Where are the days

The days that time erased?

Cycles of blank eternity

Saint Augustine Meditates:

I pouring derision hot upon my days,
Hurrying to solder twisted chords of this music,
Catching the threads with bitter broken fingers,
Could I affirm the common way?
Once it was measurement of laughter,
Song in the berry, wisdom in the wine,
Oblivion for hereafter, and to stumbling time
Whirlwind. Yes, we had made our madness holy,
Worshipped the witless feet, bought off the fates
Till they were aged to mellow languor.
I was a fool, eating the violet-colored flowers,
Bruising untasted fruit, or pretending to shadows.
And all the while the years swirled over me,
Eddied about the darkness of my eyes.

Clarence Weinstock.

All Your Life Has Been Spent in Pursuit of Archaeological Relics

I'm sure you all marked your calendars for this special anniversary:

Podcasters in print

Posted By Cathy Resmer on Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 9:13 AM

Hey, so Bill and the gang from Friday Coffeeblogging are featured in the new Podcasting Pocket Guide from O'Reilly. Congrats, guys — your fame is well-deserved. Now crank out some more o' them episodes!

It was indeed the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people:

Friday Coffeeblogging is unique among podcasts and not only for its content: the show is recorded in a coffee shop in downtown Burlington, Vermont, and the atmosphere is recorded right along with the show. Captured in the background are the clinks of coffee cups, the murmur of the patrons, and the warbling of the café's background music. (And you can almost smell the coffee...)

The hosts of the show are Bill Simmon, N. Todd Pritsky, and Gregory Giordano, also known by their "web handles" Bill, Ntodd, and Flameape. In some respects, the show is like Seinfeld: it's about nothing. The podcast is simply an exploration of whatever happens on the day it's recorded. This lack of direction may turn you off, but the personality of the hosts is what really grabs you.

This podcast is a talkfest among three close friends with the occasional slice of music thrown in to spice things up, and, in most cases, the conversation slips into geek speak. Discussions range from meanderings and personal anecdotes, such as Flameape's claim that he is a personal disaster zone, to opinions of movies such as Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith where the gang interviewed fans waiting in line for the premier at Burlington's Roxy Cinema.

This *is* history. Do as you will...

Dispatch This Business With All Possible Celerity

Happy birthday to all our Marines today 🖍️ pic.twitter.com/ylCxokrybt

— Puff, a lightsaber Airman ⚔️ (@KeraRolsen) November 10, 2025

While we had an army by the Summer of '75, it wasn't until October 5, when Congress got word of 2 British vessels headed for Canada, that we started organizing a naval force.  The ubiquitous John Adams was appointed to a committee, and he recorded:

This Committee immediately procured a Room in a public house in the City, and agreed to meet every Evening at six o Clock in order to dispatch this Business with all possible celerity.

On November 10, Congress resolved:

That two Battalions of marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or insisted into said battalions, but such as are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be insisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalions of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of.

A commission was signed by John Hancock on November 28, making one Samuel Nicholas the very first Captain of Marines (traditionally considered the first Commandant).  Nicholas was one of those "fighting Quakers", disowned by his Meeting for "associating to learn the art of war."

As an aside, we Quakers do have a history of such impetuousness.  General Nathanael Greene was also kicked out for "excessive military ardor and disreputable behavior" in 1770.  Not sure if General Smedley Butler ever was, but of course after becoming the most decorated Marine in US history, he turned back against military conflict and wrote War is a Racket in 1935.

Now a founding myth of the Corps is that it was birthed in Philly's Tun Tavern.  It's not wholly supported by documentation, and some historians think it was actually the Conestoga Wagon Tavern owned by Nicholas.  Yet one of the earliest recruits/recruiters was Robert Mullan, the other establishment's proprietor. 

It's unfortunate that Adams was not specific in that journal entry above about which public house the naval committee frequented.  But since Ben Franklin did use Tun Tavern to raise colonial militia in the 1750s, and Captain Mullan owned the place, it certainly makes sense that it would earn the title of Birthplace of the US Marines.  We'll allow it.

In conclusion: A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade!

I’m tripping over memories I thought I’d left behind

Now nothing else is near, and the truth is hard to find.

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus

En que da moral censura a una rosa, y en ella a sus semejantes:

Divine rose, in your gracious and tender blossom,
You are with your most fragrant subtleties,
Bestower of enroyalled instructions on beauty
Pure as the snow, you teach of loveliness.

Likeness of human form and structure,
Exemplar of all the vain gentility
Wherein nature is to be found uniting
Both the happy cradle and the lamented grave.

What loftiness there is in your presumption!
And prideful scorn at the mere hint of death’s suggestion.
Yet no sooner than you shrink back in consternation

Of that incipient state, with fainting and withered innuendo,
Of your erudite death and fatuous life, than you signal
You lived deceiving, but in your death enlighten!

Juana Inés de la Cruz.

It’s What Lovers Deal, It’s What Lovers Steal

Unsurprisingly, thinking about Augustine compelled me to watch The Name of the Rose last night, as well as return to the palimpsest's dense source material that is Eco's tome.  Both forms of media have long been comfort food for my soul during literal and figurative dark times.

