and stuff. Or families.
Or friends.
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Sleeping In
Posted on March 17, 2008 | View CommentsThe plan: Wake up at 3 a.m. MST. Get showered and finish packing the few things left outside my bags. Eat the rest of my bread, a banana, and some ricecakes. Spend 20 minutes worrying about what I’m leaving behind. Head out to the bus stop and catch the 15 – Billings at 4:28. Head to Billings and hop the AT to DIA at 5:23. Disembark and head to Airtran’s counter, pick up my ticket, fly to Atlanta for a 4-hour layover, then continue on to Reagan International to land at 6 p.m. and hop the Metro to DC-NW.
The reality: Wake up at 3:54 a.m. MST. Scramble madly to get cleaned. Forgo the bread. Crumble the ricecakes and stuff them down the throat with banana. Scramble more madly. Pack everything in a rush and spend 3 minutes worrying about what I’m leaving behind. Catch the 4:28 bus. Catch the 5:23 bus. Try to retrieve my e-ticket. Nothing works. Just about to ask for help when I realize that I’m trying to check in at USAirways. Stomp down to Airtran and pick up my boarding pass and my transfer…to Dulles International. That’s right, I bought a ticket to the wrong airport. Land in Atlanta, ask to fly standby and hop on the next one out, thus saving myself the layover in the tornado-prone capital of our peach-state and putting me on the Mall at 3:45 p.m., with enough time to visit the Hirshhorn Museum, grab some Indian food (way-overpriced), and still make it to Dupont Circle with many minutes to spare.
And so it is.
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Emelius Browne’s College of Witchcraft pt. 2
Posted on March 14, 2008 | View CommentsSeriously, the accordion work in that song is great. Call it a squeezebox, call it a concertina or a flutina, but the thing has got a real sound to it, doesn’t it?
YEAH! ACCORDION!
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Emelius Browne’s College of Witchcraft
Posted on March 14, 2008 | View CommentsI was meandering my way through London a few years ago and had the great fortune of visiting a place that had up until then only existed in my head and on VHS. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the 1971 Disney musical based on Mary Norton’s book, had been an oft-viewed part of my childhood. It had just the right mix of fantasy (in the form of animated suits of armor) and historical something-or-other (in the form of a foiled Nazi invasion of England). I really dug watching it.
The characters in the film find themselves on London’s Portobello Road, searching for magical books. I’m not sure why that’s italicized; it just seemed right. Portobello Road is a huge antique market, with all kinds of cool stuff to be had. While there, I bought my mom some cool old-as-hell spinning bobbins. The Portobello Road of Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a far more fantastic place than the English flea market that I encountered, but it was rewarding nonetheless. Fabulous stuff, really.
I leave you with the text of the song and dance number:
“Portobello Road” – Robert and Richard Sherman
Portobello road, Portobello road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road.
You’ll find what you want in the Portobello road.Rare alabaster? Genuine plaster!
A filigreed samovar owned by the czars.
A pen used by Shelley? A new Boticelli?
The snipper that clipped old King Edward’s cigars?“Made in Hong Kong? Two bob a dozen, would you say?”
Waterford Crystals? Napoleon’s pistols?
Society heirlooms with genuine gems!
Rembrandts! El Greco’s! Toulouse-Letrec’os!
Painted last week on the banks of the Thames!Portobello road, Portobello road!
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road.
You’ll meet all your chums in the Portobello roadThere’s pure inspiration in every creation.
No cheap imitations, not here in me store.
With garments as such as was owned by a Duchess.
Just once at some royal occasion of yore.In Portobello Road, Portobello Road
The fancies and fineries of ages are showed.
A lady will always feel dressed a la mode
In frillies she finds in the Portobello road.“Burke’s Peerage;” “The Bride Book;” “The Fishmonger’s Guidebook;”
A Victorian novel, “The Unwanted Son;”
“The History of Potting”, “The Yearbook of Yachting,”
The leather bound “Life of Attila the Hun.”Portobello Road, Portobello Road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Artifacts to glorify our regal abode
Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello Road
You’ll find what you want in the Portobello RoadTokens and treasures, yesterday’s pleasures
Cheap imitations of heirlooms of old
Dented and tarnished, scarred and unvarnished
In old Portobello they’re bought and they’re soldPortobello Road, Portobello Road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Artifacts to glorify our regal abode
Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello road.
You’ll find what you want in the Portobello Road -
Ανάργυροι
Posted on March 13, 2008 | View CommentsThe title of this post is Ανάργυροι. In Roman letters, it’s anargyroi. We are presented with the root of arg, which near as I can make sense of, relates to silver. The an on the front of it denotes a negative, or withoutness. The bit at the end, oi, means that we’re talking about a group of something that relates directly to the silver-root.
Anargyroi – Those without silver
It’s an old title for Saints Cosmas and Damian, who refused payment for their work in healthcare. They brought healing and solace and asked for nothing in return. How nice. Good piece from Matthew 10:8.
Δωρεάν ελάβετε, δωρεάν δότε – Freely ye have received; freely give.
Here’s a cheerful picture of Cosmas and Damian
getting beheaded for espousing socialist health
policy. -
Iblis
Posted on March 12, 2008 | View CommentsI really do prefer to use the name “Lucifer” when referring to the Prince of Darkness. It has such a sinuous ring to it:
LOOS-IH-FUR
For being the “epicenter of evil,” the name itself means “light-bringer.” The name Lucy is directly related. In the original Greek, it’s heosphoros, or herperus, or Ἓσπερος, which translates to “dawn-bearer.” Can we then assume that Lucifer is so named because he brings light, and why would that be a bad thing? The obvious correlation is with Prometheus, who brought the “gift” of fire, and thusly, civilization, to ancient man. Did bringing light, i.e. civilization, technology, modernism, etc. to the world cheapen it? This is a question best left to others.I prefer to view Lucifer not so much as the “bad guy,” but as something more approaching the following story, retold with great care by the late, awesome Joseph Campbell: