September 21, 2021

Heavy cloudscape at 6:46 a.m.

IMG_7332

IMG_7331

75 comments:

daskol said...

Mournful looking, like I feel over the passing of Codevilla. Two people I’ve never met whose passing affect me nonetheless this last week, which is unusual.

Chuck said...

As we learn more about the Constitutionally-harrowing story of how the former professor/dean at Chapman University Law School, John Eastman, tried to engineer the re-installation of Trump after losing the election, this piece by Charlie Sykes is a good one.

Charlie supplies the invaluable reminder, via a Bill Kristol tweet, that Eastman might still at this moment occupy the chairman position of the Federalism and Separation of Powers Practice Group at the Federalist Society.

I'll be following that story.

Original Mike said...

I've been wondering when this was going to happen: Europe Faces Bleak Winter Energy Crisis Years in the Making

You can't get rid of your old energy generation infrastructure until you've replaced it with something else. Something that works.

The article emphasizes price, but I'd worry about something much more fundamental; running out. When that happens people freeze to death. I wish them good luck, though if they have a mild winter I don't suppose they will learn anything.

LordSomber said...

Beware of derechos and twister thingies.

Humperdink said...

Spouse and I have been taking vitamin C, D, and zinc for 18 months now. We are unvaxxed. Two+ weeks ago, we both tested positive for the Covid plague. We both had similar symptoms. Minor sore throat for several days. After several days of sore throat, we were both afflicted with a low grade fever 99-100.4. Chills also. Some cough. Felt generally OK, just fatigued. We tracked our oxygen level, which didn't deviate from 93-95.

After several days of persistent low grade fever, I called Urgent Care (where I was tested) and asked if there any prescription available.

Me: "Is there any prescription available for Covid?"

Nurse: "No."

Me: "How about Ivermectin?"

Nurse (laughing): "That's for horses and I'm a horse person."

Me: "Are you aware two scientists won the noble prize for using Ivermectin to treat parasitic infections?"

Nurse: "I did not know that."

Ivermectin is being used throughout India with positive results. Why not here? Because if it works, no need for the jab.

Spouse and I have recovered. We were virtually no burden on the system. We are both the same age, 3 score plus 10 and in generally good health. Biden can take his jab and stick it up his rectal cavity.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

My experience with COVID started similarly to Humperdink's: sore throat at the top of the throat/back of the mouth. Mild fever during several nights. Chest cold with runny nose. A little fatigue. Just like a mild cold with a fever. It was over after two weeks. Then followed by a runny nose and throat irritation. Started taking Allegra/fexodenadine antihistamines to reduce the runny nose/throat irritation. Allegra worked, usually the throat irritation last weeks, this time just a week.

COVID infection amounted to a minor cold.

Howard said...

Humperdinck: Thanks for regurgitating Tucker's Talking Points as provided by CCP and former CCCP operatives trying to destabilize the US. Comedy Gold.

Ivermectin helps in India because half their population have undiagnosed parasitic infections which is a covid-morbidity: Hat tip to MedCram. It might end up being a slice of cheese that gives a 10% outcome improvement when given with everything else plus the kitchen sink in bleach using countries (thanks Rhonda Patrick). The vaccine is 10x improvement factor. Three orders of magnitude. Math is hard, Barbie.

tim in vermont said...

Bill Kristol... Ok,

Did he send any of the young people that you know off to war, Chuck so that the generals, the CIA, and the weapons manufacturers could all be happy? Do you get a cut of that juicy weapons money for shilling for the Neocons?

narciso said...

a great man has passed, in angelo codevilla,

a sniveling weasel, ryan lizza tried to take down a good man, congressman nunes and a court noticed,

gilbar said...

Humperdink points out...
Why not here? Because if it works, no need for the jab.

it's imperative here in the USA, that there NOT be ANY possible treatment
The whole "emergency" protocol, where we:
take experimental, unproven vaccines
suspend ALL civil liberties, including, but not only:
__the right have your vote count
__the right to USE your property
__the right to work (which as i understand it; IS your pursuit of happiness)
__the right to assemble, at beaches/taverns/restaurants
__the right to GO TO CHURCH
__the petition the government
impose headcoverings

All these things (and MORE) could ONLY be considered, to prevent a horribly deadly, and incurable DEATH PLAGUE

If, not many people suffer; or WORSE YET, there is some sort of a cure...
The whole games up! Can't have that!!!

gilbar said...

