Poetry Friday: Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
Friday, April 25th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »http://wellreadchild.blogspot.com/2008/04/poetry-friday-love-calls-us-to-things.html Richard Wilbur published his first poem when he was 8 years old. He went on to translate Moliere and Racine, write lyrics musicals, win the Pulitzer Prize, and become the U.S. Poet Laureate. If you've never been inspired ...
Poetry Friday: Philip Larkin’s “Aubade” - “I work all day, and get half drunk at night”
Friday, April 18th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »http://wellreadchild.blogspot.com/2008/04/poetry-friday-philip-larkins-aubade-i.html In the Middle Ages minstrels sometimes sang Aubades, or songs about lovers parting at dawn. This theme was revived by metaphysical poets like John Donne. In "The Sun Rising," he rails against the sun for its interruption of lovers. In "Aubade," ...
We are All Descendants of Muhammed, Charlemagne, etc.
Monday, April 7th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | 1 Comment »And like Barack Obama, we are all cousins of Dick Cheney. A little research that once ended my genealogical ambitions to find someone famous in my family: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:5CiheUn4INcJ:www.theatlantic.com/doc/200205/olson+%22the+royal+we%22+olson&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us&client=firefox-a Under the conditions laid out in his paper, the most recent common ancestor ...
Poetry Friday: Crossing the Hellespont
Friday, April 4th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »A poem by me, available here.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Poetry Friday: Crossing the Hellespont", url: "http://www.ketchupandcaviar.com/of-interest/poetry-friday-crossing-the-hellespont/" });
Silvanellia Plath
Saturday, March 29th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »I didn't quite get my Villanelle Expirans right. Here's another go.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Silvanellia Plath", url: "http://www.ketchupandcaviar.com/of-interest/silvanellia-plath/" });
Rev. Wright’s Letter To NYT About Obama
Friday, March 28th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »March 11, 2007 Jodi Kantor The New York Times 9 West 43rd Street New York, New York 10036-3959 Dear Jodi: Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for ...
Poetry Friday: The Villanelle
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »Here's an interesting exercise: write a 19 line poem with just two rhyming sounds, and in which about a third of the lines are refrains. The first stanza haunts every other -- its first and third lines alternating as conclusions ...
An Open Dear Jane Letter to Hillary Clinton
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »Please Sign the Petition Dear Hillary, I remember when I first saw you across the bar. You seduced me those experienced eyes and that raucous, sarcastic laugh. One thing led to another — too many cosmopolitans, a long conversation about solutions for ...
Clinton 2.0
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhx-TYK4zP0]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Clinton 2.0", url: "http://www.ketchupandcaviar.com/of-interest/clinton-20/" });
Clinton and the Death Throes of Identity Politics
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »"I'm human," Clinton tells us, and it's "news to some people." We're not told why this is so, but apparently its common knowledge that more is expected of her. What exactly the double standard here is we are not told. ...
Here’s How you Lay Someone Off
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »Classy. Hat-tip ACopperWire.SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Here’s How you Lay Someone Off", url: "http://www.ketchupandcaviar.com/of-interest/heres-how-you-lay-someone-off/" });
McCain and the Political Mainstream: Substance is “Rhetoric,” Policies are just “Speeches”
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »Obama gives an extremely detailed (as well as elqouent) economic policy speech (see below) that should put McCain to shame. That doesn't prevent the McCain campaign from engaging in the following chutzpah: “No amount of rhetoric can hide Senator Obama’s clear ...
Pain Trickled Up (Obama’s Cooper Union Speech)
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | 1 Comment »How many people can create a refrain like "pain trickled up" (a nice crystallization of its substance) as part of a detailed economic policy speech? In his Cooper Union speech today Obama made a call for regulation and transparency and ...
On Truth and Lie in the Extra-American Sense (Obama’s Race Speech)
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »On CNN's Anderson Cooper, Candy Crowley leads off on Obama's speech today with the caveat "whether or not you agree with what Barack Obama said," and then launches into the staple of political discussion on American TV: whether or not ...
Google Searches that Lead to this Blog
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »Currently in the Google top ten results for: ketchup defense (result #1) dick sickness oceania is at war with eastasia the rhetorical arguments of hillary clinton cicero rhetoric clinton obama malt liquor fried chicken essay of ketchup gundon the secret of my endurance obama campaign suggestions trite save the day pious fuzziness botargo ...
The Only Maternal Presence in the Campaign
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »The only maternal presence in the campaign: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/us/politics/14obama.html?em&ex=1205726400&en=7c86d1bf8cf11784&ei=5087%0A And what it produced: SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "The Only Maternal Presence in the Campaign", url: "http://www.ketchupandcaviar.com/of-interest/the-only-maternal-presence-in-the-campaign/" });
Stanley Fish: Dis-disinterested after all
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »After 341 comments on Stanley Fish's last column, he felt he had to intervene with the following: Just two points in response to readers’ questions. I do read all the comments. And I do not use words like “objective” or “impartial” ...
Toughness Revisited (A Calm Attempt to Alleviate NYCweboy’s Frustration)
Saturday, March 15th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | 1 Comment »I suppose I should have made it clear that I was impressed by the sober and conciliatory tone of NYCweboy's comment on this post, despite the fact that I disagree. (And as for my own vanity -- being disagreed with ...
Obama and Clinton — Real Differences in Tone and Honesty?
Friday, March 14th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »NYC weboy writes (in reponse to this): There’s an awful lot going on here, and a lot of conclusions about what I might mean, at least by implication, in saying “toughen up” (I can’t speak for Wolcott, nor would I try). ...
Ferraro, Part II
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 Posted in Of Interest | No Comments »One more word about Geraldine Ferraro: her bluntness and tenacity are admirable. And that Obama's campaign benefits from a guilty white constituency because he is African American is probably right (as I have argued before). And certainly she is not ...
