… Remembering Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck Novels : The Booklist Reader. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
They actually were never husband and wife.
… Maj Sjöwall: ‘Nordic noir’ pioneer, author of the Martin Beck series, dies aged 84.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
For your listening pleasure …
Hugo Alfven was born on this date in 1872, and this was actually a hit on the radio when I was a kid.
And yes …
… Edward Feser: The burden of proof is on those who impose burdens. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The issue is not just that doing massive damage to the economy is, if unnecessary, imprudent in the extreme – though, to say the very least, it most certainly is that. It’s that the lockdown entails actions that, in ordinary circumstances, would be very gravely immoral.
As Fr. John Naugle reminds us in an essay at Rorate Caeli, laborers have a right under natural law to work to provide for themselves and their families. To interfere with their doing so when such interference is not absolutely necessary is a grave offense against social justice (and not merely against prudence) …
Dictators in the wings …
… The Inevitable Coronavirus Censorship Crisis is Here - Reporting by Matt Taibbi. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The problem is that being merely credentialed has proved to be quite different from being educated.
A consistent lament in these pieces was the widespread decline in respect for “experts” among the ignorant masses, better known as the people Trump was talking about when he gushed in February 2016, “I love the poorly educated!”
The Atlantic was at the forefront of the argument that The People is a Great Beast, one that cannot be trusted to play responsibly with the toys of freedom. A 2016 piece called “American politics has gone insane” pushed a return of the “smoke-filled room” to help save voters from themselves. Author Jonathan Rauch employed a metaphor that is striking in retrospect, describing America’s oft-vilified intellectual and political elite as society’s immune system …
The problem is that being merely credentialed has proved to be quite different from being educated.
Oops …
… Hey Cancel Culture: The Butter Maiden You Killed Was NOT A Stereotype - The Lid.
Mia, the stereotype that wasn’t, leaves behind a landscape voided of identity and history. For those of us who are American Indian, it’s a history that is all too familiar.
Just who we need …
… Eric Felten's Downtime: An Ovid for the age of Covid. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Classics professor Michael Fontaine has found a real-life Bellorius, a Renaissance German poet who composed verse in Latin and who is remembered, if at all, mostly for one work. The poet is Vincentius Obsopoeus. Where the fictional Bellorius penned a paean to an imaginary “virtuous, chaste and reasonable community,” the nonfictional Obsopoeus celebrated The Art of Drinking. This obscure poem has just been published by Princeton University Press under the unfortunate title How to Drink.
Unfortunate, because the new title loses the intended riff on and reference to Ovid’s The Art of Love. That’s a shame, because old Obsopoeus can function as a sort of Ovid for the age of COVID.
In case you wondered …
… Could the lockdown have side-effects no one has considered? | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A recent paper from China employed a more thorough sequencing technique than generally used to examine the virus from a small number of cases. Standard quick-but-superficial sequencing methods have already revealed more than 4,000 mutations in the virus. But the detailed method revealed 19 new, overlooked mutations in just 11 patients, and these mutations altered the infectivity of the virus. The most aggressive strain generated a viral load that was 270 times greater than the weakest one, and also killed cells fastest. This is the first direct evidence for the effects described above, namely that mutations in this virus can affect the severity of disease. And with such a maelstrom of mutation going on below the surface of standard detection methods, it is entirely possible that an intervention as drastic as lockdown could be having negative effects on the evolution of the virus itself that we don’t appreciate.
Our town …
… D.A. Krasner Uses BS, Deceptive Stats To Con Public About Crime | Big Trial | Philadelphia Trial Blog.
The Philadelphia Inquirer may have given fellow progressive Krasner a pass while Philadelphians this year are shooting and killing each other at record rates, but here at Big Trial, we're going to hold the D.A. accountable.
Great shots …
… Greg Lecoeur Discusses His Incredible Underwater Photography Career. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
A hisorian's poetry …
… Robert Conquest’s open eyes by Dick Davis | The New Criterion. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He spent much of the last half of his life in the United States, and while living there he continued the habit he had developed early in his career of writing poems centered on particular landscapes, but the tone changed quite radically. An extraordinary lyricism pervades his poems on American landscapes; they are filled with a kind of grateful acknowledgment of the fact that anything outside of the strictly personal could give such deep, continuous, unalloyed pleasure. They evoke what the critic Tony Tanner called “the reign of wonder” as he found it embodied in a great deal of nineteenth-century American literature.
