Back at the Horse Latitudes

Club soda, club soda everywhere; and no Bourbon Street left to drink. Or, ascetic and parched in the Brightleaf.

Once Upon A Time...I Was Haggard and Huskie

For to my mind, however beautiful a view may be, it requires the presence of man to make it complete, but perhaps that is because I have lived so much in the wilderness, and therefore know the value of civilization, though, to be sure, it drives away the game. The Garden of Eden, no doubt, was fair before man was, but I always think it must have been fairer when Eve was walking about it...

As for me Anno Domini MMV, I am Merle and Ferlin...Non enim erit memoria sapientis similiter ut stulti in perpetuum et futura tempora oblivione cuncta pariter obruent moritur doctus similiter et indoctus. Eccl. 2.16

A Number Six?!

His aide replies, "Mr. Truman, I raise horses. I am pretty sure she was a mare. Stubborn as ever, Harry S. says, "No way. When we came by the city hall, I heard that tall guy say, 'Hey, Jake!Look at the prick on that horse!'"

We Roll Deep...Shout out to Ray and Charles and Jacob

Close encounter with Zimbabwe's secret police
By Justin Pearce
BBC News website, Zimbabwe
In the latest part of his series, Justin Pearce reflects on the hardships of life in Zimbabwe - for those delivering aid and for journalists trying to find out what is going on.
Even handing out food is a risky business in Zimbabwe. Delivering food aid is not a crime in Zimbabwe. Nevertheless, I saw a priest interrogated by the secret police for that very reason. Legal or illegal, delivering food aid in Zimbabwe is certainly a slow business, mostly because no one knows where exactly the needy people are. I had spent the best part of 24 hours rumbling around the dirt roads of rural Matabeleland in a truck laden with maize meal and blankets - intended for some of the people who have been dumped in the countryside after government knocked down the homes of 500,000 people. Whenever we saw someone on the road, the priest and the driver who were delivering the food asked if they knew of any displaced people in the area.

Plan 9: 'Take Me to Your Bishop!'

Doggerel Memorized in Borstal

Saint George, he was a fighting man as all the tales do tell
He fought a battle long ago and fought it wond'rous well.
With his helmet and his hauberk and his good, cross-hilted sword
He sailed with Drake from Devon to the glory of the Lord!

From Crecy Field to Neuve Chappelle he was there with hand on sword
And he sailed with Drake from Devon to the glory of the Lord!

And when his time on earth was done he found he could not rest,
Where the year is always summer on the Island of the Blest.
So back he came to earth again to see what he could do,
And they cradled him in England--April England--they cradled him in England where the golden lillies grew.


Author unknown to me.

Le Beau Prince Sans Bel Air

In the whole range of English history there is no name so completely wrapped up in the idea of English chivalry as that of Edward the Black Prince. Born on the 15th of June 1330, the son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, he was only in his sixteenth year when he accompanied his father in the expedition into France which was crowned by the battle of Crecy.

On that memorable day, Sunday, the 26th of August, the young prince, supported by the Earls of Warwick and Hereford, the gallant John Chandos, and Godfroi d'Harcourt, had the command of the vanguard, or first of the three divisions into which the English army was divided, which in fact bore the brunt of the battle.

Graham Greene and the Endangered Pink Elephant Collide

"God Save the Queen (We mean it, man)!"--J. Lydon

Flirting by Patricia Buckle, Sierra Leone on BBC

MAN: Hello Miss, how are you?

LADY AFRICA: Good day my brother, I'm fine and you? Africa, your complexion is as dark as the night

MAN: Oh my dear, I'm fine, please can you spare me few minutes? I'd like to talk to you.

LADY AFRICA: Come right along, let's walk together, yes I'm listening - go right ahead with what you want to say.

MAN: Miss, first of all, I am one of your admirers. Oh my, what a lovely name, Af...ri...ca... Miss, your eyes are as bright as the moonshine, your nose is shaped like the rocks from which waters flow, my dear your face is as smooth as the blue sky. Africa, your complexion is as dark as the night, your hips like the mountainous scenes and above all I love the colour of your dress, green. You look very natural.

But Miss to be sincere my friend Big Brother Cares (known among us as BBC) told me that though you are well decorated, you are going through hell on earth.
But yet you are very happy in your distress. Miss I'm willing to go through it with you.

My dear Africa, the news of your hospitality can be heard all over this global village. Africa all I want to say is that I love you very much.

