Oh, Clio

Yet, I’m optimistic right now. I’m optimistic because while our political system is a mess, the economic and social values of the country remain sound. My optimism is also based on the conviction that serious, vibrant societies don’t sit by and do nothing as their governments drive off a cliff.

-Brooks

Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?
Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste,
I run to death, and death meets me as fast,
And all my pleasures are like yesterday;
I dare not move my dim eyes any way,
Despair behind, and death before doth cast
Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste
By sin in it, which it t'wards hell doth weigh.
Only thou art above, and when towards thee
By thy leave I can look, I rise again;
But our old subtle foe so tempteth me,
That not one hour I can myself sustain;
Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art,
And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.

Blaryngitis

Yo, just for the rec, I've been sick all week. Back with the usual lack of a vengeance la semaine prochaine.

A Mushroom Cloud as a Bodhi Tree

To which I would only add: Ghandi would really, really groove to India's America-approved nuclear arsenal.

Gaze in the Military, Encore

"There is nothing more intimate than young men and young women — and when you talk of infantry, we’re talking our young men — laying out, sleeping alongside of one another . . ."

-Marine Commandant Gen. James F. Amos

One of the curiosities of the furor over Gaze in the Military is that integration is plotted in the eyes of its opponents along the lines of a Falcon flick. They should quit calling it DADT and name it NSFW instead. One of the ironies is that the newest major opponent of integration is really worried about "combat readiness," although it would seem to me that a greater threat to "combat readiness" would be being the lousiest aviator in the history of the Navy.

Anyway, I am a firm believer in excluding gays from military service. I think we should also exclude blacks, Asian-Americans, women, married people, blonds, citizens, legal residents, and human beings.