Serious Questions for Chuck
Why do you keep referring to the Bullocks, or what ever you magazine is?
Why do you keep referring to people like Billy Kristol?

You're smart enough to realize, that using referents like them actually Hurts your case here
IF you actually think you're making good points, why sully those points with such questionable names?

For quite some time now, i've been convinced that you actually ARE a life long repubican; a LLR that loves and supports Trump, SO MUCH, that you're will to make a fool of yourself by pretending to be a hilarious parody of a moronic democrat

I can't see any other way what you're doing makes Any sense. EVERY TIME you post, you make Trump look better and better. Assuming, for the sake of argument; that you actually believe the swill that comes out of your mouth.... WHY do you do it?
Are you Actually SO STUPID, that you think you're swaying people?

I don't think that you're that stupid... I don't think you're stupid at all
I think you're a parody

wildswan said...

There's a big scandal going on in NYC about students not being taught and their teachers suffering no penalties and continuing to teach. https://nypost.com/2021/09/18/maspeth-hs-diplomas-not-worth-the-paper-theyre-printed-on/

Each student brought a certain amount of money (from the state) which was given to the school in exchange for an education. If there was no education then the school and its teachers should have to give the money back as would happen in a commercial enterprise. There should be a lien on the teachers salaries which pays into an education fund so that these young people can get an education fitting them for society. If there isn't enough there then the money should come from the Department of Education budget. Cut some workers and give the money to these students. This Department of Education should have worked out how to educate all the diverse people in our society - not just say "they're different" but say how to educate the ones different. And if it's going to be "education on the streets" for some then those "schools" should immediately give the money they get from "street" students to the students' parents, the real educators. And let them send their kids to real schools.

Wa St Blogger said...

Chuck seems to be so desperate that he is now posting about things that didn't actually happen.

Money quote from the link"

If carried out, it would have led to the country's greatest political crisis since April 1861.

Notice the "if carried out" part. This was not carried out, so what we really have is someone having an idea, it got kicked around, it didn't happen. I think that is the kind of thing that happens all the time.

But you keep following the story, Chuck. Let us know when it gets carried out.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Washington's redistricting commission is composed of 4 partisan members and a non-voting chair. Each caucus in the state legislature appoints one member (Senate/House, Dem/Rep) and each member produces a set of legislature/Congressional maps. The final maps must be agreed upon by three out of the four members. This system recognizes that the maps are partisan, but that they must be balanced. The first legislature map was released today.

Narayanan said...

Original Mike said...
I've been wondering when this was going to happen: Europe Faces Bleak Winter Energy Crisis Years in the Making

You can't get rid of your old energy generation infrastructure until you've replaced it with something else. Something that works.

The article emphasizes price, but I'd worry about something much more fundamental; running out. When that happens people freeze to death. I wish them good luck, though if they have a mild winter I don't suppose they will learn anything.

------------
did the German Crematoriums in the not so distant past also heat the local towns as done in NY with ConEd coal burning steam plants

Chuck said...

You’re not the only jackass who thinks that way, Humperdink. There may be millions, who think as you do. Astonishing numbers, given the essentially stupid viewpoint.

And about a thousand of them are dying every day. Many of those deaths agonizing, on ventilators, isolated from their families. And now, more and more, we are hearing from those families what bitter regrets there are, for having not been vaccinated.

Joe Smith said...

'And about a thousand of them are dying every day. Many of those deaths agonizing, on ventilators, isolated from their families.'

And all on Joe's watch. He promised to fix everything...

daskol said...

On the bright side Luis Severino is back.

Drago said...

Pro-marxist LLR Chuck, whose reputation at Althouse for extreme racist postings and openly vicious attacks against women and cbildren and pro-far left policy preferences have been irrefutably established, continues his long gin and tonic soaked descent into the extreme moronic democratical FakeCon parody poster abyss.

We have been witness to this for 6 years at Althouse as this psychotic danger to himself and the community continues to demean and embarass himself while pushing his far left/marxist preferences as somehow, in bizarro-wirld, "Conservatism for Realz-ies!".

Drago said...

On the very day Dementia Boy caved to the ChiComs again, Howard decides to project the democraticals pro-ChiCom policies onto....a Fox News evening opinion guy.