Very nice …
… When the librarian who started a local newspaper died, the community kept it alive - Poynter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Local newspapers are shrinking and closing and many local journalists, regardless of their medium, are on furlough due to the coronavirus’ brutal hit to the economy. But in Weare, the news continues – online for now. It’s not a solution, like in Oklahoma, to put journalists back to work. It’s not a project, like in Kansas, that brings local news back with the help of a nearby university. And, like in New York, it doesn’t cover a town with the help of middle and high school students.
But it does show another way to keep a community informed about what’s happening there.
A master …
… Erroll Garner’s Magic Shone Bright On ‘Magician’ — Vinyl Me, Please. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
— A. E. Housman, who died on this date in 1936
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
But you can still see it …
… YouTube issues statement on removal of controversial video interview with Bakersfield doctors. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sorry, YouTube, it’s still censorship.
Terrific …
… THIS IS HOLY GRAIL LEVEL: Real Music & Real Estate . . . (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
His son, there with Mike Douglas, is Joel Grey.
His son, there with Mike Douglas, is Joel Grey.
For free …
… Harris’s Requiem (2006) By Stanley Middleton eBook | Nottingham Trent University. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I just ordered a copy.
I just ordered a copy.
Appreciation …
… At His Centennial, a Jazz Pioneer Still Rings True - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… O Concerto de Aranjuez e "O Som de Rodrigo" - Laurindo Almeida e The Modern Jazz Quartet.
That is extraordinary.
With grace and steely determination, Lewis demanded that the Modern Jazz Quartet denote dignity and command respect with its music and presentation. He insisted that the foursome dress in matching suits, even practice walking on stage. The epitome of professionalism, purpose and preparation, he wrote intricate scores requiring assiduous practice. His interweaving of written-out parts with improvisation was so seamless that many—even other musicians—couldn’t differentiate the two. He strove for an optimal balance among the four instruments, yielding clean, exquisite textures.Dave also sends along this:
… O Concerto de Aranjuez e "O Som de Rodrigo" - Laurindo Almeida e The Modern Jazz Quartet.
That is extraordinary.
Something to think on …
From all I did and all I said let no one try to find out who I was.
— C. P. Cavafy, born on this date in 1863
RIP …
… Bob Mezey: 1935 – 2020 - Eratosphere.
… "Robert Mezey" until:2020-04-28 since:2020-04-26 - Twitter Search.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… "Robert Mezey" until:2020-04-28 since:2020-04-26 - Twitter Search.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Thinking culture …
… On Davenport (Who Also Wrote Well about Art). (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What we find in Davenport are the artists themselves, alive, full of vigor and idiosyncrasy, loosed from the periods that we retroactively and often lazily group them under, and so able to free themselves from those extrinsic constraints.
His lesser known day job …
… Funny Man on the Aisle - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Humorist Robert Benchley was also a drama critic—and a good one, too.I'm surprised that Benchley's essays are so forgotten. I love them.
The great mystery …
… Love by Edwin Morgan | Scottish Poetry Library. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Yesterday marked Edwin Morgan’s centenary.
Something to think on …
Experiences aren't given to us to be 'got over,' otherwise they would hardly be experiences.
— Penelope Fitzgerald, who died on this day in 2000
Monday, April 27, 2020
Writers up close …
… Dedicated to literature | Spectator USA.
After Fault Lines, his acclaimed family history, David Pryce-Jones has written another kind of autobiography: Signatures, the memoirs of a bibliophile
Interesting …
… “Call It the Tucker Carlson Wing of the GOP”: The American Conservative Wants to Be the Atlantic of the Right | Vanity Fair.
Since its 2002 launch under founding editor Scott McConnell, the magazine has pushed ideas few other conservative outlets considered, namely opposing America’s wartime economy and the ongoing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan that fuel it. On domestic and trade policies, TAC’s editorial line has long opposed the international trade agreements championed by adherents of global-market capitalism who ran the party pre-Trump. “We really want…[a more] humane economy, as opposed to just whatever the Wall Street Journal editorial board wants, or big finance and big business want,” Burtka said during a phone interview from his Pennsylvania farm, from which he regularly commuted from to TAC’s offices in Washington, D.C., before the pandemic hit. “We really want to look at what types of economic policies would empower families and local communities…[and to be] good stewards of the environment.”
