Impotence

As the great bard said so eloquently . . .

A quiver full of zingers
pressages a quick retreat.
Lest the round missive's return
strike the solid battlement,
the pate who dared fire first.

"Henry IX the Older," Act II, Sc. 3

Letter to a friend

Thanks for the link to Bollyn. It has opened up a number of questions for me which I am not sure I can answer. The key problem for me is that I can't get a balanced overview of all of this. It seems each writer/authority that has gotten into these things has his or her counterpart to rebut what has been asserted.

I will continue to dig further, but in general, what is being talked about is something at a level and complexity that I can do nothing about, except shoot my mouth off once I formulate a well reasoned and informed opinion. But even that is self serving. I am no world changer or idealist any longer, although at one time I thought, egoistically, I was.

All of the issues that Bollyn and others raise require cross-checking to a nit's ass degree before agreeing or disagreeing. Any one of his paragraphs could use a fact checker . . . an endless and in the end fruitless task.

No one changes their beliefs in the face of facts. And no one decides or concludes without emotions.

I am sorry to say this, because I thought differently for so many years, but the world is going to hell conspiracies or not.

Typical of the brouhaha in things like the Jewish Lobby, just to take one subject, here is an example of the endless go-rounds to interpret/understand what someone else has said/wrote that someone has taken issue with.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/20/the_israel_lobbys_role_in_american_politics

So what's one to do? Here are some conclusions I recently came up with.

+ Give everyone a gun in the US. Age to qualify, per recent experimental evidence, 4.5 years old, sized and juvenilized (sp?) for age-appropriate play. Stand back. Watch what happens. "Teach 'em early 'bout their rites!"

+ Stop with the shock seeing mothers breast-feed--anywhere. Leave mothers and their children out of your Puritan outrage. Go have a tantrum elsewhere.

+ God allowed humans to make up different religions and moral rules because s/he wanted to see how only the chosen ones worked it all out. So far, disappointment or marvelous diversity. Let's err on the positive side and celebrate and travel more.

+ Stop harassing whilstleblowers. Focus on the substance of those whose cover has been blown, and what they actually did or did not do.

+ Different people are different. Love them or leave them alone. At the very least they are as different as you are to them! Want them bothering you, or more? So, get along and get on with life.

One thing that seems to work always is to beat anyone's sorry ass who doesn't agree with you or do what you say.

Depending upon your reaction to my pithy conclusions just above, prepare your sorry ass for this terrorist (I know, this sentence will get picked up and maybe so will I . . . bring 'em on!)

. . . in the wind?

Neil Kornze, Principal Deputy Director, BLM:

Attention: 1004-AE26*

I support the recommendations in the standard NRDC letter to you and your agency re proposed rules for regulating oil and gas fracking on our public lands.  I assume you have received a number of these, and so you don't need another of the same to consider. However . . .

The NRDC letter in part reads as follows. "Those strict safeguards should . . . ensure that oil and gas companies are held accountable for contamination they cause. . . ."

Holding companies accountable has in the past seen decision makers in those companies and the regulatory agents they have worked with walk away from the messes they have had a direct hand in causing.

Consistent with the principle that corporations are people and that our government is made up of people who are conscious actors charged with protecting American land and the American people, the rules and regulations should provide for criminalizing contamination and other wrongdoing at least to the extent that real, named persons are tried in a court of law and if found responsible, they go to jail. If environmental damages are judged to take eons to neutralize or dissipate, prison terms as punishment should last as long.

Again, I support the recommendations in the NRDC letter. But in addition, please put some teeth into the bite of accountability.  Leadership on the side of right and the justified takes us beyond our narrow roles in a daily work routine. Get out there and make something important happen, something that perhaps even goes beyond fracking and business (profit's) interests.

---
* See also http://www2.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing and
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2013/june/nr_06_07_2013.html and  http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/EPA_ReportOnPavillion_Dec-8-2011.pdf .