At this juncture, it appears the story carries extra resonance, poignance, bittersweetness...well, something along those lines...for me in no small part because Ericka's middle name was Rose.  The world has a tint today, though not in the usual sense of rose-colored glasses.  More in a sense of seeing through a glass, darkly, I guess.

Which brings us to the scene in which young Adso, having experienced sinful relations with a village woman, confesses to his master, William of Baskerville:

William: Oh, dear!

Adso: Why "oh, dear"? 

William: You are in love. 

Adso: Is that bad? 

William: For a monk it does present certain problems. 

Adso: But doesn't St Thomas Aquinas praise love above all other virtues? 

William: Yes, the love of God, Adso.  The love of God! 

Adso: And the love of...woman? 

William: Of woman, Thomas Aquinas knew precious little.

William goes on to remind his novice Scripture pretty much says women are foul, yet muses that G-d must have endowed them "with some virtues."  In the movie, he concludes with a gentle, emotive contemplation, "How peaceful life would be without love, Adso. How safe... how tranquil...and how dull." Eco, in contrast, has him continue more intellectually:

“...And I cannot help reflecting that He granted her many privileges and motives of prestige, three of them very great indeed. In fact, He created man in this base world, and from mud; woman He created later, in earthly paradise and of noble human matter. And he did not mold her from Adam’s feet or his viscera, but from the rib. 

In the second place, the Lord, who is all-powerful, could have transformed himself into a man in some miraculous way, but he chose instead to become flesh in the womb of a woman, a sign that it was not so foul after all. And when he appeared after the Resurrection, he appeared to a woman. And finally, in the celestial glory no man shall be king of that realm, but the queen will be a woman who has never sinned. 

If, then, the Lord showed such favor to Eve herself and to her daughters, is it so abnormal that we also should feel drawn by the graces and the nobility of that sex? What I mean to say to you, Adso, is that you must not do it again, of course, but it is not so monstrous that you were tempted to do it. 

And as far as that goes, for a monk to have, at least once in his life, experience of carnal passion, so that he can one day be indulgent and understanding with the sinners he will counsel and console . . . well, dear Adso, it is not a thing to be wished before it happens, but it is not something to vituperate too much once it has happened. So go with God and let us speak of it no more. 

Indeed, rather than reflect and dwell too much on something best forgotten, if possible”—and it seemed to me at this point that his voice faded as if at some private emotion—“let us ask ourselves the meaning of what happened this night. Who was this girl and whom was she meeting?” 

“This I don’t know, and I didn’t see the man who was with her,” I said. 

“Very well, but we can deduce who it was from many and certain clues. First of all, the man was old and ugly, one with whom a girl does not go willingly, especially if she is beautiful, as you say, though it seems to me, my dear wolf cub, that you were prepared to find any food delicious.” 

“Why old and ugly?” 

“Because the girl didn’t go with him for love, but for a pack of scraps. Certainly she is a girl from the village who, perhaps not for the first time, grants her favors to some lustful monk so as to have something for her and her family to eat.” 

“A harlot!” I said, horrified. 

“A poor peasant girl, Adso. Probably with smaller brothers to feed. Who, if she were able, would give herself for love and not for lucre. As she did last night. In fact, you tell me she found you young and handsome, and gave you gratis and out of love what to others she would have given for an ox heart and some bits of lung. And she felt so virtuous for the free gift she made of herself, and so uplifted, that she ran off without taking anything in exchange. This is why I think the other one, to whom she compared you, was neither young nor handsome.” 

I confess that, profound as my repentance was, that explanation filled me with a sweet pride; but I kept silent and allowed my master to continue.

In the book, Aquinas does not appear in this conversation, but rather earlier as part of Adso's reflections on his encounter:

I was doing evil in enjoying something that was good in one situation, bad in another; and my fault lay in trying to reconcile natural appetite and the dictates of the rational soul. Now I know that I was suffering from the conflict between the elicit appetite of the intellect, in which the will’s rule should have been displayed, and the elicit appetite of the senses, subject to human passions. 

In fact, as Aquinas says, the acts of the sensitive appetite are called passions precisely because they involve a bodily change. And my appetitive act was, as it happened, accompanied by a trembling of the whole body, by a physical impulse to cry out and to writhe. The angelic doctor says that the passions in themselves are not evil, but they must be governed by the will led by the rational soul. 

But my rational soul that morning was dazed by weariness, which kept in check the irascible appetite, addressed to good and evil as terms of conquest, but not the concupiscent appetite, addressed to good and evil as known entities. To justify my irresponsible recklessness of that time, I will say now that I was unquestionably seized by love, which is passion and is cosmic law, because the weight of bodies is actually natural love. 

And by this passion I was naturally seduced, and I understood why the angelic doctor said that amor est magis cognitivus quam cognitio¹, that we know things better through love than through knowledge. In fact, I now saw the girl better than I had seen her the previous night, and I understood her intus et in cute² because in her I understood myself and in myself her. I now wonder whether what I felt was the love of friendship, in which like loves like and wants only the other’s good, or love of concupiscence, in which one wants one’s own good and the lacking wants only what completes it. 

And I believe that the nighttime love had been concupiscent, for I wanted from the girl something I had never had; whereas that morning I wanted nothing from the girl, and I wanted only her good, and I wished her to be saved from the cruel necessity that drove her to barter herself for a bit of food, and I wished her to be happy; nor did I want to ask anything further of her, but only to think of her and see her in sheep, oxen, trees, in the serene light that bathed in happiness the grounds of the abbey.

