G as in Good H as in Happy

According to the Old Lady with a Corncob Pipe

May 31, 2008

Who said she was there:

[In 1814 English] marines pulled toward the [Scituate, MA] harbor with obvious intention of burning the town. Becky, then about 16, was alone in the lighthouse with her younger sister Abigail. Becky quickly seized her brother’s fife and her younger sister Abigail the drum. Sneaking out of their lighthouse home they followed behind the cedar covered sand hills of the point, beating a lively tattoo to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” The marines, who had believed the town undefended, hearing the rhythmic strains wafted toward the ship’s boat, thought the town garrison was marching out, and returned to the ship...

Sometimes we know the awful facts, but even so, for the moment, we can postpone capitulation.

An Army of One-or-More.

Semiotics. Use it for your benefit.

Courtesy Maggie's Farm

Reframing a "Cause"

May 29, 2008

"Liberal" and "conservative" rhetoric often go on the rocks when the supporters of a "cause" demand not only agreement with facts and feelings, but frame and implications. This video shows Esther Hicks, who speaks in public purportedly on behalf of a group of sages known as "Abraham," honoring the power of vision and inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr., without being backed into any corners.

Eloquent.

Sane.

Rumi Graphic, from a Wondering Weekend

A Beggar at the Train Station

 

The Kingdom of Heaven among us might be a Purloined Letter, lying on the surface, in an unexpected place. Singing.

"Evil is a Sucker for Solidarity"

May 7, 2008

Plenty of Traditionalists will not be on board, but for some of us, Joseph Brodsky's commencement speech at Williams College sings:

The surest defense against Evil is extreme individualism, originality of thinking, whimsicality, even -- if you will -- eccentricity. That is, something that can't be feigned, faked, imitated; something even a seasoned impostor couldn't be happy with. Something, in other words, that can't be shared, like your own skin: not even by a minority. Evil is a sucker for solidity. It always goes for big numbers, for confident granite, for ideological purity, for drilled armies and balance sheets.

Stampede based on M. Baldwin painting

Windmills of the Mind

May 6, 2008


...not futile, vaguely depressive, or stalled in the imaginary. A young Malawian figures out how to build a windmill for electric power (video).

Day for night. Sr. Dilys is right -- effective creativity is a divine spark, the Doing of It rolling down the Four Worlds from Idea to tangible reality.

Not to seem ungrateful, but why does this not happen all the time, everywhere there is a need? The key cultural question.

Reminded of this by The Corner.