Starry Night

Today is Tuesday, 29 July 2008.

Vincent Van Gogh died on this date, 1890.



And, in a related chord, Pete Seeger:





And Arlo:

World War One

Today is 28 July 2008.

Happy 94th anniversary of Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, and beginning World War One !!!

A few days ago, "Hari" [obviously "Seldon"] made ref to H. Hesse, Das Glasperlenspiel.

[H. Hesse may have ref to HH.]

From Theodore Ziolkowski's forward to that novel:

"[Das Glasperlenspiel] [The Glass Bead Game] is an act of mental synthesis through which the spritual values of all ages are perceived as simulteanously present and vitally alive."

The Museum of the Bourgeois hates everything Robert Novak stands for, but we hate even more the news he has a brain tumor.

I've been reading his crap columns since it was Evans and Novak in 1963, however ... I would wish this on no one.

Here's to Novak:



And also, let's not forget:

In Memory: Stanley Kubrick

Today is Saturday, 26 July 2008.

Stanley Kubrick born this day in 1928.

"Mad World" by Tears for Fears:



John McCain IS "Dr. Strangelove":



From Full Metal Jacket:



(Historical note: an article in The Village Voice regarding Ollie North [this movie came about during Iran/Contra] was titled "Full Metal Jackass".)

And, 2001 as the year should have been (instead, we got George W. Bush):



Good night, and good luck:



For the record [sic!]: the preceding sung by the great Vera Lynn, OBE, KBE.

Happy Birthday, M!

Today is Friday, 25 July 2008.

Birthday of my friend of many years, and hopefully forever, M, who created this site as a birthday gift to me.

This is a portrait from outer space of the part of this planet which we inhabit, on M's birthday:

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/east/latest_eastvishem.gif

And, of course, M and HH are The Spock Twins:



I particularly admire how Spock, though dying, stands, and then pulls his uniform tunic into place. He will die, but he will die with dignity.

M: Live long and prosper.

Another Mad World

Today is Tuesday, 22 July 2008.

This is why I should stick to books, and ignore TV shows.

I’d heard good things about Saving Grace, and, indeed, it seems excellent.

However, in the first few minutes of the episode I watched tonight, too many OKC Bombing references.

I lost a friend from Stillwater that day.

And another friend perished on 9-11.

And I remember also a roomie from college, from Iran, who committed suicide, in despair after 1979.

And a friend from Ethiopia, who couldn’t return, because most of his family had been killed after the fall of the Empire there.

Listening to the following makes me feel better:



And here's my late, great friend, Jeff Buckley:



And this is Jeff's song, his interp of the Leonard Cohen song, set to a family's home video of the World Trade Center:



By popular request, I conclude with Claude D:



I cannot resist gilding the lily: Bach, "That Sheep May Safely Graze":



I'm defintely shutting down the request phone lines with this one, Faure's Pavane:



This request just in under the wire, I can't resist, Mr. Cash:



It's my blog, I'll cry if I want to. When I mashup songs like this, it's H. Hesse's The Glass Bead Game: put them all together, and it's a triangulation upon the cosmos. Joni Mitchell, from the album Blue, "River":

Let's Indict Another President

Today is Monday, 21 July 2008.

It is reported that Radovan Karadzic, President of the Bosnian Serbs during the latter's genocidal war of 1992 - 1995, has been arrested, and awaits trial on war crimes, crimes against humanity, waging a war of aggression, etc.

May more arrests soon follow:



Bush brings it on:

In Greatest Honour: Nelson Mandela

Today is Friday, 18 July 2008.

On this day in 1918, Nelson Mandela was born.

All honor.

In 1985, HH was privileged to be part of the Anti-Apartheid Blockade at Columbia University in NYC. Mandela was still imprisoned, but he sent a message of solidarity.

The Specials UK, with their hit song, "Free Nelson Mandela", was our anthem.

How Do I frame this story?

Today is Thursday, 17 July 2008.