Why she sells …
… John Lanchester — The Case of Agatha Christie – LRB 20 December 2018. (Hat tip Dave Lull.)
The composer Michael Friedman, who died much too young last year, left a list of column topics which included the thought that ‘I seriously think Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the great modernist novel.’ It is possible to have an argument over the exact delineation of the term ‘modernist’ there, since Christie’s techniques were in many respects devoutly unexperimental, but if we change it to ‘formalist’, it is impossible to disagree. (If you were trying to put Christie in the modernist camp with Stein and Woolf and Joyce you would have to argue that her interest in the traditional apparatus of character and narrative was so perfunctory that she was in effect signalling that it didn’t matter and was present purely as a formal requirement – a claim that I think it is possible to make; I just don’t think the bare question of terminology is worth a fight.) Her career amounts to a systematic exploration of formal devices and narrative structures, all through a genre with strictly defined rules and a specified character list ….
Who knew?
… shakespeare - Sports - Stripes. (Hat tip, Tim Davis.)
The heroic story of the Steelers’ first-ever draft pick — William Shakespeare.
In case you wonder …
… Which epidemiologist do you believe? - UnHerd.
What they are not, despite the attempts of some social media voices to make it so, are good and evil. Clearly, both experts are highly accomplished scientists doing their best to understand a complex threat. Likewise, the wider debate around lockdown is not a contest between rational, good people who value life on the one hand and the cavalier and cynical who care only about economics or themselves on the other. If the do-gooder class try to push that narrative, they will simply lose the argument.
Something to think on …
Knowledge is when you learn something new every day. Wisdom is when you let something go every day.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, who died on tis date in 1882
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Very interesting …
… COVID-19 Update from Dr. Smith: 4/26/20 | Columbia University Department of Surgery. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Surely, we beer drinkers could pitch In to help with that beer.
Hmm …
… RESEARCHERS.ONE — A fiasco in the making: More data is not the answer to the coronavirus pandemic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I find it odd that the author should think we should base policy decisions on what he admits is "severe uncertainty." And I should think it is always better to have more and better data. But apparently statisticians think differently. At least this one does, and he just wants to go with what they have. But hear him out.
Quite a bird …
… Evening Hawk by Robert Penn Warren | Poetry Foundation. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Robert Penn Warren was born on April 24, 1905.
Robert Penn Warren was born on April 24, 1905.
Watch and listen …
… [YouTube] On Warnings over Systemic Risks from Global Pandemics - Nassim Taleb. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Here is my review of Taleb's The Black Swan: The Always Unexpected in 'The Black Swan'.
Here is my review of Taleb's The Black Swan: The Always Unexpected in 'The Black Swan'.
Epistemological works tend to be classified among the drier forms of discourse, but Taleb writes about the problems of knowing in a way that is not only lively, but downright sassy. If nothing else, his book will make you more aware of how many people -- pundits and politicians especially -- are given to inflating the little they think they know into giant balloons of prophecy.
Here I go again …
… Beware of confimation bias - The Post.
To me it implies that the disease has been going around for longer and may, therefore, mean it’s infected more people (and thus killed a smaller percentage of the people it’s infected). … I wanted to quickly temper that, though: some sensible voices suggest it doesn’t change very much.
The Bard and the problem of knowledge …
… Shakespeare and Beyond: Discovering the meaning behind Shakespeare’s plays.
McGinn explores three main areas in which the 'spirit of uncertainty pervades the plays' of Shakespeare: knowledge and skepticism; the nature of the self; and the character of causality. With a philosopher's discipline, McGinn explores each of these areas.
Something to think on …
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive — to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
— Marcus Aurelius, born on this date in 121
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Interesting …
… Wisconsin saw no coronavirus infection-rate spike after April 7 election, study says | Fox News.
“Our study did not find any significant increase in the rate of new COVID-19 cases following the April 7, 2020, election post-incubation period, for the state of Wisconsin or its three major voting counties, as compared to the US,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
RIP …
… Obits | Duluth News Tribune.
