The Great Chain of Being — A Poem in Progress

Perhaps it’s crass to write a poem out in the open and explain it as I go. But that’s what I’m going to do. Theme: The Great Chain of Being.
Nothing is invisible –
We have our ways of casing the world:
Tripods squat upon their earth,
Antennae grow in thickets,
Satellites collect signs of universal dust
From glowing distant cartwheel [...]

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Poetry Friday: Alexander Pope and The Great Chain of Being

Cross-posted to Wellreadchild.com.
The current issue of Lapham’s Quarterly examines the theme of Nature, and includes this excerpt from Pope’s Essay on Man:
VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below?
Vast chain of being! which from God [...]

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Nader and Ferraro: Left-Wing Racism and Right-Wing Feminism

Here’s a legitimate criticism of the left: its identity politics can be a condescension to those it means to champion. Riddled with anti-racist and anti-sexist taboos on language, its politics doth protest too much. It’s quite a spectacle to watch a liberal white friend walk on eggshells around a black person because they’re afraid of [...]

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The McEwan Delusion: The Pseudo-Threat of Islamism

There are two premises at work in the special reservoir of emotion that McEwan and others reserve for Islamism: the first is that the fundamental cause of Islamic terrorism is actually Islamism — a certain kind of fundamentalist, politicized Islam. The second is that Islamic terrorism is a powerful and dangerous force in the modern world, and the preeminent national security concern of liberal Western societies. Both will seem like obvious truths to many Westerners. But both are false.

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The Constitution and Obama’s Dissaopinting Stand on FISA

I have never seen the “halo” that others have claimed for Obama (usually his opponents, at the many moments they claim it has just been removed). But since my posts to this blog have been relentlessly pro-Obama, here’s my chance to prove that I’m not simply a true believer.
While public financing is a non-issue, this [...]

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Obama and Public Financing — A Response to Stuart Roy

My Crossfit friend Stuart writes the following piece, with which I must respectfully disagree.
With regards to Obama’s “Messianic Image” and the claim that his supporters have “drunk the Koolaid” (or rather “taken shots” of it, far more suitable to the demographic): this is a generic piece of political rhetoric that can be used, and has [...]

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Media Fairness and Hillary

Greg Sargent asks whether the media was unfair to Hillary, and goes on to list examples of an
extraordinary amount of frivolous, crude, unfair, misleading, outright dishonest, and transparently mendacious media coverage that without question had a major impact on this campaign. This should not have been tolerated by any liberals or Democrats, Obama supporters included.
Sargent [...]

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