Honor & Edward Snowden

When Al Goldtein, the porn publisher, died last month, my son made an astute observation.
  He noted that Goldstein and fellow porn publisher Larry Flynt were praised by the American media as fighters for free speech while Edward Snowden is described as a traitor and one who has damaged 'National Security."  He could only shake his head at this absurd dichotomy. 
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To protect and serve?

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/gang-raped_by_police_and_forced_to_pay_for_it_20131229?ln

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Tis the season : Poem for December

White Christmas

Punctually at Christmas the soft plush
Of sentiment snows down, embosoms all
The sharp and pointed shapes of venom, shawls
The hills and hides the shocking holes of this
Uneven world of want and wealth, cushions
With cosy wish like cotton-wool the cool
Arm's-length interstices of caste and class,
And into these folds subtracts from sight
All truculent acts, bleeding the world white.

Punctually that glib pair, Peace and Goodwill,
Emerges royally to take the air,
Collect the bows, assimilate the smiles
Of waiting men.  It is a genial time;
Angels like stalactites descend from heaen;
Bishops distribute their own weight in words,
Congratulate the poor on Christlike lack,
And the member for the constituency
Feeds the five thousand, and has plenty back.

Punctually, to-night, in old stone circles
of set reunion, families stiffly sit
and listen;  this is the night and this the happy time
when the tinned milk of human kindness is
upheld and holed by radio-appeal;
Hushed are hurrying heels on hard roads,
And every parlor's pink pond of light
To the cold and travelling man going by
in the dark, without a bark or a bite.

But Punctually tomorrow you will see
All this silent and dissembling world
Of stilted sentiment suddenly melt
Into mush and watery welter of words
Beneath the warm and moving traffic of
Feet and actual fact.  Over the stark plain
The silted mill-chimneys once again spread
Their sackcloth and ashes, a flowing mane
Of repentance for the false day that's fled.

W. R. Rodgers
Irish poet

Sensible to the very end.

Lesson Learned

Each generation accepts the world it finds.  Even if they learn that once the world was greener, cleaner, richer, they are unable to do more than pass on a feeble warning to the next generation who will accept what they find.
And so it goes, until the day we accept the desert.
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Reach out and touch someone?

President Obama's mouthpieces have told us that he didn't know the NSA had listened in on personal cell phones of other world leaders.
Does he think this makes us feel better?  Does he think it makes him look good?  Is it even true?
If it is true, then the President should be angry as hell, condemning the practice in strong language and starting a deep investigation into the management and practices of the agency. 
If he doesn't do something like that, then I will know the alibi is a lie.
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"We don't talk politics here."

"We are too high-minded for that."

As a young man making contact with the world of strangers, I would often hear from people at first acquaintance the following statement "We (or I) never talk religion or politics," or something like that.  Even without their adamancy the statement surprised me.  Two of the most interesting and important areas of our life and we can't talk about it.
Such seems to be the attitude of some blogs that I enjoy visiting and reading.  These blogs are usually of the literary kind, a place where books and poetry and writing and authors are discussed, analyzed, praised and damned.  Most of the time I find their posts enjoyable, and often I am enlightened by their original views.
Occasionally, however, a post will begin with a lament on a writer who, on a particular occasion, fell from grace by writing about a public matter that addressed the uses of killing people in order to protect us all from evil.  This issue, along with a disparate variety of other issues, is generally dumped into a refuse bin called "Politics."  Noses turn up at the offensive odor from this bin.  People look at their hands and inside their minds to see if anything got soiled.
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