Dr. Plachta was Dave Lull’s physician. Here is what Dave wrote to me about him:
Dr. Plachta was Dave Lull’s physician. Here is what Dave wrote to me about him:
I first met him early in my career when he was what we called back then a page (i.e., a young part-time shelver and gofer) at the first library I worked in, SPL’s Main Library (there were a branch library and two “stations” (storefront libraries) back then), and we talked about literature and medicine and his wanting to be a doctor. I was certain then that he would be a great doctor. He was. He was the first and only doctor I ever saw annually. By then he had somehow come to specialize in older patients. I was 50 when I first saw him and one of his nurses told me at the time that I was his youngest patient. He truly was extraordinarily compassionate, with a wonderful bedside manner and a profound love for his family that was evident, and highly intelligent and thoughtful and competent as well.
This is just so damn sad.Sounds to me as if the world has just become a poorer place. Let us all say a prayer in Dr. Plachta’s memory.
Noble thought for these times …
… Stoicism in a time of pandemic: how Marcus Aurelius can help | Books | The Guardian. (Tomorrow is the anniversary of Marcus' birth in 121.)
With all of this in mind, it’s easier to understand another common slogan of Stoicism: fear does us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid. This applies to unhealthy emotions in general, which the Stoics term “passions” – from pathos, the source of our word “pathological”. It’s true, first of all, in a superficial sense. Even if you have a 99% chance, or more, of surviving the pandemic, worry and anxiety may be ruining your life and driving you crazy. In extreme cases some people may even take their own lives.
In that respect, it’s easy to see how fear can do us more harm than the things of which we’re afraid because it can impinge on our physical health and quality of life. However, this saying also has a deeper meaning for Stoics. The virus can only harm your body – the worst it can do is kill you. However, fear penetrates into the moral core of our being. It can destroy your humanity if you let it. For the Stoics that’s a fate worse than death.
Worth seeing again …
… Newman’s own | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The film was widely appreciated when it came out in 1963, winning multiple awards including three Oscars — though not, absurdly, for Newman. Martin Ritt, who died in 1990, always knew what he was doing. His films have a finished quality, as if they could have been no other way. Hud is probably his masterpiece.If memory serves, Hud delivers himself of an especially great line: "You're mighty big on the pleases and thank yous."
Something to think on …
Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever — even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body.
— Walter de la Mare, born on this date in 1873
Friday, April 24, 2020
Hmm …
… Instapundit — VENTILATOR BLUES: Nearly all Covid-19 patients put on ventilators in New York’s largest health system died, study finds …
I wonder how much else we have been led to believe will turn out to be untrue.
Taking advantage of circumstance …
… How Shakespeare Changed My Life: Shakespeare in lockdown during the plague.
I had the good fortune of seeing a rather good staging of Lear once, the one starring Paul Scofield.
I had the good fortune of seeing a rather good staging of Lear once, the one starring Paul Scofield.
Old master …
… Eliot’s Last Prose | The Hudson Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I can imagine Eliot reading these charges of Mudrick’s and wearily agreeing with him, as if they didn’t cause him the least surprise or embarrassment. Sometimes Eliot turns the charge against himself into an occasion for satisfying wit, as when, in “American Literature and the American Language,” he justifies his scrupulous engagement with his own sentences as merely being consistent, “as I have a reputation for affecting pedantic precision, a reputation I should not like to lose.” Such an explanatory turn goes a long way toward assuring us that we can relax, since the lecturer knows exactly what he’s doing.
Appreciation …
… Book Review: ‘Extravagant Rescues’ Brett Foster Poetry Collection | National Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… Foster’s poetry is playful without being trivial, a hard balance to keep up. How to write so that readers enjoy the ride without worrying where you are leading them, only to find themselves vested with an eternal question that they cannot shake off any more than a dog whose jaws lock around their ankle?
And the winners are …
… Competition winners: Clerihews on Spectator contributors | The Spectator Australia. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good question …
… Can British media steer clear of the American sewer? - UnHerd.
Political TV hosts in America are obsequious, self-congratulatory and inadequate — let's not copy them
Something to think on …
We should spend as much time in thanking God for his benefits as we do in asking him for them.
— Vincent de Paul, born on this date in 1581
Oh, those …
… from the New England Journal of Medicine: The Untold Toll — The Pandemic’s Effects on Patients without Covid-19 | NEJM. (Hat tip, Dave Lull)
See also: The forgotten patients of the coronavirus lockdown. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As the coronavirus pandemic focuses medical attention on treating affected patients and protecting others from infection, how do we best care for people with non–Covid-related disease? For some, new risks may warrant reconsideration of usual standards of care. For others, the need to protect caregivers and preserve critical care capacity may factor into decisions. And for everyone, radical transformation of the health care system will affect our ability to maintain high-quality care. As Michael Grossbard, chief of hematology at New York University’s Langone Hospital, told me, “Our practice of medicine has changed more in 1 week than in my previous 28 years combined.”
