After I Have Flown

1) MR B is suffering as a result of withdrawal from a prescription medication.

2) Avoid letting a doctor get you hooked on anything, my Readers!

3)                                       Variations

                                          1

There is a certain strangeness

In seeing that silver ship

Rush across the sky

Over these old trees,

Trees that sought the sun

Before an engine could

Propel a man unto

The place of his desire.

2

For all those weeks I wait

And I do not go walk

On hills among the trees

That outlived other loves

Long before I loved you.

                                                    3

This is no age for romance.

Morning will not forget

One green flash of light

As your eyes set.

                                                     4

(You dance so smooth and glide

Along the quickest move

As artless as the bird

That sails between the trees

Upon the old hill's side.)

                                                     5

The bird has disappeared.

The airplane's roar is gone.

The trees remain alone.

Until the hill is sheared

After we all have flown.

Communism VS Democracy?

Ah! The great story of the defeat of Communism by Democracy, huh? Never happened. Couldn't possibly have happened.

1) Communism is an economic system based on the common ownership of all property by all of the people. Democracy is a political system where the people govern. What happened is that the capitalist economies (USA, Europe etc) outlasted and overwhelmed the weak Russian (USSR) economy. No! Bad Reader! (If you are, as MR B suspects, thinking, "Oh, so Capitalism defeated Communism, right?")

2) Russia etal did not have a communist economy. The economy was controlled by the national government. It was, technically, socialism with state ownership of everything. The people did not own anything and had no real control over either agricultural or industrial operations despite some pretenses of local control. There was no Communism there for Capitalism to defeat.

3) The actual political system of Russia was an oligarchy with membership controlled by dictators (e.g. Stalin) or internal groups represented by semi-figureheads such as Nikita Khrushchev. The original power wielders were the Bolshevik faction headed by Vladimir Lenin which won the power struggle after the 1917 Russian revolution. So did Democracy defeat Oligarchy/Dictatorship? More bad news here. The USA is not a democracy in the strictest sense. When Ben Franklin was asked, after the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government the delegates had given the people, he replied, "a Republic." The USA is a Constitutional Republic.

Let's hear it for the defeat of the Oligarchy by the Constitutional Republic!???

MR B would prefer to see this as something Darwinian. What happened was the survival of the fittest (economy).

P.S.: Anyone notice that the Russian economy is recovering (in a socialistic capitalism sort of way) under a new Dictatorship?      

Immigration, Amigos

A hot topic. Especially the illegal variety. How could MR B resist?

1) MR B regards with amusement (the sort of amusement that comes with a sigh) some of those who, in the debate regarding those who are in the USA illegally, take the side of the immigrant. They accuse others who point out that the illegal immigrants are, by definition, in the country illegally of "criminalizing" the immigrants. It should be clear to anyone with a triple-digit IQ or, even a genius-chimpanzee beating 50-point IQ that these individuals have violated and are continuing to violate a law. If that does not meet the definition of a criminal, what does? Those who insist on thinking of these criminals as criminals may, in fact, be hard-hearted; but they are also right, and not just in the "-wing" sense.

2) When one of the, by definition, criminal (illegal) immigrants has otherwise lived a crime-free life, however, shouldn't consideration should be given to this factor? What about young children who were brought here (illegally) by their parents and are now Honor Roll students, valedictorians, maybe even star quarterbacks! Also, there are children of illegal immigrants who were born in this country and are, therefore, legal citizens. (Don't get MR B started on this subject. This situation should definitely be changed. Let the citizenship follow the parent(s). How about a little common sense here!) Is it right to deport the parents and force a decision on leaving the child behind or moving her/him to a poor third-world country? What about businesses, farms or wealthy people who can afford maids and gardeners (as long as they work cheap because they are vulnerable to deportation).

