Category: Uncategorized

Lyric Poetry Class

 So I’m about to meet my lyric poetry class for the first time. Here is one of my favorite examples of LP, by the Estonian poet Jaan Kaplinski, as translated by Sam Hamill:

The washing never gets done.

The furnace never gets heated.

Books never get read.

Life is never completed.

Life is like a ball which one must continually

Catch and hit so that it won’t fall.

When the fence is repaired at one end,

It collapses at the other. The roof leaks,

The kitchen door won’t close, there are cracks in the foundation,

The torn knees of children’s pants…

One can’t keep everything in mind. The wonder is

That beside all this one can notice

The spring which is so full of everything 

Continuing in all directions–into evening clouds,

Into the redwing’s song and into every

Drop of dew on every blade of grass in the meadow,

As far as the eye can see, into the dusk.

More Again about Newton

From today's New York Times:

 

"If only they were more willing to be janitors! Asked by Mr. Williams why he has frequently suggested that poor children be employed as school janitors, Mr. Gingrich said his daughter worked as a church janitor at age 13 and liked earning the money and that it would be a good way for poor students to learn the value of work. But, he suggested, Mr. Obama doesn’t want them to work at all because liberal elites prefer to “maximize dependency.”

Don’t try to follow any kind of logical thread of why the president wouldn’t want the jobless rate to decrease; there isn’t one. This trumpet was sounded to feed the prejudice of people who already believe that blacks and other poor people don’t really like to work and to deflect the growing public awareness that the Republican Party’s highest priority is protecting the rich from higher taxes."

**

You know, I've been involved in higher education all my life–I grew up on college campuses, my father was a college president. I have no idea who Gingrich is refering to when he talks about "liberal elites" since I've never really met one. I think Thorstein Veblen was a liberal elite but "he gone".

 

 

 

 

 

Huffington Post: South Carolina Shows How Far We Have to Go

 

South Carolina Shows How Far We Have to Go

The next time you attend a graduation, remember that the
gowns worn by the graduates are likely to have been made by South Carolina prison labor.

 

Stephen Kuusisto 

Director

The Renee Crown University Honors Program 

University Professor

Syracuse University

Watching Newt Gingrich is Like…

Analogy fails. Gingrich is like Ayn Rand but he’s less meretricious and more the braggart. He’s Bull Connor but with more social Darwinist claptrap. He’s Updike’s Satan in “The Witches of Eastwick” but less sexy. 

He’s the puff pigeon of right wing intolerance. In this way he’s like the canary in a coal mine, revealing toxicity. But of course he’s less interesting to watch.

Susan Senator's Column about Amelia Rivera is a Call for Disability Rights

Perhaps you've been following the tragic story of Amelia Rivera, whose doctors have denied her a kidney transplant because the three year old is "mentally retarded" and whose story has, predictably lead to the unleashing of the barking classes–the apologists for neo-eugenics who are legion in this country. Since learning about Amelia's story last week I've been unable to sleep and have felt the powerlessness that comes with abjection, deep sadness, outrage, and yes, more than a modicum of personal feeling. I was born prematurely and back in the 1950's it was very rare for a child who weighed 2 lbs to live. Indeed my twin brother lasted only a few hours. I've always imagined what might have occured–that the abstract and clinical determinism of cold medicine could well have said that my little life wasn't worth saving. They could have used that incubator for real chickens. Hearing Amelia's story is deeply troubling because it's not just the story of a singular little girl, it's the story of all people with disabilities. Susan Senator's column at Huffington Post serves as an elegant reminder of the human and social issues that are so singularly at stake. 

 

 

From a Dog Diary, 1994

Corky, my beloved, has placed a half mouse in my hand. Or is that a halved mouse? A mouselet? One thinks of middle English, which would of course have an exact term for the back end of a mouse. Once, while I was teaching at Hobart College, I offended a student by telling him that a “Fudd” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a rabbit’s rectum. The student was offended because I said that Elmber Fudd’s creators knew this fact. Somehow I’d spoiled his childhood. But now I have a mouse’s ass, cold as jelly in my open palm. Thank you girl!