Howard and his pro-marxist bookend buddy LLR Chuck are working overtime to shield the democraticals from scrutiny.

Maynard said...

The clouds are foreboding. Do they portend that Chuck and Howard will face the wrath of The Gods for their blatant lies?

Eh. Maybe not. I suspect that being who they are is punishment enough.

Peace.

walter said...

Chuck,
Have your booster on the calendar?
We are counting on you folks to develop variants and ADE.

walter said...

FYI, my brother just informed me the turning point in his 'rona ride was getting Regeneron just before the duration cutoff. He is just over the BMI minimum.

StephenFearby said...

In her first excoriating column for DailyMail.com, MEGHAN McCAIN says feckless, unreliable, cantankerous Joe Biden is shaping up to be a worse president than Jimmy Carter

By MEGHAN MCCAIN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
UPDATED: 18:23 EDT, 21 September 2021

"...No one is healing. Nothing is healed. The wound Donald Trump ripped open has done nothing but fester since Scranton Joe was inaugurated.

Eight months since President Biden was sworn into office, the anticipation of a tone change and 'return to normalcy' has utterly disappeared. The man I once considered a friend and confidante has morphed into a feckless and unreliable leader I no longer recognize. He gives all the signs of stubborn cantankerous naiveté, surrounded by idiotic sycophants anyone who has spent more than fifteen minutes around politics should easily recognize as the worst type of corrupt bureaucrats..."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10014529/MEGHAN-McCAIN-Joe-Biden-shaping-worse-president-Jimmy-Carter.html

Yawn. About time you noticed that Biden is (and always was) a jackass.

walter said...

We must have superspreader data from that boisterous
Badger game fiasco that had panties in a twist.

Narayanan said...

How would the various festivities of January 6 have transpired if Pence had simply stepped away from the podium aka recused himself?

He clearly knows his job was also stolen unless he was happy to lose in good RINO style.

Chris Lopes said...

"I'll be following that story."

You do that fine sir. The rest of us will be following stories related to the administration actually in power. Granted, reading up on failed policies that are actually effecting people's lives doesn't quite have the glamour of following stories of what might have been, but some of us are just a little too attached to reality.

Big Mike said...

@Howard, so we should add “bigot” to your lengthy list of faults? In your world those dark-skinned Indians, they’re dirty and disease-ridden, right?

Big Mike said...

As we learn more about the Constitutionally-harrowing story of how the former professor/dean at Chapman University Law School, John Eastman, tried to engineer the re-installation of Trump after losing the election

And in the wildly unlikely case that the guy succeeded, there’d by 13 servicemen alive today, not to mention some Afghan aid workers and seven kids.

Rt41Rebel said...

This is awesome:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/09/22/ive-got-some-bad-news-for-you-sunshine

Big Mike said...

And I will repeat: the US medical establishment errs badly by not examining treatments for COVID, especially given the sad reality of “breakthrough” infections with people who are fully vaccinated.

Lewis said...

I watched and missed you? I don't know why - you're obviously two thousand miles away - I felt some near kinship in our thoughts - not to be Percy, as the girls in my school used - I mean, I liked your mind! But, as usual, like the Tamaraire, I went blasting and tried to mast you to my starboard. For which I apologize (I hate the z you Americans bring into our language! But as every historian knows, the 'Americans' have a better claim on our language than the Brits!). Obviously, I'm stupid, for why alienate that which you most want?

An IPad?


Expensive - but not as expensive as I think it would be - I'd to save up, yes - but coming from the early days of symbian modding - yes, that old - I dread the idea of a 'closed garden' - or, worse modding it and being locked out - a very expensive blank screen! And I wouldn't be helped wanting to mod it! I'm incorrigible. Ever since the zx80 I needed to understand how things work. If that meant tearing them apart and putting them back together again (not exactly how the manufacturer intended, by no means!) then very well. But abuse any animals during this not whatever. Nor take the wing of a dragonfly! I remember watching and being fascinated by an ant colony. I thought (7!) what was I but meaningless like them? Obeisant to a Queen who exudes some kind of madness which destroys your critical faculties? You jump over the cliff for her yet you know it's wrong.

gadfly said...

Humperdink said...

Are you aware two scientists won the noble prize for using Ivermectin to treat parasitic infections?

Ivermectin is being used throughout India with positive results. Why not here? Because if it works, no need for the jab.