How do i frame this story, or any genocide, or death?



How do you frame this story? How might anyone?

As humans, we own such kindness and shame.

I do so much like reality.

BOOM 4 U!

Today is Wednesday, 16 July 2008.

Day of Trinity, when the first atomic bomb was exploded.



Herewith, in ironic honor of the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:



Dedicated to Jan, Mike, Richard.

In Memory of A Cardinal Flown Too Soon

Today is 15 July 2008.

Happy Bastille Day!

Today is Monday, 14 July 2008.



Political analysis to follow.

In Memory: Thoreau

Today is Saturday, 12 July 2008.

On this date in 1817, was born Henry David Thoreau.

Herewith, in his honour, Bach:



And, The First Movement of the Third Brandenburg Concerto of Bach:



In the last year of the Carter Administration, I heard the Second Brandenburg at a Lutheran Church in Evanston, Illinois, the noble sounds echoing so richly off the stone (this is the First Movement):



And, since it's a dark and stormy night here on the Southern Great Plains, thunder and lightning all about, let's go with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet's "Pachelbel's "Loose" Canon", a version of one of my favs:



And here's a fav, George Winston, whom I heard during the Second Reagan Administration, playing a midnight concert at Lincoln Center, playing another fav, his "Variations Upon 'Canon'":



Follow the threads among these songs, right to the end of night, and we wrap with Joni Mitchell, "River":

let's impeach

Today is Thursday, 10 July 2008.

Good morning, America:




And here's a second cup of coffee:

Happy Birthday, Christy!

Today remains Tuesday, 8 July 2008.

Sometimes, one becomes so entangled in the horrors of the present one neglects the beauties of the past.

HH thanks Nancy for reminding him that today is the birthday of Christy, who has been our dear friend since the Ford Administration.

Long ago, when HH was undercover, posing as a mild-mannered library archivist, Christy was the only student who worked with him for all four years of her undergraduate career.

When one works at university, one must reconcile oneself to the fact that, students, like children, will one day take glorious wing and fly the nest. One doesn't like it, but there it is.

Christy was the most gifted of my students, and had, and has, the finest heart.



Thank you for these many years of friendship.

Love.

Another Day of Infamy

Today is Tuesday, 8 July 2008.

In 1853, Japan was a feudal dictatorship. For centuries, the ruling class had largely succeeded in freezing technological advancement (particularly military) and social change, and had cut off the nation from all foreign interchange, save for a few designated trade ports, which were strictly controlled.

In 1853, the USA/USE was a non-feudal dictatorship.

[I note the gasps and indignation, so this sidebar:

Consider that, in 1853, only a minority of adult Americans could vote: no slaves, no females, no Native Americans need register. Consider: the threat of extermination for Native Americans, Black slaves being worked to death, and females were essentially property of husbands or male relatives.

Let us recall that the so-called first democracy, the city-state of Athens, was of the same genre. Only some 15-20 % of adult Athenians could vote, all free males.]

A crucial difference between Japan and the USA/USE was that the latter was a technologically dynamic capitalist state, producing more than it could consume, and therefore had a voracious, and desperate, appetite for foreign markets.

On this date in 1853, a squadron of four American warships, led by Commodore Matthew Perry, dropped anchor near Tokyo Bay. Perry threatened a naval bombardment unless representatives of the imperial government submitted to his demand that they receive a letter from President Millard Fillmore, which required that Japan open its markets to American goods, or suffer military consequences. The Japanese had no choice but to bow to superior violence.

Thus the USA/USE began its ultimately-successful campaign to become the dominate power in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the resentment of the Japanese ruling class would fester and deepen, culminating in a grab for power at Pearl Harbor, which initiated the Pacific War of 1941-45, but the latter would prove only a bump in the road to American hegemony.

Mad World

Today is Monday, 7 July 2008.

On this date in 1972, your writer was arrested by the FBI for the crime of returning his draft cards to his draft board and the "President", in a last-ditch effort to arouse revolutionary opposition to the war against Indochina.