At any rate, the lad can be forgiven for confusing (equivocating?) agápē (the selfless love, charity) with other forms of love.  Let us consider what Aquinas actually said:

[I]t is clear that what is loved is naturally inside the lover. Therefore, whoever loves God has him in himself: whoever remains in love, remains in God and God in him (1 John 4:16). It is also the nature of love that it transforms the lover into what is loved. Hence, if we love vile and perishable things, we are made vile and perishable, just as the prophet says: they became abhorrent, just like the things they loved (Hos 9:10). 

But if we love God, we become divine, because he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). But as St. Augustine says: just as the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul; and that is clear, because we say that the body lives through the soul when it performs living functions, such as action and motion. But when the soul leaves, the body neither acts nor moves. 

Likewise the soul acts virtuously and perfectly when it acts through charity, through which God dwells in it; but without charity it cannot act: whoever does not love remains in death (1 John 3:14). It should be noted, however, that anyone who has all the gifts of the Holy Spirit apart from love does not have life. Whether it is the gift of tongues or the gift of knowledge, faith, or any other such as that of prophecy, without charity they do not give life. For if a dead body is dressed in gold and precious stones, it nonetheless remains dead.

Here it is in Latin, with 'love' bolded:

Manifestum est enim quod naturaliter amatum est in amante; et ideo qui Deum diligit ipsum in se habet, quia sicut dicit beatus Iohannes Qui manet in caritate etc. Natura etiam amoris est haec quod amantem in amatum transformat; unde si vilia diligimus et caduca, viles et instabiles efficimur quia sicut dicit Propheta Facti sunt abominabiles sicut ea quae dilexerunt; 

si autem Deum diligimus divini efficimur quia Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est. Sed sicut dicit beatus Augustinus Sicut anima est vita corporis ita Deus est vita animae; et hoc manifestum est: tunc enim dicimus corpus per animam vivere quando habet operationes proprias vitae, scilicet cum operatur et movetur. Anima vero recedente corpus nec operatur nec movetur; 

sic etiam anima tunc operatur virtuose et perfecte quando per caritatem operatur per quam Deus habitat in ea; absque caritate vero non operatur, Io. Qui non diligit manet in morte. Considerandum autem quod si quis habet omnia dona Spiritus Sancti absque caritate non habet vitam. Sive enim sit gratia linguarum sive scientiae sive sit donum fidei sive quidquid aliud ut donum prophetiae, sine caritate vitam non tribuunt. Si enim corpus mortuum induatur auro et lapidibus pretiosis nihilominus mortuum manet.

I am no student of the language, but it appears Aquinas is talking about three different forms of love.  We begin with amo (to love, admire), then ditch it for caritas (charity, love between Man and G-d) and diligo (to esteem, set apart).  So what are we talking about in 1 Corinthians 13 (not to be confused with Trump's favorite, Two Corinthians)?

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It's a popular reading at weddings, but if you examine different versions (e.g., KJV, Vulgate), it's really speaking to agape/charity.  Whatever the sense, none of that is consistent with my experience.  YMMV.

In conclusion: love is big, is bigger than us, but love is not what you're thinking of.

1 - From a handy page with translations of everything in the book: "love is more cognitive than knowledge."

2 - No, not a meet cute (although I guess it was, in sense), but rather, "inside and out [literally 'on the skin']."

What Miserable Drones and Traitors Have I Nourished?

Will no one rid me of this turbulent fork?  But please don't mention the dirty knife.

PS - Apparently the fork is anachronistic, which I guess means it was in Prince Valiant as well.

Out of Time

Ballad Of The Ladies Of Yore:

Tell me where, in what country,
Is Flora the beautiful Roman,
Archipiada or Thais
Who was first cousin to her once,
Echo who speaks when there's a sound
On a pond or a river
Whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?
Where is the leamed Heloise
For whom they castrated Pierre Abelard
And made him a monk at Saint-Denis,
For his love he took this pain,
Likewise where is the queen
Who commanded that Buridan
Be thrown in a sack into the Seine?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

The queen white as a lily
Who sang with a siren's voice,
Big-footed Bertha, Beatrice, Alice,
Haremburgis who held Maine
And Jeanne the good maid of Lorraine
Whom the English bumt at Rouen, where,
Where are they, sovereign Virgin?
But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Prince, don't ask me in a week
or in a year what place they are;
I can only give you this refrain:
Where are the snows of yesteryear?

François Villon.

The Wicked Walk on Every Side, When the Vilest Men Are Exalted

Notice how it’s somehow the government’s job to legislate a few Bible verses on human sexuality over our entire country, but it’s suddenly “not the government’s job” when it comes to the +2,500 Bible verses calling for a generous use of wealth that prioritizes the poor.

— Rev. Benjamin Cremer (@Brcremer) October 28, 2025

Yea verily, amen.  All those Christian Nationalists, billionaires, and trillionaires ought to read some of their Augustine¹:

[T]his is what the rich should do: not be haughty in their ideas, nor set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches...But what are they to do with what they have? Let me tell you what: Let them be rich in good works, let them be easy givers. After all, they've got the wherewithal. Poverty is difficult and grim. Let them be easy givers; they've got the wherewithal. Let them share, that is, take some notice of their fellow mortals²...