Since when did it come to pass that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has anything to do with parasites? Ivermectin will get rid of your head lice but never touch a viral infection. Besides, ethical doctors will not prescribe the human form of the drug for treating the virus even if it was available on a large scale at pharmacies. I cannot speak Hindi or any other language used in India, but I can guess that many false stories circulate among its 1.37 billion people who cannot possibly have much access to the drug in any form.

Lewis said...

The sentimentality of the onanist! (Don't take that too literally - it's a phrase I just thought of - I'm not that!!) I' m listening to John Lennon doing a cover version of 'Stand by me', a Marvin Gaye song, although who ultimately wrote it is a joke ( two Jewish script kiddies in NY- what you would call nerds - is the people fashioned the modern world!) It's easy for us, from both sides of the street, I've been feathered by the duck quills of the state and, you, I assume (forgive me if I'm wrong) feathered by your very well prepared nest? I mean you insured against all (not all!) exigencies? I hope so.

What I was thinking a la that song was mortality and nostalgia. The mushiness of looking back. You look back in order to see not to dream.

Lewis said...

One of my favourite songs, 'Ask', says : ' Nature is a language, can't you read and if it's not the bomb, then it's nature that will keep us together' -(Actually ' if its not love then it's the bomb that will bring us together! Writing frightening verse to a lass in Luxembourg!)

Mutaman said...

"And in the wildly unlikely case that the guy succeeded, there’d by 13 servicemen alive today, not to mention some Afghan aid workers and seven kids."

And we'd still be confined in our homes waiting for the vaccine to be distributed, hearing about the millionth person who has just died, and we'd be wondering why the mail continues to be delivered 2 weeks late.

Mutaman said...

"In her first excoriating column for DailyMail.com, MEGHAN McCAIN says feckless, unreliable, cantankerous Joe Biden is shaping up to be a worse president than Jimmy Carter"

Who?

Mutaman said...

Gilbar said...

"Serious Questions for Chuck"

Serious questions for Gilber- why do you type some words in CAPITAL LETTERS? Is that how they taught you at Trump University?

Humperdink said...

gadfly said: "Since when did it come to pass that the SARS-CoV-2 virus has anything to do with parasites?"

Recall the hair loss treatment Rogaine? It was first developed for hypertension. Then people using it started growing hair.

I love you guys.

Humperdink said...

Chuck said: "You’re not the only jackass who thinks that way, Humperdink"

This from the guy that bemoans personal attacks.

gilbar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
gilbar said...

yes Mutaman, the all capitol letters, represent SHOUTING. That you don't know this, says a Lot about YOU

gilbar said...

gadfly said...
.I cannot speak Hindi or any other language used in India


English is the second of the most commonly spoken languages in India

That you would boast about not being able to speak English, says a Lot about YOU

Chuck said...


Blogger Wa St Blogger said...
Chuck seems to be so desperate that he is now posting about things that didn't actually happen.
....


Of course it failed. Trump and his flunkies were too stupid, and there were just too many decent, honorable Republicans in the judiciary, and state governments and elsewhere, for the idiotic plot to succeed.

But we must never forget that the efforts were made, or who made those efforts, and they must never again be allowed anywhere near our national government ever again.

tim in vermont said...

Anybody who wants to sneer at Ivermectin would do well to head over to www.scholar.google.com before they go too far.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

"But we must never forget that the efforts were made, or who made those efforts, and they must never again be allowed anywhere near our national government ever again."

Says the Chinese bot that still pushes the thoroughly debunked Russia Collusion lies fomented by the Democrat party to remove a legitimately elected President from office. The Chinese propaganda mouthpiece who fully supported the completely partisan impeachment based on lies spread by Democrats in Congress and the Senate.

If anyone shouldn't be near our national government (or any government) again, it's the people who are currently, illegitimately occupying the Oval Office and running the national legislature. Indeed, most if not all of the federal bureaucracy should not ever be allowed near our national government every again. Or state governments. Or local governments.

Chris N said...

Something tells me Chuck hates certain ideas (and people) more than he cares for any of the ideas and people he’s talking about.

This could mean has has deeper ideas which he loves, which are failing to align with reality. He’s not the only one with such a problem these days.

But, he’s been behaving like such a bitch he’s a fine example of what not to do.

Chris N said...

Really like that first photo, Althouse. It’s quite a capture.