And:



Not that I'm entirely without hope:



And here's an old friend of HH, Suzanne Vega:



And another old friend:



And whom can forget:



And:



Well, let's just pretend this is old-time radio and TV, and here's our sign-off, courtesy of "kyromaster" from YouTube:



You get a good sleep too.

Jesse Helms, Lynchist, Has Died

Today is Saturday, 5 July 2008.

Briefly Senator (of Whites) Jesse Helms, of North Carolina, was called, by his Lord, Satan, to a grateful rest, yesterday, the Fourth of July, 2008.

He was 86.

Helms was a life-long white supremacist (beginning in his political career for white supremacist, neo-nazi Senate candidate, Willis Smith, in 1950). Helms also believed women should be virtual slaves of males, and hated lesbians and gay males.

While pretending to hate the Federal government, Helms was a long-time trencher-man at that trough.

Helms entrenched himself firmly in that Grand Old Southern tradition, which, as a Southerner by birth myself, I know so well, of the minimally-effective white supremacist blowhard.

The only good I can say of this evil man is that, in 1963, Dorothy Helms, his wife, and he, adopted a disabled child.

This does not atone for a life of wickedness.

Dear Reader

Today is Thursday, 3 July 2008.

Referencing the comment of "Reader" from yesterday, I wish to state, that I am a stateless person. Yes, I pay taxes, i.e. tribute, to my feudal lord, the USA, and therefore am left largely alone.

I am a citizen of the world. Nationalism was born obsolete. "We must love one another, or die".

As to the French:



And, "in the words of my generation", up you, Major Strasser:

The Only National Anthem, for which, however flawed, I stand

Today is Wednesday, 2 July 2008.

In 1925, Patrice Lumumba is born.

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Right Bill.

In 1877, Hermann Hesse is born.

The Myth of "Warrior McCain"

Today is Tuesday, 1 July 2008.

Would born-privileged John McCain have been admitted to the Naval Academy, absent a father and grandfather who were four-star admirals?

McCain graduated in the bottom 1% --- yes, 1% --- of his class: 894 out of 899.

Some say it was because of his arrogance, contempt of regulations, insubordination, addiction to partying, and poor academic performance.

Perhaps hard to say. In 2004, John Kerry released all his file of military service. In 2008, John McCain has refused to release all but a tiny fraction of his file.

What has John McCain to hide?

Despite his abysmal performance, reflecting his gratitude to the taxpayers who gave him a free ride to a college degree, McCain was not assigned to duty reflecting his documented super-mediocre abilities and qualities. Oh, no.

McCain was awarded one of the most coveted billets in the Navy: carrier fighter pilot. No matter that, during the next few years, he crashed two planes and ran another into power lines. Perhaps he should have studied more and partied less.

In 1968, on merely his 23rd mission, McCain was shot down over Vietnam. Not much return on the taxpayer investment. Definitely should have spent more time learning how to “serve the country”.

After five years of detention, McCain returned home, underwent physical rehab, attended the Naval War College, and zealously promoted himself as an ex-POW celebrity. His superiors endorsed his high opinion of himself, not by assigning him a front-line combat command, but to supervision of a training squadron in Florida.

Then, in recognition of McCain’s gifts as a political hack, he was assigned as a Navy lobbyist of Congress. After several years, and realizing he would never make admiral, and having acquired a taste for the high political life, McCain resigned from the Navy, deserted his wife, married a multi-millionaire, and entered electoral life.

The rest is history.

McCain boasts a vastly undistinguished career, entirely at inferior levels, and completely devoid of service at strategic and foreign policy levels.

For once, I agree with a general: riding in a fighter jet and being a POW are hardly foreign policy qualifications for executive office.

But then, McCain also purports to believe that supporting a mass-murderous and failed attempt to conquer Iraq is also a sterling foreign policy qualification for executive office.