What more do you get from all the things you have? You've got your food, you've got your necessary clothing; necessary, I say, not vain, not superfluous. What else can you get from your riches? Tell me. For sure, it will all be your superfluities. Well, let your superfluities provide the poor with their necessities.

MAGA can miss me with the "government ain't charity" bullshit (glares at James Madison).  The phrase "general Welfare" was so nice, the Framers mentioned it twice in the Constitution, and the Federal government enjoys economies of scale and more power to act than any individuals or charities.  

You want a "Christian nation"?  Let the wealthiest country on Earth be easy givers, helping people in their immediate circumstances and creating a system that sets them up to succeed in the long term.  You know, as opposed to allowing oligarchs to hoard all the wealth whilst starving the working poor, the eldery and infirm, and children.

Now, a parable:

While Augustine was working on his book On the Trinity, he was walking by the seaside one day, meditating on the difficult problem of how God could be three Persons at once. He came upon a little child. 

The child had dug a little hole in the sand, and with a small spoon or seashell was scooping water from the sea into the small hole. Augustine watched him for a while and finally asked the child what he was doing. The child answered that he would scoop all the water from the sea and pour it into the little hole in the sand. 

‘What?’ Augustine said. ‘That is impossible. Obviously, the sea is too large and the hole too small.’ 

‘Indeed,’ said the child, ‘but I will sooner draw all the water from the sea and empty it into this hole than you will succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your limited understanding.’ 

Augustine turned away in amazement and when he looked back the child had disappeared.

Indeed, and sooner than we will succeed in penetrating the depravity that is MAGA.

Selah.

1 - That's, uh...a bit of a joke.  President Biden sure did read him, which is why he declared a moratorium on the death penalty, and commuted death sentences for a few dozen people just before he left office, so naturally the orange rapist/fascist/felon made death great again.

2 - He does go on to say: Non enim...exspoliare illos volo, nudare illos volo, inanes relinquere volo ("[I]t doesn't mean I want them looted, want them stripped naked, want them left empty.").  But to be honest, I'm kinda inclining in that direction these days.

PS - Post title from the last line of Psalm 12, about which Augustine said, "The ungodly walk in a circle round about" (verse 8): that is, in the desire of things temporal..."

Galloping Gertie

The wind begins to speak with a roar that no man can fail to hear!  Happy 85th Tacoma Narrows Bridge Day to all who celebrate (and RIP, Tubby).

What holds the human body in human form?

Almost a Figure:

Every time I see you I am reminded of Akhmatova
describing Leningrad burning. Each fire a funeral pyre 

of feverish poppies; their reds a requiem for bone. I imagine
the disbelief, exquisite 

fascination of fire & the Winter Palace consumed. 

  People stuffing jewels in coat pockets & mouths
  everyone suddenly aware of what it means to be a
  body. 

I wonder how many of them

  descending through the city 

turned back to their houses. Locked themselves in 

  & watched plumes of smoke sliding up
  to the sky
                  weightless
                                  ambivalent 

  without grief, or need to reach for anything 

                                  or anyone at all. 

Katherine Larson.

The Line Dividing Good and Evil Cuts Through the Heart of Every Human Being

Yeah, my kids ain't buyin' it.

On les tue par le feu, l’eau, l’électricité

[They kill them with fire, water, electricity]:

They kill them with fire, water, electricity
Those who lived far from springs
Dreaming of water all their life
Those who shivered, without coal
In Mouloud’s frozen sun.
Those who lay awake in the dark
Buried in a gloomy slum.

The first time he saw
A bath
Close up
Was the last day of his life.

Madeleine Riffaud.

A Banner Date for Clevelands, All Worlds, All Times

We begin close to home:

On 20 September 1885, the presence of over 3,200 Chinese miners, concentrated along the Tacoma-Seattle corridor bordering Puget Sound, led to a meeting of dis-gruntled workers in Tacoma. Rallying to the slogan "The Chinese must go," these workers considered exerting legislative and social pressures to harass the Chinese and deny them jobs. Many, however, favored more direct action—forcible expulsion...

The proposed ultimatum for the Chinese to depart Seattle alarmed the Imperial Chinese vice consul in San Francisco and the Washington territorial chief justice in Seattle. Having visited Rock Springs, Consul Frederick Bee knew what a racist mob could do. On 4 October he asked Governor Squire whether he could protect the Chinese and, if not, whether he would arrange for federal military protection. Although Squire assured him that local and territorial authorities would suffice, Chief Justice Roger S. Greene declared that, "while the presence of Chinese is an evil," any effort to drive them out "by lawless violence is suicidal."...

Violence erupted first in Tacoma on 2 November. Unopposed by local authorities, a mob of nearly 300 whites, many of them armed, forced some 200 Chinese to leave in wagons. During a drive in pouring rain to Lake View Station, where the Chinese were to board a train for Portland, several Chinese suffered ill effects from exposure and died soon after...

On 6 November [Governor Squire] requested troops from President Cleveland...[His] decision to send federal troops under RS 5298 came the same day... 