LADY AFRICA: Thanks for the compliments, I love you too.

Sweet FA

High Noon at the Demolished Vic Falls Stalls

Zimbabwe's unwanted 'foreigners'
By Justin Pearce
BBC News website, Zimbabwe

In the third part of his series following an undercover trip to Zimbabwe, Justin Pearce talks to Zimbabweans who have lost their citizenship, years after their parents or grandparents went there from neighbouring countries. It takes 10 minutes to walk from the dirt road, to the place in the bush where about 30 people are camped out. "They didn't know where to put us, because we have no rural home," one woman explains. "Our grandparents came from Malawi."
In the wake of the government's crackdown on illegal buildings and unlicensed traders, Zimbabweans of foreign parentage are finding themselves in a particularly difficult situation. The seven families living in the bush on the edge of Bulawayo have been there since their homes in the Killarney informal settlement were destroyed by the police in July.
While thousands of Zimbabweans who can trace their ancestry to a Zimbabwean rural village are being transported to the countryside, those whose parents or grandparents were immigrants are left in limbo. "To say every Zimbabwean has a rural home is not true," says Alouis Chaumba, head of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe. "Some are the grandchildren of people who came here during the Federation."

Links to BBC Slideshow of Vic Falls, 24 Aug 05

Another Martini for Mother Cabrini

A Pacifist, Anti-government, Mother in Pain

SANCHEZ: At his sentencing today, Eric Rudolph did apologize for hitting non-government victims at the Olympics, but he's had precious little to say about what motivated his choice of targets. Though murky, it seems a homegrown mix of racist, anti-government, anti-gay ideology. His mother says the only part he would have gotten from her is being anti-government.

P. RUDOLPH: I think the government that rules the least is the best.

SANCHEZ: For her part, Pat Rudolph makes no apologies for her anti-government views. In the '60s, she and her husband protested the Vietnam war. She joined radical pacifist like the Catholic Worker Movement. Today, she's critical of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

P. RUDOLPH: Apparently it turned him off, because he's already written an article against pacifism.

SANCHEZ (voice-over): During our interview, she seems to be saying her son was impatient for results, that he learned protest and resistance from his parents, but that he wasn't impressed with the pace of change through pacifism. She deplores his methods, but agrees, even respects some of his anti-government sentiments.

The Penrod Crouch as Described by S. Potter

PSYCHO-SYNTHESIS IN WELBECK STREET (diagram). Note the couch, which can be easily adapted from the old psycho-analyst's couch or tentade. The ‘psycho’ himself (A) is, of course, the reclining figure. The patient is, or should be, striding from B to B2 and, of course, back.

Lifemen have always recognized the value of their ‘psycho-analytic look’ for stopping conversation. Now Lifemen have a chance to hit back.

THE LIFEMANSHIP PSYCHO-SYNTHESIS CLINIC

Lifemen have not been backward in the counter-attack: and those of us whose job it is to deal with this kind of thing possess, as some readers will know, a certain top floor room not a hundred miles from Wimpole Street where we are setting up our school – openly lay – of psycho-synthesis. LET US RESTORE YOUR INHIBITIONS is our phrase. SUBLIMATE WITH US. WE can put back the Hamlet into YOU. The natural antagonists of all Lifemen, or shall I call them ‘friendly enemies’ of the lifeplay, are the psycho-analysts. They have their own organization, their own literature, their own terminology.

SUPPORT LIFEMANSHIP BY JOINING

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Christopher Walken in 2008

Now, more active than ever, Christopher Walken has realized that the state of his country is in disarray, and the politicians in charge care less for the citizens they serve and more about fattening their resumes and campaign chests.

Military Funding:
"I am a huge supporter of the military. I have always thought of them as our guardians, and when our guardians are making less than the poverty line, and children are suffering because their parents decided to join the military, well, I get very upset. I feel that instead of sending billions to the Pentagon's pet projects, it should go to the troops."

Having residences both in rural Connecticut and upper-west Manhattan, he sees that all walks of life are becoming disgruntled and apathetic towards the American government, and feels a duty, as a child of the American public, to restore the peace, prosperity, and greatness of the United States.

Links to Walken 2008 site. One shot, Nicky!

Where Is 'The Office' When You Need It?