See also: The forgotten patients of the coronavirus lockdown. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I suspect when the modeling was undertaken and the government was being quoted various possible and undoubtedly horrific death tolls, a lockdown policy which — in the view of mathematicians and epidemiologists — would significantly mitigate this was received with open arms. But was the cost in terms of people already ill or about to become ill with other conditions taken into account? I have no doubt serious illnesses and diagnoses will be delayed and missed as a result of measures preventing people from being infected by COVID-19. Has anyone actually asked the people we are supposed to be ‘protecting’ about this?
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Hear, hear …
… The data is in — stop the panic and end the total isolation | TheHill.
The tragedy of the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be entering the containment phase. Tens of thousands of Americans have died, and Americans are now desperate for sensible policymakers who have the courage to ignore the panic and rely on facts. Leaders must examine accumulated data to see what has actually happened, rather than keep emphasizing hypothetical projections; combine that empirical evidence with fundamental principles of biology established for decades; and then thoughtfully restore the country to function.
On the frontlines …
… Opinion | Life and Death as Hospitals Fight the Coronavirus in the Bronx - The New York Times. (Hat tip, Jeff Mauvais.)
Obviously, we should be praying for those in healthcare who are working to save people — and are putting themselves in danger to do so.
Journalists have rarely been allowed into hospitals in this crisis; reporters and photographers found it much easier to be embedded in Army units in Iraq or Afghanistan than to embed with doctors fighting Covid-19. Hospitals worry about HIPAA privacy rules, the dangers of infection and the possibility of embarrassing stories. Unfortunately, the shortage of gritty on-the-ground coverage means that to many Americans, the coronavirus remains distant and unreal — so they plan a large Easter dinner or gather friends for a game in the park.
Obviously, we should be praying for those in healthcare who are working to save people — and are putting themselves in danger to do so.
Hmm …
… Did Jesus Bungle the Resurrection? – Mark Vernon.
Better is another view that runs through the tradition, sometimes called the sign or exemplary theory. On this understanding, sacrifice is about cultivating a sacrificial attitude: the routine letting go and offering up of life.
It’s a rhythm of life that echoes the resurrection appearances. It fosters the inner habit, perception from within, and re-orientates the sacrificer to the kingdom, and lets them drop into the life of God.
It becomes a way of cultivating the detachment that enables the individual to be in the world but not entangled by the fears and distractions of the world. It makes sense of what Paul wrote to the Colossians. “Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
A poem for today for sure …
… iroon.com: Blogs: Mask. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
My heart goes out to those with respiratory problems (my youngest stepdaughter has asthma). It's bad enough under the best of circumstances, but obviously much worse these days.
Hmm …
… French researchers plan to give nicotine patches to coronavirus patients and frontline workers | Daily Mail Online. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It comes after world-famous artist David Hockney last week said he believes smoking could protect people against the deadly coronavirus.
MailOnline looked at the science and found he may have been onto something, with one researcher saying there was 'bizarrely strong' evidence it could be true.
May still be true …
… Potcake Poet’s Choice: Gail White, “Anecdotal Evidence” | Form in Formless Times. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something to think on …
Like all great rationalists you believed in things that were twice as incredible as theology.
— Halldór Laxness, born on this date in 1902
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Hmm …
… Lockdowns Don’t Work - Public Discourse.
Lockdowns don’t work. These other policies—travel restrictions, large-assembly limits, centralized quarantine, mask requirements, and school cancellations—do work. Because COVID is an extremely severe disease that, if left unchecked, will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, it is vitally important that policymakers focus their efforts on policies that do work (masks, central quarantines, travel restrictions, school cancellations, large-assembly limits), and avoid implementing draconian, unpopular policies that don’t work (lockdowns).
At this point, the question I usually get is, “What’s your evidence that lockdowns don’t work?”
It’s a strange question. Why should I have to prove that lockdowns don’t work? The burden of proof is to show that they do work! If you’re going to essentially cancel the civil liberties of the entire population for a few weeks, you should probably have evidence that the strategy will work. And there, lockdown advocates fail miserably, because they simply don’t have evidence.