Cleveland's proclamation clearly stated the reasons for military intervention: the governor had reported the existence of domestic violence caused by unlawful obstructions, combinations, and assemblages of "evil-disposed persons," that made impracticable the enforcement by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings of federal law in Seattle and elsewhere...The proclamation concluded with the admonition that all citizens desist, disperse, and retire peaceably to their abodes on or before noon on 8 November...

The troops enjoyed friendly relations with Seattle residents. Military discipline had become so lax that several intoxicated soldiers reportedly assaulted some Chinese. Visiting Chinatown on the night of 9 November, one group of soldiers extorted a "special tax" amounting to $150. The Seattle Call noted sardonically that citizens "will (soon) be called upon to protect the Chinese against the troops."

The only event that marred Gibbon's otherwise quiet entry into Seattle was his own inadvertent violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

And now, closer in time:

On November 6, 1995, with the team at 4–5, Modell announced in a press conference at Camden Yards that he had signed a deal to move the Browns to Baltimore for the 1996 season. The team would play at the Colts' former home (Memorial Stadium) while the new stadium was being built. Modell said he felt the city of Cleveland did not have the funding nor political will to build a first-class stadium. The very next day, on November 7, Cleveland voters overwhelmingly approved the aforementioned tax issue to remodel Cleveland Stadium.

Despite this, Modell ruled out a reversal of his decision, maintaining publicly that his relationship with Cleveland had been irrevocably severed. "The bridge is down, burned, disappeared", he said. "There's not even a canoe there for me." In truth, Modell had been brought to tears when he signed the memorandum of understanding in September: he had even told Moag that signing it was "the hardest thing I've ever done" and meant "the end of our life in Cleveland." Years later, longtime Browns general counsel Jim Bailey told The Athletic that Modell was "an emotional wreck" when he signed the memorandum.

Oh, poor Art.  I'm sure he gave a warm welcome to Dick Cheney in Hell this week, at least.  Unsure if Grover's there or not.

In conclusion: the only good thing to happen on November 6 was my late mother's birth (not in Cleveland).  

(Happy 78th, Mom.  Miss you always.)

#throwbackthursday

Self portrait (2007).

Portrait by Sadie, part of a card she made for me: "I used as much purple as I could because it's your favorite color." (2021)

1783 Was a Very Good Year

Dude's Great Mass was first performed in Salzburg on October 26, 1783, then in 4 (four) days on the way back home to Vienna he tossed off this symphony, which premiered on November 4 in Linz.  There can be only one...

に きえにけむ

[why did you vanish]:

why did you vanish

into empty sky?

even the fragile snow,

when it falls,

falls into this world

Izumi Shikibu.

Ain't nothin' but a heartache

Twenty years since this classic was posted, providing me with an early in-class demonstration of Web 2.0.  I hope the boys are doing well.

A Serious and Good Philosophical Work Could Be Written Consisting Entirely of Jokes

Poem Beginning with a Line of Wittgenstein:

The world is everything that is the case.
Now stop your blubbering and wash your face.

Donald Hall.

Existence Precedes Essence

I've been at the blogging game for over 20 years so often when things come up now, I'll think to myself, "I know I blogged about that before."  The trick these days is to actually find the stuff I wrote, requiring that I dig into the Internet Archive with so much of my musings deleted and defunct.  Such spelunking also brings me a bit of mirth as I rediscover things that I had forgotten about.

While I was looking for that picture of our shenanigans in DC with the Bush and Cheney, I stumbled across this vignette:

Battle of Algiers:

5TH JOURNALIST: Sartre has written another article ...

MATHIEU: Will you kindly explain to me why all the Sartres are always born on the other side?

5TH JOURNALIST: Then you like Sartre, colonel ...

MATHIEU: Not really, but he's even less appealing as an enemy. 

Okay, so whiskeyina gave me a copy of the May 1965 Playboy featuring an interview with Jean-Paul Sartre: 

Other people are hell insofar as you are plunged from birth into a situation to which you are obliged to submit. You are born the son of a rich man, or an Algerian, or a doctor, or an American. Then you have a cut-and-dried future mapped out, a future made for you by others. They haven't created it directly, but they are part of a social order that makes you what you are. If you're a peasant's son, the social order obliges you to move to the city where the machines await you, machines that need fellows like you to keep them going.

So it's your fate to be a certain type of worker, a country kid who has been driven away from the country by a certain type of capitalist pressure. Now the factory is a function of your being.

What exactly is your "being"? It is the job you're doing, a job that masters you completely because it wears you down--along with your pay, which classifies you exactly by your standard of living.

All this has been thrust upon you by other people...Or take a child who was born in Algeria in 1930 or 1935. He was doomed to an explosion into death and the tortures that were his destiny...[but] you can take action against what people have made of you and transform yourself...It takes a lot to change destiny. That destiny has got to be intolerable...

In our social order a man is always dominated by material things, and these things are themselves produced and exploited by others.  These others do not confront him face to face.  No.  They impinge of him through the agency of objects.

You, for example, have separated yourself from me...with this tape recorder.  We put all of modern civilization between  us.  Thus we ourselves become things.  A crowd of other things intervene, from the maker of this gadget of yours to the magazine that you represent.

I'm sure JPS would've loved being interviewed for a Paxcast, and I totally affirm that I didn't look at the centerfold at all.

Since I'd just blogged about Sartre, including that very scene from The Battle of Algiers, I could not let this go unremarked.