Divines' devise*

"They are all one people with language one."
Oh, and "There's no limit if they purpose do."
(Did the Lord say this "behold" to his son?)
"What they will will be if begin they sue."
Gets me. And, "Let us go down and confound."
What mischief wrought that we'd not comprehend.
Lord, Lords, thou hast scattered us all around.
(Almighties err, thus up- their children end.)
Because of city and tower or Shem?
And giving this place a name? You surmised
we'd be gods, was that the Babylon sin?
You judge us 'fore our acts we realize.
And change the rules to turn a metaphor,
that belov'd Babel now's mere dust and lore.

---
* The source for this meditation is Genesis Chapter 11 (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0111.htm#1).

1 And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another: 'Come, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
4 And they said: 'Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, with its top in heaven, and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'
5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
6 And the LORD said: 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is what they begin to do; and now nothing will be withholden from them, which they purpose to do.
7 Come, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.'
8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city.
9 Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth; and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
10 These are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old, and begot Arpachshad two years after the flood.

Mao Zedong in a rice field with hat*

Cost the famine that to '62 swept--
starved us dead throughout our land.
Add forty million babes that never slept.
Calculate the total these grains of sand.
Farmers turned about not their fallow fields.
Elm bark soup with egret muck, clay with lead.
Who to feed, whom let die? Nothing us shields.
We eat, we're too weak to bury the dead.
Farmers drop on diets their bellies swell,
while the Party have full-supplied canteens.
And in solidarity Mao dines well,
his rumored modest diet eats unseen.
Abodes in sandalwood and silk we built,
proud and hungry in the emperor's guilt.

---
* Inspired by this article from http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Starving-in-China-7629
which in part contains these words.

Starving in China
by Arthur Waldron

The great famine before China's Cultural Revolution killed millions. Yang Jisheng took it upon himself to make sure the world knew about it.

Mao Zedong in a rice field with hat, from Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

Effectively unreported by the world press at the time, the famine that swept China from 1958 to 1962 cost perhaps thirty-six million dead from starvation and related causes. In addition, because without food women cease to menstruate, perhaps another forty million babies were not born. So the total population loss was well over seventy million. The suffering was overwhelmingly rural, with farmers turning, among other things, to elm bark, wild herbs, egret droppings, and even guanyintu—a kind of fine clay—in the desperate quest for food. Impossible choices were forced on families about whom to feed and whom to let die. The living became too weak even to bury the dead. Cannibalism spread despite iron cultural taboos.

Party officials, however, did not suffer: Even cadres in areas where farmers were dying had their own well-supplied canteens, and Mao Zedong continued to dine well, rumors of his having adopting a minimal diet in solidarity to the contrary. Lavish celebrations were given by Party officials. This was also the time that some of the luxurious provincial and state guesthouses, designed for Mao’s use, were built—all sandalwood, silk embroidery, and comfort.

FOR SALE--Village house in Umbria

Benano number 7 is a renovated "centro storico" property for sale in Umbria. It is a typical Italian village townhouse on three levels, built of stone into an old fortress wall, approximately fifty-six square meters in size (+/-600 square feet).

The structure is over 900 years old with a traditional look and feel. New electric and plumbing as well as highlighting traditional and characteristic details were completed in 2011. The house is comfortable and ready for occupancy with a few small projects awaiting a personal touch. There is a fan-assisted fireplace insert in the new, cozy kitchen, central heating with old-style iron radiators and roof-top satellite for TV reception. The tiled ceilings have chestnut beams and there are rustic brick floors. Connection installed for fixed line phone service. Excellent, latest-technology wifi internet service available.

The house comes modestly furnished for easy country living. The private entry is just next to a small piazza and medieval church. The entry hall at ground level has an Italian style bathroom with bidet and shower. On the first level is the kitchen with all you need for home cooking. The second level has a lounge and study, a large bedroom and half bath.