Lewis said...

Isn't that age? I can't remember posting that last night! Was it me? Obviously. I can still follow Perry Masaon (the original ones)!

tim in vermont said...

What have we learned this past week? The MSM has finally conceded that the Hunter Biden laptop was the real deal, and therefore that Joe Biden was taking payoffs from the ChiComs "10% for the Big Guy."

We know that Russian collusion was wholly invented by the Clinton campaign, which lied to the FBI to spin up an investigation against Trump, and that Obama knew this and let it go on and waste two years of national attention on it, including dragging Trump through a bullshit impeachment just at the time COVID was hitting the US.

We know that Hunter was arranging meetings with Joe in Ukraine, which Joe denied, in just another of many lies. Impeachment was just a coverup for Biden and Democrat, including that Bois law firm that seems to be mixed up in every scandal.

Oh yeah, and that same law firm involved in Ukraine tried to buy off Rose McGowan on behalf of the head pervert of Hollywood, the movie mogul who provided A-list celebrities to Democrat fundraiser parties

But sure Chuck, tell us how we are better off under the Democrats because Trump couldn't fight back effectively enough against the massive corruption of both the Democrat and Republican parties.

tim in vermont said...

@Althouse

Lubos gets censored by Blogger. Just in case you are interested.

https://motls.blogspot.com/2021/09/my-first-direct-censorship-at-bloggercom.html

Whiskeybum said...

Mutaman said...
"In her first excoriating column for DailyMail.com, MEGHAN McCAIN says feckless, unreliable, cantankerous Joe Biden is shaping up to be a worse president than Jimmy Carter"

Who?


Pay attention. She said “feckless, unreliable, cantankerous Joe Biden

gilbar said...

hris N said...
But, he’s been behaving like such a bitch he’s a fine example of what not to do.

Seriously, the Only Way; that Chuck makes ANY sense, is as a Moby
He Clearly CAN'T think that his actions Do ANY Thing to help his so called causes,
Chuck is a parody just like Titania McGrath.
I bet not only does the Real Chuck LOVE Donald Trump, he probably doesn't even drink Gin
Heck! he's PROBABLY a TeaTotaller

ps. hey Mutaman? See how, i capitalized Some words to make it look like i'm SHOUTING them?

Lewis said...

LewisDeane • an hour ago Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by The Reference Frame.

Calm, Lubos - you're very smart but this circumstance needs politics. When you see a bear stay still and wait for it to pass. I know - and it's failed to pass. But, as you say, O tempore mores I hope. A madness, maybe. A temporary madness.
Speaking personally, I haven't taken any jab which hasn't gone through normal testing, ie I've taken, as most people have, tb etc jabs when I was a kid (my mother had to approve!). What's wrong of asking for a proper blind test? The original subjects were neither pregnant mothers nor children. And yet Pfizer is lobbying to give there jab to people over 6 months! And the original 'blind' subjects became so poluted as a test (half of them taking some kind of jab) that it became useless.
I'm not being nicki minaj when I say we don't know the long term consequences of an untried medication because it's not tested. We want rational, consequential testing - is that to much to ask? "Do no harm" is the hypocratic oath. When it comes to children, that isn't an 'ought', it's a must! When we know children (and those under 50!) are, more or less, invulnerable to this 'bug'.
And those conspiracy theorists who think this was 'biological warfare' - what warfare when you kill those who are not fighting? Der!

Lewis said...

Reference Frame.

I meant to say, unfortunately, I'll probably have to take the jab (is there a more disgusting word - an invention for our time! - in my language?) in order to see my son (he's in your country as is his mom, Czeck like you). Is that a compromise? I don't know. I was waiting to see what the consequences might be - there not all dropping dead, are they? - but, also, on principle - I don't give in to bullies. And I'm glad to know that even a genius like you are subject to the same moral qualms as we mere mortals!

Chuck said...

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...
...
...

If anyone shouldn't be near our national government (or any government) again, it's the people who are currently, illegitimately occupying the Oval Office and running the national legislature. ...
...


I expect that you have no idea, how much Republicans like me want that fight. Really; no conception.

You might think that re-litigating 2020 is a winner; or at least that it excites all Republicans. You’re willing to say to your friends and other true believers that Biden’s election was illegitimate. That 2020 was “stolen.”