And what a time capsule!  I'd stopped by my friend Ina's house on the way back from a War Tax Resistance conference at the Woolman Hill Quaker Retreat Center in Deerfield, MA, and enjoyed cookies and other refreshments, along with receiving the gift of new reading material, before continuing on my way.

That was an interesting and fortifying weekend, hanging out with so many Quakers and other fellow travelers.  Attended my first Meeting since my mother's death in '06, which was a surprisingly emotional experience.  Met some folks who knew the old bookseller in Madison, ME, whom I visited every year when I was at Colby (his name, oddly enough, was Colby).  Also met Juanita Nelson, organizer for CORE and the Freedom Rides, amongst other things.

Alas, Paxcast (one of my several podcasts, along with its live stream version, Paxlive) is one of the many things now memory holed.  But that's okay, since the whole world is on fire and all will be forgotten soon enough.  Fat lot of good my efforts did.

Selah.

The Evil That Men Do Lives After Them

Well, we never did send either of these war criminals to jail, but at least one of them is in Hell now.  

That's me in the Bush costume, BTW, during my first stint at the Code Pink House in Dec '07.  Got warm in that big ole papier-mâché head.

But in the spirit of Nil nisi bonum: Dick did one Good Thing in his life, and that was publicly supporting and voting for MVP Harris.  Have a free cup of ice water on me, you heartless asshole.

Yeah, she's a promise

In the year of election.

it roars

[I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind . . .]:

    I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind, that sips the scald
from the telling, toss, toss. In the room I move in, a wrecked boy listened
to each sky’s erasing, for it was shrill winter, for it was blast and blur.
For it was farther from the native birds and the gray heath heather and
the uncaressable thighs of the one who shook in violet. Those who fly
farthest must always burn the nest. But the mind in its implacable spec-
trum dims to brown. Must you die on your back like a cheap engine, rust
and wrack? In the crevicing days, there are no words for prizing, be-
tween the lidless moon and the silver hands of the fountain. But if it is
space you must fail in, teach it din.

Karen Volkman.

The time to hesitate is through

Ray Manzarek was my favorite Door.

All Feeling Is a Way of Disintegration

Death Goes before Me:

Death goes before me on his hands and knees,
And we go down among the bending trees.

Weeping I go, and no man gives me ease —
I am that strange thing that each strange eye sees;

Eyes of the silence, and all life an eye,
Turn in the wind ; and always I walk by.

Too still I go, and all things go from me
As down far autumn beaches a man runs to the sea.

My hands are cold, my lips are thin and dumb.
Stillness is like the beating of a drum.

Yvor Winters.

Perfect Blasphemy!

Brewing Controversy: How Coffee Sparked Fierce Debate in the 16th-Century https://t.co/bHkF081VU9 #coffee

— Medievalists.net (@Medievalists) November 2, 2025

From the article:

Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghūrī issued a decree declaring:

As for coffee, we have been informed that certain people drink it in a manner similar to wine, mixing intoxicants into it, singing to it with instruments, dancing, and swaying. It is well known that even the water of Zamzam, if consumed in such a manner, would be forbidden. Therefore, its consumption and its circulation in the markets must be prevented.

Violators were punished with “around ten lashes or more,” and some were paraded through the market as a warning.

I've been known to grumble as I make my morning brew, but singing to it?  I don't recall ever doing that.  Regardless, ten lashes sure would wake me up.

And since the Adamses (and Loyalists) are still on my mind, I feel compelled to post a little reminder about the American relationship to coffee, so here's John again on July 6, 1774:

Our J. [Justice] H. [ Hutchinson] is eternally giving his Political Hints...He is perpetually flinging about the Fasts, and ironically talking about getting Home to the Fast. A Gentleman told me, that he had heard him say frequently, that the Fast was perfect Blasphemy. -- "Why dont they pay for the Tea? Refuse to pay for the Tea! and go to fasting and praying for Direction! perfect Blasphemy!"

This is the Moderation, Candor, Impartiality, Prudence, Patience, Forbearance, and Condescention of our J[ustic]e.

JH being Foster Hutchinson, member of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, brother of Thomas, the colony's governor, and a Tory.  Never knew fling could mean "to utter abusive language; to sneer."

Anyway, that brings us to this:

I believe I forgot to tell you one Anecdote: When I first came to this House it was late in the Afternoon, and I had ridden 35 miles at least. "Madam" said I to Mrs. Huston, "is it lawfull for a weary Traveller to refresh himself with a Dish of Tea provided it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no Duties?"

"No sir, said she, we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I cant make Tea, but He make you Coffee." Accordingly I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.

So unto this day do we Americans eschew that bainfull weed and set our minds free, baby.

<exits, singing blasphemously>

The Sufferings of This People Cannot Be Circumscribed With Pen, Ink and Paper

Since I'd posted a letter from John Adams to Abigail yesterday, I decided to go back to that well and poke around her correspondence a bit.  Found this interesting tidbit from November 5, 1775:

I have been led to think from a late Defection that he who neglects his duty to his Maker, may well be expected to be deficient and insincere in his duty towards the public. Even suppose Him to possess a large share of what is called honour and publick Spirit yet do not these Men by their bad Example, by a loose immoral conduct corrupt the Minds of youth, and vitiate the Morrals of the age, and thus injure the publick more than they can compensate by intrepidity, Generosity and Honour?