"'en that's yer theery?!...Git old 'nye cannae hack it anymore, and 's all shite?"--Renton to Sick Boy


"Handbags and Gladrags"
Ever see a blind man cross the road
Trying to make the other side
Ever see a young girl growing old
Trying to make herself a bride So what becomes of you my love
When they have finally stripped you of
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you Once I was a young man
And all I thought I had to do was smile
Well you are still a young girl
And you bought everything in style So once you think you're in you're out
'Cos you don't mean a single thing without
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you Sing a song of six-pence for your sake
And take a bottle full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds in a cake
And bake them all in a pie They told me you missed school today
So what I suggest you just throw them all away
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy
Oh oh They told me you missed school today
So what I suggest you just throw them all away
The handbags and the gladrags
That your poor old Grandad had to sweat to buy you

Location, location, location

The Way We Were: An Anti-pullout Protester in Gaza

And Here's To You, Mrs. Sheehan

CLEONICE
And why do you summon us, dear Lysistrata? What is it all about?
LYSISTRATA
About a big thing.
CLEONICE (taking this in a different sense; with great interest)
And is it thick too?
LYSISTRATA
Yes, very thick.
CLEONICE
And we are not all on the spot! Imagine!
LYSISTRATA (wearily)
Oh! if it were what you suppose, there would be never an absentee.
No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about this way and
that so many sleepless nights.
CLEONICE (still unable to be serious)
It must be something mighty fine and subtle for you to have turned
it about so!
LYSISTRATA
So fine, it means just this, Greece saved by the women!
CLEONICE
By the women! Why, its salvation hangs on a poor thread then!
LYSISTRATA
Our country's fortunes depend on us-it is with us to undo
utterly the Peloponnesians.

Links to The American Spectator

Saint Mary the Virgin

THE DIVINE PRAISES
Blessed be God.
Blessed be His holy Name.
Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
Blessed be the name of Jesus.
Blessed be His most Sacred Heart.
Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.
Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament
of the Altar.
Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Blessed be her pure and holy Conception.
Blessed be her holy and glorious Assumption.
Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
Blessed be St. Joseph, her spouse, most chaste.
Blessed be God in His Angels, and in His Saints.

Links to The Account of St. John the Theologian of the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God

Jazz on a Summer's Night

When the sun is high
In the afternoon sky
You can always find something to do
But from dusk til dawn
As the clock ticks on
Something happens to you
In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and you think about the boy
And never even of counting sheep
When your lonely heart has learned its lesson
You’d be his if only he would call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That’s the time you miss him most of all

And me with no Newports!

"Four Clicks and a Cloud of Napalm"

“People talk about how devoted Woody is to football,” Mrs. Hayes once observed. “He was just as dedicated to the Navy. Why, we had been married only five days when he asked for sea duty. He didn’t get it at once, but he did request it. Stevie was nearly nine months old before Woody saw him for the first time.”
Click photo for Woody's plans for overrunning Licking and Knox Counties.

The Krays are still romanticised in the East End

BBC: SA lion murder pair face sentence

SA lion murder pair face sentence
Two South African men convicted of murdering a man by beating him up and throwing him alive into a lion enclosure are to face sentencing. A judge has started to deliver his ruling but may continue until Thursday. The two men could face life jail-terms....Click title for link.

Theory of the Leisure Class of '86

"Learning set out by being a by-product of the priestly vicarious leisure class; and, at least until a recent date, the higher learning has since remained in some sense a by-product or by-occupation of the priestly classes. As the body of systematized knowledge increased, there presently arose a distinction, traceable very far back in the history of education, between esoteric and exoteric knowledge, the former -- so far as there is a substantial difference between the two -- comprising such knowledge as is primarily of no economic or industrial effect, and the latter comprising chiefly knowledge of industrial processes and of natural phenomena which were habitually turned to account for the material purposes of life. This line of demarcation has in time become, at least in popular apprehension, the normal line between the higher learning and the lower.

It is significant, not only as an evidence of their close affiliation with the priestly craft, but also as indicating that their activity to a good extent falls under that category of conspicuous leisure known as manners and breeding, that the learned class in all primitive communities are great sticklers for form, precedent, gradations of rank, ritual, ceremonial vestments, and learned paraphernalia generally. This is of course to be expected, and it goes to say that the higher learning, in its incipient phase, is a leisure-class occupation -- more specifically an occupation of the vicarious leisure class employed in the service of the supernatural leisure class. But this predilection for the paraphernalia of learning goes also to indicate a further point of contact or of continuity between the priestly office and the office of the savant."--Thorstein Veblen

Tennyson, anyone?