Those who forget the past …
… Welcome Back to History America | Rule of Law.
Get your kids and grand-kids The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They had it worse than your kids do, at least for now. If you think Zoom school is bad, if you are growing weary of beans and rice, try heating your freezing house with twisted wheat and eating grain porridge for every meal.
Not good …
… CDC’s failed coronavirus tests were tainted with coronavirus, feds confirm | Ars Technica.
A federal investigation found CDC researchers not following protocol.
Appreciation …
… Tabletop worlds | About Last Night.
In order to divert those of you who, like me, are staying home these days, I’ve been posting images of some of the prints and paintings that hang on the walls of the Manhattan apartment that I shared for many years with my late wife Hilary—the “Teachout Museum,” as a friend calls it. My latest image is Piazza Rotonda, a 1994 color aquatint and etching by William Bailey, who died last week at the august age of eighty-nine. Bailey, a painter and printmaker who also taught at Yale, was an artist’s artist, never widely recognized but greatly admired nonetheless, both by his colleagues and by a few discerning critics, most notably Robert Hughes and Hilton Kramer.Fine work I did not know of.
RIP …
… Betty Williams obituary | UK news | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
One of the founders of the Northern Ireland Peace People and a joint Nobel laureate.
Cause for jope …
… Joy Harjo: 'What joins us together is poetry' - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Mark thy calendar …
Welcome To Philly Poetry Day, Saturday, April 25, 2020!
Any Time
How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time faster
where it has never stirred from
before there is anything
the darkness thinking the light
W.S. Merwin
Welcome To Philly Poetry Day, Saturday, April 25, 2020!
1 Take any line from the above Merwin poem
and write it in chalk on your sidewalk
2 or write it on paper or cardboard and place
in your garden or on your windows –
anywhere it can be seen and read
3 or text it or tweet it
4 or write it on the outside of an envelope
and mail it to a friend
5 Move the poem out into the world in any way you invent
In this way the entire poem will be composed many times
and you will be connected to each part of it and each person
participating
6 Take a photo and email to Leonard: gontarek9@earthlink.net
and/or post to the Philly Poetry Day Facebook Page with comment
Philly Poetry “Day” 2020 Extends From Friday, April 24 – Thursday, April 30
And Extends Everywhere
Be Safe And Well, Peace And Thanks, Leonard Gontarek
& The Philly Poetry Day Crew!
Any Time
How long ago the day is
when at last I look at it
with the time it has taken
to be there still in it
now in the transparent light
with the flight in the voices
the beginning in the leaves
everything I remember
and before it before me
present at the speed of light
in the distance that I am
who keep reaching out to it
seeing all the time faster
where it has never stirred from
before there is anything
the darkness thinking the light
W.S. Merwin
Welcome To Philly Poetry Day, Saturday, April 25, 2020!
1 Take any line from the above Merwin poem
and write it in chalk on your sidewalk
2 or write it on paper or cardboard and place
in your garden or on your windows –
anywhere it can be seen and read
3 or text it or tweet it
4 or write it on the outside of an envelope
and mail it to a friend
5 Move the poem out into the world in any way you invent
In this way the entire poem will be composed many times
and you will be connected to each part of it and each person
participating
6 Take a photo and email to Leonard: gontarek9@earthlink.net
and/or post to the Philly Poetry Day Facebook Page with comment
Philly Poetry “Day” 2020 Extends From Friday, April 24 – Thursday, April 30
And Extends Everywhere
Be Safe And Well, Peace And Thanks, Leonard Gontarek
& The Philly Poetry Day Crew!
Something to think on …
Happiness is a wondrous commodity: the more you give, the more you have.
— Germaine de Staël, born on this date in 1766
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Perhaps this will help …
… What Each Side of the COVID-19 Debate Should Understand About the Other – Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Both Closers and Openers, though, have a combination of reasons, theories, guesses, and value judgments of a sort many sane people have always made, that make their respective positions make sense to them. Neither side should be blithely written off as either idiotic or sinister or not thinking, in their own way, of human well-being.
Hmm …
… Behind protests: two Americas, one unemployed, one still getting paid.
Ultimately, this rising resentment is itself a failure of public health, and of public health administration. You can complain that people are irrational and resentful, that they don’t “believe in science,” or whatever. But people are what they are, and their response to epidemics is surprisingly predictable. If your messaging — and your behavior — inspires resentment that causes people to resist and ignore public health messages, then you have failed at your job, whatever the amount of scientific knowledge you bring to bear.