Let revenge or ambition, pride, lust or profit tempt these Men to a base and vile action, you may as well hope to bind up a hungry tiger with a cobweb as to hold such debauched patriots in the visionary chains of Decency or to charm them with the intellectual Beauty of Truth and reason.

No, she wasn't referring to Trump, but rather one Reverend John Joachim Zubly, a pastor who came to America from Switzerland in the 1740s.  Dig what I found in the Swiss-American Historical Society. Newsletter (October 1976):

He participated in expressly forbidden provincial as well as continental assemblies; he not only condoned, but advocated the use of force; he voiced his disdain of British actions and called them infamous, tyrannical, and illegal not only in secret chambers, but publicly and in direct confrontation with established authorities. 

And yet, at the very time when Zubly prepared his last and most radical pronouncement, he experienced painful alienation from that body in whose work he had fully participated. In October 1775 he was publicly accused of being disloyal to the cause of America, in November he returned to Savannah, after informing his fellow delegates that he was "greatly indisposed". What had happened? What made Zubly, the staunch critic of British assumptions and actions and a forceful advocate of American rights, a near outcast? 

In the summer of 1775 the Continental Congress had taken two quite radical steps. In June it had named George Washington commander-in-chief of the rebel army; and on July 6 it had issued its bold "Declaration of the Causes and the Necessity of Taking Up Arms." Zubly supported these measures. But there he stopped like many fellow-delegates and suffered from an ever more apparent cleavage which split the Continental Congress into irreconcilable groups. Joseph Galloway¹ sketched them aptly, if in a partisan way, in these words:    

Upon the meeting of Congress, two parties were immediately formed, with different views, and determined to act on different principles. 

One intended candidly and clearly to define American rights and explicitly and dutifully to petition for the remedy which would redress the grievances justly complained of-, to form a more solid and constitutional union between the two countries, and avoid every measure which tended to sedition, or acts of violent opposition. 

The other consisted of persons whose design, from the beginning of their opposition to the Stamp Act, was to throw off all subordination and connection with Great Britain; who meant by every fiction, falsehood, and fraud to delude the people from their due allegiance, to throw the subsisting governments into anarchy, to incite the ignorant and vulgar to arms, and with those arms to establish American independence. 

The one were men of loyal principles and possessed the greatest fortunes in America; the other were Congregational and Presbyterian republicans, or men of bankrupt fortunes, overwhelmed with debt to the British merchants.      

Rev. John J. Zubly, although a staunch Presbyterian, was like Galloway among those of "loyal principles." From his first public statement on political matters to the last, he held consistently one tenet as sacred and inviolable...      

"The idea of a separation between America and Great Britain is big with so many and such horrid evils, that every friend to both must shudder at the thought. Every man that gives the most distant hint of such a wish, ought instantly to be suspected as a common enemy." But, Zubly lamented, "the breach is growing wider and wider, it is to become great like a sea". 

Zubly held fast to this view until his death. In July 1776, after independence had been declared in Jefferson's memorable words, Zubly was arrested by the Georgia Council of Safety. Although soon released, he was viewed with suspicion. 

In September 1777 he was requested to take the oath of allegiance to the government established by the separatists. He proudly refused and declared in an appeal to the grand jury such a demand "unconstitutional and tyrannical." 

He then fled to South Carolina. On March 1, 1778, Zubly was listed among those who were banished from Georgia, and half of his property was confiscated. In the spring of 1781 he returned to British-held Savannah where he died on July 23.

Cancel culture has gone too far, I tell ya.

Selah.

1 - We've met George Galloway before.

PS - A cute vignette from the end of AA's letter: "Master John is very anxious to write, but has been confined for several days with a severe cold which has given him soar Eyes, but he begs me to make his Excuse and say that he has wrote twice before, but it did not please him well enough to send it."

Высокая в небе звезда зовёт меня в путь

How it started:

Expedition 1 was the first long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from 2 November 2000 to 19 March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the station which continues as of 2025.

The official start of the expedition occurred when the crew docked to the station on 2 November 2000, aboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-31, which had launched on 31 October 2000 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. During their mission, the Expedition 1 crew activated various systems on board the station, unpacked equipment that had been delivered, and hosted three visiting Space Shuttle crews and two uncrewed Russian Progress resupply vehicles. The crew was very busy throughout the mission, which was declared a success.

The three visiting Space Shuttles brought equipment, supplies, and key components of the space station. The first of these, STS-97, docked in early December 2000, and brought the first pair of large U.S. photovoltaic arrays, which increased the station's power capabilities fivefold. The second visiting shuttle mission was STS-98, which was docked in mid-February 2001 and delivered the US$1.4 billion research module Destiny, which increased the mass of the station beyond that of Mir for the first time. Mid-March 2001 saw the final shuttle visit of the expedition, STS-102, whose main purpose was to exchange the Expedition 1 crew with the next three-person long-duration crew, Expedition 2. The expedition ended when Discovery undocked from the station on 18 March 2001.

The Expedition 1 crew consisted of an American commander and two Russians. The commander, Bill Shepherd, had been in space three times before, all on shuttle missions which lasted at most a week. The Russians, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev, both had previous long-duration spaceflights on Mir, with Krikalev having spent over a full year in space.

