Sunday, April 23, 2006

Alone

George Thoroughgood has a song which starts with these words:

I drink alone, yeah,
with nobody else
I drink alone, yeah,
with nobody else
You know when I drink alone,
I prefer to be by myself

I don't drink alone. But I do sit alone.
I guess technically even sitting in a large temple full of other people when one sits zazen you sit alone. But I really sit alone these days. I sit in rooms devoid of other folks.

And at this moment I become curious. What happened to my set line length? I'm running off the page. What has changed and where is the change determined. I wonder if logging out has any effect? Doesn't seem to. Hmmmm.


Cut and past to Word. I don't feel like hunting down the culprit.

Juxtaposition.

Yesterday I wrote a sonnet inspired by Petrarch. Talk about juxtaposition. Those Rennaissance men seemed to pout women on some type of pedestal but about the only right women had was to die in childbirth. Here's a quote that should be taught in Renaisaance literature classes:


"Women should be used like chamberpots : hidden away once a man has pissed in them."- Ficino.


Unfortunately, in literature the quotes that are taught are those related to men like Petrarch. I guess even thge Medici family knew good "spin" when they saw it. My guess is that men (and women) have been putting a spin on things since language was invented.

This AM I read a leter to an editor extolling the virtues of energy savings if we used passenger trains between cities. THat might be true but most cities have (at best) a lousy infrastructure that can move people around once they get to the railroad station. So most mass transit ritght now is doomed to failure.


Another letter was trying to defend a famous Indian chief. THe letter went so far as to say that the "white man" killed the Indians with disease and stole their land. Unfortunately there is a bit of spin in that sentiment too.


The white man did indeed bring disease that the natives had no resistence to but I have never seen anything to suggest that it was really a "bio-weapon attack." The state of medicine was not very advanced. Let's face it, "bleeding" a person who is ill to get rid of the "bad blood" probably wasn't very good medicine. Read the accounts of illness for the first couple opf hundred years of the "white man" in the Americas and medicine was at best a "wing and a prayer."


As for stealing land. As I recall the Indians didn't really have a concept of "ownership" of land. So the settlers took advantage of "understanding." We're still do8ing a pretty good job of taking advantage of folks through misunderstanding. And some people want to "demonize" others because they DON'T want to try to understand. Same paper, "white men" are taking advantage of blacks in New Orleans by trying to insure that rebuilt homes are built above flood plains and to certain code. The black man thinks the white man is doing this to take "their" land. And the "white men" that are upset about the same changes? Oh, for them it's "COMMUNISTS" who are trying to take away their freedom.


Sad to say, but our ignorance still betrays us. I guess we are a little bit better. WE no longer think of people as chamberpots. "Now we just say we've been s**t on."


G