The house is located in Benano, a part of Orvieto, the most spectacular hill town in central Italy. As an outpost along the Pope's route from Rome to France and beyond, Benano is in the Umbrian countryside, Italy's green heart, and features easy access to the major cities, towns and sights that are the essence of Italy. You can make easy day trips as the tourist inside feels the urge. There are lovely walks in the fields and hills just outside your door. Lake Bolsena is clear and clean and twenty minutes by car down the road. The sea and beaches are about an hour away. Rome is just an hour and a quarter by car, about the same by train. Florence is an hour and a half, a little more by train.

Benano, equidistant from Orvieto and Aquapendente, has friendly long-time Italian residents, few foreigners and almost no tourists. The chatter in the small piazza on summer evenings ceases punctually at 10, or maybe 10.30--punctual understood in the context of wait-a-moment authentic Italian rhythms. Year round there are community festivals and dinners, including the annual Festa of the Madonna della Neve in early August. Pageantry, dancing and food for all.

Discover what it means to live in Italy as an Italian. Meet the bread truck at ten in the morning. A full grocery and essentials vendor appears on Fridays about noon. The fishmonger arrives early on Tuesdays, and other shops on wheels appear regularly. Or get in the car and take advantage of the many shopping options in nearby villages and towns. Market days in Orvieto are Thursdays and Saturdays.

Parking is outside the main arch and fortress wall, less than a minute's walk from number 7's front door. Italian language skills are not necessary but using a phrase or two is much appreciated. Some roosters crow in the distance in the morning and a few dogs occasionally bark. Otherwise Benano is very peaceful and a pleasure.

This house, whether used as a year round residence or as a holiday home, will feel like just what it is, a traditional Italian home in a panoramic location from which to witness the daily moods of Orvieto and its famous cathedral in the foreground and snow-capped peaks in winter on the distant eastern horizon.

Price: About € 135.000, reflecting the current demand for a renovated Orvieto property of this size located in an historic center. Trade or other innovative offers considered. Closing and taxes which must be in a contract drawn up by an Italian notary will affect the final price. A multi-lingual estate agent is also available to assist in the transaction.

Contact info here.

Question--tough or easy?

Why are there more men artists than women?

One difference between men and women accounts for much--that is the absence of women from the list of canonized artists, writers, etc. It is kind of a predestination, fate-would-have-it situation. Men are preoccupied with instrumentality, with things, with producing, intervening and manipulating in the physical world. This has been termed the "f&^k or fight (testosterone-driven) curse." Women show preferences for the immaterial, relationships, feelings . . . a bringing-towards, closeness, intimacy. Oxytocin's role in maternal behavior and a preference for cooperation over competition seems to be a key ingredient.

Which then is most likely (naturally? predominantly?) to value bringing inanimate artifacts into being? And which is more compelling(?), important(?) for life and survival? In the face of not being able to get pregnant and give birth, the next best contribution (a man can make) is mastering and mimicking and imagining and dictating, or communicating about, an (arguably) valued object realized in practical reality. Thus do men, the argument would go, push and populate the art-object inventories over time. Tools sometimes do have palpable Freudian frequencies!

Which leads me to wonder. If creating a life beautiful is what we are measuring, each woman has the biological and social opportunity to fulfill the creative urge built in. Men have to work at it. Once their job is done, it is done. A woman's creative work continues long after a child comes of age. Can't you still hear your mother's voice in loving guidance?

As we can see today the ascendance of the powerful and rich and the rights of the common, often poor woman, and given arguable definitions of art and artist and putting aside the many complexifications from different perspectives with which to address any question, are there more noted male than noted female contributors in the art worlds today? What are the trends? Are women getting their fair share of representation in museums and galleries?

I am still wondering. In Holland I'm told, there are at least the same number of women as men defined as practicing professional artists. In pop music, whatever the latest style, don't I hear quite a few female artists? At least an equal number to male artists would be my off-hand guesstimate.

Not lastly, isn't the question kind of male-ish? It may not be the right one to ask. Let's ask women what question to ask. Or does male dominance and oppression over the history of humankind say it all?