But that is exactly, precisely, what I want to pursue with every single GOP candidate for elective office in this year, in 2022, and in 2024. Drill down with each and every one as to whether, and how, the Trump election was “stolen.”

The GOP pros will hate it. They will tell candidates to avoid the questions. If they disagree with the Big Lie, they will lose the Trumpists and incur Trump’s wrath. If they agree with the Big Lie, 60+% of the electorate will think they have lost their minds.

Peeling away just 4%, or 5%, or 10% or more of the Republican vote is fatal to any hopes of GOP majorities in any close race.

Mona Charen wrote in The Bulwark today how she is now a single-issue voter. Her issue is the Big Lie. It’s what I’ve been saying for months now. My personal politics were never a single-issue. But I am now a single-issue voter. I’ll support any and every Republican who repudiates Trump. And I’ll oppose any and every Republican who won’t repudiate Trump. It’s just that simple.

Your assertion that Biden was fraudulently installed — “occupying” his office — is not something that I want to hide from. It’s the only thing I want to talk about for the next three years.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

tim in vermont:

Not only was the FBI spun up on Clinton's Big Lie, they ran with enthusiastically. They had covered for Clinton's espionage violations and didn't want Trump in office to uncover their coverup. That was one reason for the nearly three years of envestigation.

Lewis said...

I suppose (a la 'did I write that') 3 am is the midnight of the soul. Raymond Chandler. He also said 'California has as much personality as a paper cup'. A great writer.

Lewis said...


This Place No Good.

Restlessly wandering for a place
Of silence and poise: is this life?
Hot brush on a canvas of desert dust:
In the beginning white paper, ashes swirl, mindless.

Here a cafe, time is nine, place Holborn: tea.
An occasional diner shuffles an entrance.
To quote: “This place no good.”


It's D.H. Lawrence use to end his late life (40 something!) letters. Was he imitating his ancestry the he had to die so young?

Lewis said...

And when I was 16:


Tramp.

Forgotten towers
Broken in my presence.
Or I’m a tramp
Exhausted in travelling,
Beaten by brooms.

Just as I was saying
“Yes, I realise...”
She kicked me from the stair,
Emptied me like a bucket
On the street,
Spilling to the cat flaps,
Simultaneous purr on each door,
Preaching like Jesus
“I’ll heal no one!"

Lewis said...

Autumn.

Below the cry of a bat
Foots shadow on frozen faces:

Wan luxuries,
Chilled notes of dawn.

You remember the 9'nth circle of hell in Dante? Frozen under ice because there betrayal was so bestial it cannot 'move'? What 'moving' means? Like assaulting your glass like feelings (I'm talking to my self) like that proverbial mad man who thought he was Napolinian (of Napoli and a jumped up squert he was!) and also shatterable? And you could jump through him and the other side, amidst the terror, you could see him? Him? God?

Lewis said...

Just as an aside - I read Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipelago - actually, when I was a child I read 'First Circle' - but I couldn't get past the horror of the second volume - what is 'horror'? I don't know. I'm not going there.

Lewis said...

After Hours

.I.

Those noises in the blank hour
Between twelve and one,
The ingenuous girl singing a song
Perhaps borne from the late closed pub,
The car alarm that mischievously sputters
Its unfrightening sound off and on,
Drinkers warming themselves
Over the hollow sound
Of their chanted slogans
Ready to beat, in the unifying desire
Of oblivion, any fellow man;
And, in between, quiet and quiet,
This slow, singing, melancholy hour.

And, to distract, the thought of you asleep
Comes and goes like that crying alarm:
Dog barking desires of my frightful cellar.


                      .II.

If, in this sphere of solitude,
Egocentric and sentimental,
You could somehow intrude,
Could arrive with bags and face turned
To that obscure, private life we somehow share
What, in the broken paces of private habit,
What movement outside it and therefore hope,
Could bloom, stare its tired stare,
Bare from beaten limb (yes, that fellow)
The one, doubled, solitary flower?



                   .III.

Among the insomniac cars
My shattered face stares whitely
At the moon. The blown flowers
Of our common school die quietly
Aged gestures of a beaten face.
Conversation, left
In my struggling, conceiving days,
Bouncing back from that rough, gauged place,
Poses the question of our death.

Am I then, in this absurd posture,
Abstracted by the flying blue lights
Making those correct, forewarned waves?

