Barack Obama not only supports renwibg the PATRIOT Act, they are so passionate about it that they now view a failure to renew it as equivalent to suicide. “. . . But administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said failure to pass the bill would interrupt not only bulk collection of data, but other key provisions used to track terrorists and spies, including a provision that lets the government use roving wiretaps to track suspects who switch phones or locations.” Well, yeah. I’m waiting to hear the problem. #ChangeYouCanBelieveIn Read more here: http://ift.tt/1KBin7c

Don’t call the police.

Don’t call the police.

52 years ago today.

Markets.

Markets.

Here are two sonnets for Memorial Day. http://ift.tt/1FSpY06 (To Jessie Pope, etc.) Bent double, like old beggars under sacks Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge Till on the haunting fires we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or in lime.— Dim, through misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, To children ardent for some distant glory The old lie: DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI —Wilfred Owen (Oct. 1917).

Here are two sonnets for Memorial Day. http://ift.tt/1FSpY06 (To Jessie Pope, etc.) Bent double, like old beggars under sacks Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge Till on the haunting fires we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or in lime.— Dim, through misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, To children ardent for some distant glory The old lie: DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI —Wilfred Owen (Oct. 1917).

Ch. 7, “Rituals, Spectacles, and the Tiber River,” in SPECTACLES OF DEATH IN ANCIENT ROME (1998), Donald G. Kyle. Roman civilization is awful.

«Is it really true that we in the United States owe what freedom we have to U.S. veterans? Certainly the Bill of Rights was made possible by veterans of the American Revolution, and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were made possible by veterans of the Civil War. But none of those veterans are currently living. No American war in living memory was one in which the United States was in serious danger of being conquered by a foreign aggressor; hence no [veteran in living memory] can plausibly claim to have played a role in defending our freedom. In fact the U.S. government has used each of its wars as a pretext for increased *violations* of all the rights listed above. . . . To treat veterans as the principal explanation of American freedom is to suggest that the chief threat to our freedom lies with foreign aggressors rather than with our own government. . . it would be difficult to argue convincingly that it is true today. . .» — Roderick Tracy Long http://ift.tt/1BlNlYw