...but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
1842

Saint Jerome

"The Next War"

You young friskies who today
Jump and fight in Father's hay
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
Happy though these hours you spend,
Have they warned you how games end?
Boys, from the first time you prod
And thrust with spears of curtain-rod,
From the first time you tear and slash
Your long-bows from the garden ash,
Or fit your shaft with a blue jay feather,
Binding the split tops together,
From that same hour by fate you're bound
As champions of this stony ground,
Loyal and true in everything,
To serve your Army and your King,
Prepared to starve and sweat and die
Under some fierce foreign sky,
If only to keep safe those joys
That belong to British boys,
To keep young Prussians from the soft
Scented hay of father's loft,
And stop young Slavs from cutting bows
And bendy spears from Welsh hedgerows.
Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
It's the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.
Wars don't change except in name;
The next one must go just the same,
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War.
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
Once more with pomp and greed and rage;
Courtly ministers will stop
At home and fight to the last drop;
By the million men will die
In some new horrible agony;
And children here will thrust and poke,
Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke,
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.

--RG, from 'Fairies and Fusiliers'


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teste David Cum Sybilla

Dr. Eugen Kullmann at Home

Ecclesiastes 12

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.

Click on title for the Eugen Kullmann site at Kenyon, Dept. of Religion

Jed Leland's At The Theatre

“Hostile Takeover” Following his acclaimed play “Green Man Flashing”, Mike Van Graan has written another biting theatrical satire on the politics of the “new” South Africa. In “Hostile Takeover”, a white former diplomat from the apartheid era has become a strip-club owner in order to pay his bills. When someone with an eye on his business tries to have him killed, the strip-club owner finds he has to use diplomacy to negotiate for his life with his would-be assassin.

This dialogue—with each man defending his line of work and principles—offers an allegory of the political and economic transformation of South Africa. The play ends with a twist, illustrating the grim reality of economic redistribution between black and white South Africans.

Market Theatre, 56 Wolhuter St, Johannesburg. Tel: +27 (0)11 832 1641. See the theatre's website.

Buy Novak A Drink and One for Slingblade, Too!

As they say at the Chicago Sun-Times, "You go, Bob!" click title for video
And what future Pulitzer gets the call? Why none other than longtime Establishment dupe, Eric Herman...http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-novak05.html

Those Magnificent Feelgood Promoters and their Stupendous Magic Wands

Chapter 11: The Annan and the Geldof

How To Be More Charismatic

General: Open body posture, hands away from face when talking, stand up straight, relax, hands apart with palms forwards or upwards
To an individual: Let people know they matter and you enjoy being around them, develop a genuine smile, nod when they talk, briefly touch them on the upper arm, and maintain eye contact
To a group: Be comfortable as leader, move around to appear enthusiastic, lean slightly forward and look at all parts of the group
Message: Move beyond status quo and make a difference, be controversial, new, simple to understand, counter-intuitive
Speech: Be clear, fluent, forceful and articulate, evoke imagery, use an upbeat tempo, occasionally slow for tension or emphasis
SOURCE: Prof Richard Wiseman, BBC. Title links to Emily Post's 1922 Etiquette

"Guilty on All Counts"

"How hard it is for intellectuals, in particular, to shed the illusion that all conflict is the result of misunderstanding or ignorance! In fact, of course, if the jihadis got to know us they would hate us even more. It is not because of what they don't know about us that they want to kill us but because of what they do know, namely that we are a liberal society inclined to tolerance towards other religions, respectful of individual freedom and privacy in matters of sexual practice and insistent on the full humanity of women and their rights of citizenship. As a recent YouGov poll in Britain discovered, a third of British Muslims were prepared to agree with the proposition that "Western society is decadent and immoral, and Muslims should seek to bring it to an end."

Boy, have they got us pegged! It's true, we are self-indulgent, frequently immoral (or at least more open and unashamed about our immorality than they are), addicted to mindless entertainments, and lax in our religious observance. Above all, at least in the view of such a traditional society as the Muslims have been able to preserve, we are shockingly lewd about exposing our bodies in public. Everything about us proclaims that we are infidels -- and not only to the fanatics but to ordinary Muslims as well. But the only conciliatory gestures likely to placate the fanatics in the slightest -- our conversion to Islam, for example, or the compulsory return of women to domestic tasks only -- are unthinkable."--James Bowman

August 4: And dig this snappy comparison from the NRO. Great minds. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/goldblatt200508040833.asp