Death is a sordid thing
Done by sordid men
Use to a sordid world:

This our modern way
We love but cannot have
The once promised life?


.IV.

My mind has not the peace that’s promised
But a rage, a rage at a limb and joints
Incomplete, broken desire,
The unforewarned abstraction of our death.

And yet if you were here like the nurse
You would find only words of blood
And the absurd indignity of this mans fall.
Death crying (sentimental) among
The blotted whiteness of a ward,
Silhouettes of urgent shadow
And the dark faces beaten beyond

Lewis said...

Not you, my darling, but those her's. Women I have loved. God bless them.

Lewis said...

I'm not a good person. I know that. But on of my favourite songs, Joni (I thought it was 'familiar', not 'Amelia', when I was fourteen):


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTDoi9JQiY

Lewis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JHUiWbgykQ

Lewis said...

I was so sad - I am so sad - I feel guilty. This morning, a very cold morning, my ears are 'ringing' with the cold. I know it's going to get colder - and am I going survive? Last year I hugged my little plastic bag and talked to you. I get older and I'm not like that - I'm not that perverse. I just believe in kind of ritualistic things - like going to church, seeing the dawn, making the tea, making breakfast.

Lewis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgvknp5kxlo

Lewis said...

PALE FIRE
(A Poem in Four Cantos)
CANTO 1
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky,
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
10 Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached
up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!

Lewis said...

Dear Dr Curry,

This probably is more to do with your ‘uncertainty monster’ and how scientists handle this rather than conduct and trust. But, in so far as misplaced certainty tends to produce misplaced expectations and, therefore, a misreading of product, by scientists, as well as lay people, I think it has some relevance. Anyway, it’s something that has preoccupied me over the last couple of days (I always like to see the best in people and would rather attribute folly where others might see malice!):

I tend think of uncertainty and, indeed, certainty, from a philosophical, psychological and genealogical point of view. An analogy: mathematicians, and, by extension, physicists, love perfect circles and tend to see them everywhere but, of course, there are no such things – just as there are no ‘atoms’, no ‘particles’, no ‘things’ – these being necessary and useful shorthand for what is, in a sense, over determined, convenient fictions, a semiotics which, in itself, has nothing to do with reality – they are merely idealised concepts of which nature is indifferent. Similarly, assuming – as I do – that the greenhouse affect is a well grounded theorem, it is thus, to speak in metaphor and not in metaphor, in ‘the laboratory’ – but, in the real world, where we encounter the uncountable variables of ‘stochasticism’, the ‘certainty’ of this physics can mean very little. Indeed, with ‘chaos theory’ even causation can break down. It is, however, natural that scientists, and, much more so, lay people can not resist the tendency to transfer a certainty of theory, of the laboratory, on to this intolerable disorder – they fight the ‘uncertainty monster’ by attempting to hoop perfect circles around it’s neck. But it is just that, an illegitimate transfer, a projection or, at best, a useful illusion.

So when a scientist or a lay person says, clumsily enough, ‘the science is in’, they are merely confusing ideation with reality, projecting on to the world the comforting certainties they find at their desks and in their laboratories, because they can’t help wishing it were true. The alleged ‘patronising arrogance’ of certain of these actors is, however, based on their ultimate knowledge that it is not true. Stronger spirits, yours for instance, perhaps, can sustain these uncertainties!

Lewis said...

This i very funny ( I tried to post via my tablot but I wasn't 'signed in', so sorry if this is a double post!)


https://lithub.com/the-meanest-things-vladimir-nabokov-said-about-other-writers/

Lewis said...

If this is me, God forgive:


Lewis said...

‘Nothing’

Yes, you may say: “I am nothing.”
That “ ‘Now’ is all I will ever be.”
Yet the earth wills otherwise:
There is death and though you fill
Your days with faithless action,
The endless mantra of a common ‘No!’,
Such wanted dis-appearance
Is only edge, a crescent glimmer
Of what is always dark,
Innocent, tragic, affirmed.
Life, which needs no knowing,
Lives you without you.

Lewis said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB96fWJcT_Q

Lewis said...

So you go to a 'secret' misprision of your world - you go in there with an unopened bottle - first thing, 70% of your students are gone. Why bother with the last ones - I'm paid for an empty room? I take them to a Czech pub and I fancy one (I'm 25, she's 17) and take her home. I want to talk poetry, she wants 'it'.. I fail.