Still more for your listening pleasure …
… Josh Peterson - "Uncertain Certainties" - Perfect Duluth Day. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For your listening pleasure …
Randall Thompson was born on this date in 1899. Leonard Bernstein studied with him.
Writing for money …
… Waugh’s Journalism | The Evelyn Waugh Society. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Wheatcroft begins with a fairly wide-ranging consideration of the relative importance of journalism to the Waugh family income.
"Waugh’s views of the Irish among the Roman Catholic clergy" are actually kind of interesting:
… one can understand why there is a distinct whiff of anti-clericalism where Irish priests are in power … they have lost their peasant simplicity without acquiring a modest carriage of their modest learning.”
When I was growing up going to Catholic school. I heard many complaints about the Irish nuns. Luckily for me, the grade school I attended from the fourth grade on was staffed by the nuns of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Mother Holmes, my sixth grade teacher, was one of the most important figures in my life. By great good fortune, we connected again via email at the end of her life. I feel sure she's in heaven.
Something to bear in mind …
… Do Not Delay Urgent Medical Care Due To The COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. (Hat tip, dave Lull.)
…physicians are concerned that many patients are choosing to stay at home even when they need emergency care, out of fear of contracting the virus.
For the birds …
… Sketchy Science Journal Publishes Article Titled 'What's the Deal With Birds?' (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Scientist and blogger David Kaye did a deep dive into this specific company’s shady journals that you can read here, but the Scientific Journal of Research and Reviews and its publisher, Iris Publishers, have all of the trappings of a predatory operation. At best, scientists use these platforms to publish joke articles on birds and Star Wars. But these journals could be used by scientists hoping to spread bunk science or pad their resumes and might dupe inexperienced scientists, who might not be able to tell which journals are predatory and which aren’t.
Something to think on …
Our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear - love for him that has shown us such grace that no greater can be found.
— Peter Abelard, who died on this date in 1142
Monday, April 20, 2020
Not much …
… Do face masks work? | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
See also: Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… it’s important that we all have an idea of how far the science can take us, so we can think clearly about political decisions that may limit our freedoms or compel certain actions. If we are to be told that decisions are scientifically justified, we need a discussion about that scientific basis, not just be told to take our medicine.
See also: Face Masks Against COVID-19: An Evidence Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A survivir’s tales …
… On Varlam Shalamov’s “Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories”. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Shalamov anatomizes the organizational evil of the Gulag. There’s no pretense to rehabilitation or high-toned appeals to justice. The camp bosses defer to the violent criminal subclass that effectively runs the camps. As a “political” sentenced for “counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities,” Shalamov is at the mercy of warring gangs of garden-variety hoodlums.
Learning more …
… L.A. County Antibody Tests Suggest the Fatality Rate for COVID-19 Is Much Lower Than People Feared – Reason.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If COVID-19 really is only a bit more lethal than the seasonal flu, the benefits that can be expected from continued lockdowns, in terms of deaths prevented, are much lower than most projections assumed. If these results are confirmed, they should play an important role in discussions about when and how to reopen the economy.Suppose it turns out to be only as lethal as the seasonal flu.
Hmm …
… Harvard Magazine Calls for a “Presumptive Ban” on Homeschooling: Here Are 5 Things It Got Wrong - Foundation for Economic Education.
As a Harvard alum, longtime donor, education researcher, and homeschooling mother of four children in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was shocked to read the article, “The Risks of Homeschooling,” by Erin O’Donnell in Harvard Magazine’s new May-June 2020 issue. Aside from its biting, one-sided portrayal of homeschooling families that mischaracterizes the vast majority of today’s homeschoolers, it is filled with misinformation and incorrect data.
The comments appended to the Harvard article are pretty telling.
Q&A …
… Catholicism and Socialism: Comrades or Enemies? – Catholic World Report. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
[Pope Pius IX] said that if socialism is defined broadly enough to just be “concern for the poor” then it’s not really socialism. He commends the “just demands” of these socialists (such as stronger unions and worker protections), but also said that their advocacy is unnecessary because there is “nothing in them now which is inconsistent with Christian truth, and much less are they special to socialism. Those who work solely toward such ends have, therefore, no reason to become socialists” (115).Those of us who were taught Catholic social doctrine in school know this.