How it's going:

Expedition 73 is the 73rd long-duration expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). The expedition began with the departure of Soyuz MS-26 on 19 April 2025 with JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi taking over the ISS command and is expected to conclude with the undocking of Soyuz MS-27 on 9 December 2025. It continues the extensive scientific research conducted aboard the ISS, focusing on various fields, including biology, human physiology, physics, and materials science. The crew members also maintain and upgrade the space station systems.

A quarter century up there is no mean feat.  One hopes we might continue our international cooperation for decades to come with minimal monkey business, despite the current political climate.

PS - Apologies for just using Wikipedia.  Blame the Republican Shutdown. 

I wouldn't think about it, if I were you.

You'd only get depressed.

Don't Stop

Late Arrival:

The world was already here
Serene in its otherness.
It only took you to arrive
On the late afternoon train
To where no one awaited you. 

A town no one ever remembered
Because of its drabness
Where you lost your way
Searching for a place to stay
In a maze of identical streets. 

It was then that you heard,
As if for the very first time,
The sound of your own footsteps
Under a church clock
Which had stopped just as you did 

Between two empty streets
Aglow in the afternoon sunlight,
Two modest stretches of infinity
For you to wonder at
Before resuming your walk. 

Charles Simic.

Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic

Since non-MAGA civil servants are decrying President Cankles as anathema to democracy (for myriad, obvious reasons), that old canard, "we're a constitutional republic, not a democracy!" rears its stupid, ugly head yet again.  I have over the years on numerous defunct blogs addressed this misapprehension, and figured I might compile some items from those posts into a one-stop-shop for future reference.

We begin with our friend, Montesquieu, in The Spirit of Laws (1748):

CHAP. II.: Of the Principle of different Governments.

I have already observed that it is the nature of a republican government, that either the collective body of the people, or particular families, should be possessed of the supreme power; of a monarchy that the prince should have this power, but in the execution of it should be directed by established laws; of a despotic government, that a single person should rule according to his own will and caprice. 

This enables me to discover their three principles; which are thence naturally derived. I shall begin with a republican government, and in particular with that of democracy.

CHAP. III.: Of the Principle of Democracy.

There is no great share of probity necessary to support a monarchical or despotic government. The force of laws in one, and the prince's arm in the other, are sufficient to direct and maintain the whole. But in a popular state, one spring more is necessary, namely, virtue.

What I have here advanced is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of historians, and is extremely agreeable to the nature of things. For it is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the execution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is less need of virtue than in a popular government, where the person intrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction.

Clear is it also that a monarch who, through bad advice or indolence, ceases to enforce the execution of the laws, may easily repair the evil; he has only to follow other advice, or to shake off this indolence. But when, in a popular government, there is a suspension of the laws, as this can proceed only from the corruption of the republic, the state is certainly undone...

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community. The objects of their desires are changed; what they were fond of before has become indifferent; they were free while under the restraint of laws, but they would fain now be free to act against law... 

Frugality, and not the thirst of gain, now passes for avarice. Formerly the wealth of individuals constituted the public treasure; but now this has become the patrimony of private persons. The members of the commonwealth riot on the public spoils, and its strength is only the power of a few, and the license of many.

Everybody ought to read that very closely.  But what is this 'virtue' which he declares to be so important? 

It is in a republican government that the whole power of education is required. The fear of despotic governments naturally rises of itself amidst threats and punishments: the honour of monarchies is favoured by the passions, and favours them in its turn: but virtue is a self-renunciation, which is ever arduous and painful.

This virtue may be defined the love of the laws and of our country¹. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all private virtues; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself.

This love is peculiar to democracies. In these alone the government is intrusted to private citizens. Now, government is like every thing else: to preserve it, we must love it.

Ah, so that's why you don't want to elect a narcissist.  Anyway, when you understand what our Founders knew to be "republican virtue", you then can better comprehend John Adams' observation in 1798:

In virtuous Republicks, it is a Maxim sacred and fundamental, that the Will of the Majority shall be the Will of the whole. But in all Republicks vicious and criminal, the Minority always resorts to foreign Influence for support, and for assistance. To overthrow and take Vengeance on the Majority.  

Yeah, no, that doesn't sound at all familiar.  Now I wonder if his nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, had any opinions on this subject?

[A] representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable. 

That was 1777.  Here he is again at New York's ratifying convention in 1788: 

Democracy in my sense, where the whole power of the government in the people...Whether exercised by themselves, or...By their representatives chosen by them either mediately or immediately and legally accountable to them...

This representative democracy as far as is consistent with its genius has all the features of good government...All this done in the proposed Constitution.

Wait, so that means...America is a floor wax AND a dessert topping?  Who knew²?

Selah.

1 - He also wrote: "[V]irtue...is not a moral, nor a Christian, but a political virtue; and it is the spring which sets the republican government in motion..."

2 - Abe Lincoln in 1861 called the United States "a constitutional republic, or democracy--a government of the people by the same people."

PS - Post title comes from Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835).

PPS - Upon reflection, I should have probably included this definition, and do so now for good measure: "[A] republican government is that in which the body or only a part of the people is possessed of the supreme power: monarchy...When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, this is called a democracy."  Just in case it wasn't clear.