We left extra early to get to BWI to pick up Planet, fearful of Friday evening rush hour traffic on the Beltway to 95 and then north all the way on 95, but traffic was fine, we got to the airport with an hour and a half to spare. I tried to read a novel in the airport but couldn't for the noise and distractions (plane-load after plane-load of teen lacrosse players each in their club sweatshirts, there must be a club tournament this weekend in or near Baltimore) so I surfed web so here, have some links today. Above are Planet's 100 Goats, below an up-close of one goat. As for the never-ending reading slump re:novels (I don't need an airport full of screaming teenagers to be distracted), yes, this still applies but there's more: having unwanted but inevitable and machine-like narratives shoved down my throat elsewhere, I can't stand considering a novel's narrative in my mind on my free time even if it's a narrative that challenges the machine's narrative.
- Social media and Gaza.
- What's going on.
- My brother's keeper: What I and probably most thoughtful critics of Israel favor is not an Israeli defeat. What we favor is that Israel should stop its terrorist violence against the Palestinians and others. (A good parallel would be the US "defeat" in Vietnam, which only meant that the US had to withdraw its forces; it did not mean US surrender to the Vietnamese people, who did not then occupy Washington and take over the US government.) The Israelis need not surrender, contrary to what the commenter and others assume. All they need to do is stop their abuse of human rights, their violation of every humane concern that arose after the obscenity of World War II and the Nazi crimes. There are more alternatives than the status quo and the obliteration of Israel.
- Essays on Israeli-American relationship.
- Shortsighted? This is the long view.
- Repression.
- The new disorder.
- Tech nerds who won for Obama.
- Hurricanes, capitalism, democracy.
- Trafficking and civil liberties.
- Maps before maps.
- Maps. Yes, every chance I get.
- Yes, the irony of narrative and format and this blog's narrative and format has occurred to me.
- Yes, again, second day in a row, new Yo La Tengo:
- Easy to assemble.
- The flowers she sent and the flowers she said she sent.
- Or maybe just good luck.
- I think I need a new heart.
- Why atheism?
- When I cry.
- Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?
- You must be out of your mind.
- Re: comments - having looked around Disqus, fuck that. Regulars, the spam bombardment continues, the few of you who've told me how much capcha sucks (and I agree), the only alternative is to enable comment moderation, of the two sucks, capcha is preferable, yes?
- Please stop dancing.
- Guide to Arvo Part.
- Famous.
- Hey, look who the three of us are seeing tonight!
HARD WIRED
Jack Gilbert
He is shamelessly happy to feel the thing
inside him. He labors up through the pines
with firewood and goes back down again.
Winter on the way. Roses and blackberries
finished, and the iris gone before that.
The peas dead in the garden and the beans
almost done. His tomatoes are finally ripe.
The thing inside him is like that, and will
come back. An old thing, a dangerous one.
Precious to him. He meets the raccoon often
in the dark and ends up throwing stones.
The raccoon gets behind a tree. Comes again,
cautious and fierce. It stops halfway.
They stand glaring in the faint starlight.
