____________________
At The Writer's Almanac there appeared a poem and a short bio of Robert Pinsky. I did not understand the poem and I do not agree with a quote of Pinsky's published therein.
Here is the quote:
He said: "I think that if an audience for any art is having a good time, they are willing to suspend the need for comprehension for a while -- that's part of the pleasure. [...] And if it doesn't sound good, it is boring even if we understand it. That's the trouble with a lot of boring art: you understand the stupid cop show, or the tedious sitcom gag, too soon and too completely. Same for the stupid middlebrow poem."
LINK
If anyone can explain either the poem, the quote, or both of them to me it would be appreciated.
If not, well... that's all right.
Politics!
Please excuse me for using such a detestable, distasteful, foul, frightful, ghastly, gross, gruesome, hateful, hideous, horrid, horrific, icky, loathsome, lousy, macabre, monstrous, nasty, nauseating, obnoxious, odious, offensive, outrageous, repellent, repugnant, revolting, rotten, scandalous, scuzzy, shameless, shocking, sleazy, stinking, vile, vulgar, yucky excuse for a word.
I believe it was Aristotle who said, "Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers." Well, that's the kind of thing I heard time and time again when I was growing up in rural Indiana; I heard, over and over again with only slight variations... "What we gotta do is git them dad-blamed lawyers and college perfessers out o' the guv'ment."
Even though I have said (written) before that I am going to start ignoring (stop watching) the TV and Internet National News about the disgusting machinations of government, I am now saying (writing) it again.
Watching the Sunday morning train wreck that is called 'the news' is the first thing I am going to address. Viewing them is a habit, and I have always heard that the best way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with another habit... a better habit. So, instead of sitting in my easy chair in front of the television set staring and cussing at the heavily made-up goons doing their best to persuade me that they are not lying to me, I intend to instead sit before my keyboard and write, write, write.
What's so bad about that?
Oh yes, by the way, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is being accused of government corruption, by members of his own party:
...one of the most notable additions to the 35-page bill was a $2.1 billion increase in funding for a dam under construction on the Kentucky-Illinois border, which just happens to be the home turf of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). It has raised the alarm bells of conservatives, who have long complained about Republicans who spend heavily on their home states. One group, the Senate Conservatives Fund, immediately christened the dam project the “Kentucky Kickback.”
Read more
_____
Did You Know . . .?
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
_____
HISTORICAL EVENT
At Huntsville, Alabama von Braun oversaw construction of the large Saturn launch vehicles that kept the United States abreast of Soviet space achievements in the early and mid 1960s. In the late 1960s, von Braun's genius came to the fore in the space race, and the Soviets failed in their efforts to build intricate booster rockets of the type that put the first U.S. astronauts into a lunar orbit in 1968. Von Braun's Saturn rockets eventually took 27 Americans to the moon, 12 who walked on the lunar surface. Von Braun retired from NASA in 1972 and died five years later.
_____
WORD FOR TODAY
machination
noun
1. The act of plotting.
2. A crafty scheme or cunning design for the accomplishment of a sinister end.
_____
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
(born October 21, 1956)
Carrie Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and performance artist. She is best known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. She is also known for her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge and screenplay for a film of the same name, as well as her autobiographical one-woman play, Wishful Drinking, and the non-fiction book she based on it.
(born October 21, 1949)
Benjamin Netanyahu is an Israeli politician and the current Prime Minister of Israel. He also currently serves as a member of the Knesset, the Chairman of the Likud party, Foreign Affairs Minister and Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs.
(born October 21, 1924)
Joyce Randolph is an American actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on The Honeymooners.
(born October 21, 1978)
Will Estes (born William Estes Nipper) is an American actor best known for his role as JJ Pryor, on the NBC drama American Dreams. In 2010, he joined the cast of Tom Selleck's CBS police drama Blue Bloods. In the series, he plays Jameson "Jamie" Reagan, a New York Police Department officer and the younger son of the police commissioner, played by Selleck.
__________
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
--Mark Twain
NASA TV
No comments:
Post a Comment