Poverty

To enjoy
only
power

to possess
to control
to destroy

is to be
nothing
and have less.

Quotable: Beware of Author

Among the front pages of the novel Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry:

NOTICE
Persons attempting to find a "text" in this book will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

Poetry: When Serpents Bargain

by e.e. cummings

when serpents bargain for the right to squirm
and the sun strikes to gain a living wage--
when thorns regard their roses with alarm
and rainbows are insured against old age

when every thrush may sing no new moon in
if all screech-owls have not okayed his voice
--and any wave signs on the dotted line
or else an ocean is compelled to close

when the oak begs permission of the birch
to make an acorn--valleys accuse their
mountains of having altitude--and march
denounces april as a saboteur

then we’ll believe in that incredible
unanimal mankind (and not until)

That Incredible Unanimal Mankind

A few interesting* headlines from the BBC:

*Disclaimer: Headlines have been paraphrased by the author. Opinions expressed here are not necessarily the view of the BBC, the UK government, or any of their corporate sponsors.

"I secrete, therefore I am." - Or, "The Invisible Endocrine System of the Marketplace?"

Finally, scientific proof that men are not purely rational beings!

"Let them eat cash!"

Quotation from the article in light blue italics, editorial commentary in plain text: "The U.S. (after: 1) perpetually consuming nearly 7x its per-capita share of world resources, 2) undermining local agriculture in 'developing' countries by flooding international markets with subsidized products, thereby contributing to malnutrition by substituting stale/processed/chemically contaminated/artificial foods for fresh/whole/natural foods, 3) contributing to the ruin of arable land via construction, extraction, erosion, deforestation, land mines, radioactive ordnance (DU) pollution, etc., and 4) selling weapons that help warring factions, corrupt governments, and rebel groups kill or displace civilians who would otherwise be growing their own food) provided more than 2.1 billion (the cost of one B-2 bomber, or less than 2% of the amount spent on the Iraq war in the same fiscal year) in food aid (to the entire less-fortunate 95.5% of the world's population) in 2007."

Don't hate us for our freedom . . . we've only got the world's best interests at heart.

Poetry: Whatever Happens

excerpts from "Sabbaths 1998" in Given: Poems by Wendell Berry

I.
Whatever happens,
those who have learned
to love one another
have made their way
to the lasting world
and will not leave,
whatever happens.

VI.
By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.
. . .

But won't you be ashamed
To count the passing year
At its mere cost, your debt
Inevitably paid?

For every year is costly,
As you know well. Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.

IX.
What I fear most is despair
for the world and us: forever less
of beauty, silence, open air,
gratitude, unbidden happiness,
affection, unegotistical desire.