3) Why not pass a law allowing someone to come forward, sign a confession, rat out their law-breaking employers and anyone who aided in the illegal entry and gain automatic probation? The person gets a "green card" or some such thing. If the person does not break a law in the future, the probation period passes and life goes on. If there is further criminal activity, the penalty for the person's illegal entry is automatically imposed. Something would have to be worked out regarding income tax (and penalty) payments where applicable or, perhaps, the probation law could only apply to those whose earnings would not have resulted in any income tax being owed.

Allow someone to break the law with impunity and just let is go unaddressed? How un-American!

The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth

Thanks to the inimitable John Keats, we know that beauty is truth and vice versa. Is beauty the whole truth? Is it nothing but the truth? is it ... Ah! Did you notice? There are three things in question. MR Bodkin has a sense of completion already.

1) Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary gives "fact" as the first definition of truth. (Just the facts, m'am?) In a court of law, one is sworn to tell the truth. Don't tell a lie. Somewhere, perhaps in a novel, I remember a man begging, "Don't truth me!" Since Google did not find this bit of arcana for me, it must not be a famous quote; but it has stuck in my mind like wayward poppy seed stick in the unguarded spaces between one's teeth. MR B knows the feeling of being "truthed" when the bliss of ignorance might have been preferable. Lawyers, one fears, do not really care, as a group, about truth, justice or, unless Clark Kent becomes a lawyer, the American Way. They want to WIN. They want to get PAID. If you don't believe me, Google the OJ trial and ask yourself what a certain lawyer (now deceased) cared about!

2) The whole truth might prove to be rather large and unmanageable. Perhaps truth is like dark energy, hiding out somewhere in the universe waiting to have its affect. What about in court? The lawyer asks the witness, "Did you see  the defendant Elmer Schmidlap at the party?" The witness answers, "Yes, but ..." The prosecutor interrupts, as he/she is allowed, and will not allow the witness to continue to say, "but he was passed out all night on the floor next to the lime green davenport with the tomato juice stain on the middle cushion." Now, the davenport/stain-related truth(s) might, might have been quite superfluous. The truth that Elmer was passed out all night and could not possible have assassinated the award-winning pure-bred AHC-registered hamster would seem to be germane, however. Lawyers definitely do not always want the whole truth.

3) Is there really any harm in surrounding truth with a bit of local color? Did the davenport that is mentioned above detract in any significant way from the truth that was passed out next to it? Besides, since all that was, is or will ever be is intrinsically related, wouldn't the whole truth be unwieldy for practical purposes?

MR B is just asking. Just putting it out there. And that's the truth!

It Ain't Poetry

MR Bodkin is an aficionado of poetry. For full disclosure, I must confess that I have an active Poetic License. But what is a poem? Since three is, after all, the number of completion, let us consider three factors that might make a poem a poem.

1) The language of poetry is difficult to define. It can make use of figures of speech. For example, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is asking whether a simile should be used to relate how someone is like a summer day. Also, in this famous sonnet, the summer day is "lovely" and "temperate". The buds of May are "darling". The eye of heaven is "too hot". It might seem to some that the essence of poetry is adjectival. Simple language with no modifiers can, however, be used so that the overall effect is poetical even though the words themselves may be prosaic (i.e. common and unromantic). A young lady acquaintance of my college years once penned the following:

                                    Mother, tell me
                                    Is the answer
                                    In the road
                                    Or in the feet?

I do not remember her name, so I can not give proper attribution; but I will never forget the poem. No adjectives, no fancy words. The important thing is how the words are used.

2) If one were to obtain 100 person-in-the-street answers to "What is poetry?", the most frequent answer might mention rhyme. Actually, rhyme has not been considered necessary throughout much of history. It does, however make a poem pleasing to the ear and provides a type of structure. The poet must find a way to fit the gestalt of the poem into the rhyming frame of a sonnet such as Shakespeare's justly famous Sonnet 18 quoted above. To do this without having the work seem contrived is a challenge. While rhyme can contribute to the beauty of a poem, blank (unrhymed) verse has been a most common form for the last four or five centuries. I have written both rhymed and blank verse.

3) The truest test of poetry is structure which includes meter and scansion. The Shakespearean sonnet has lines consisting of ten "beats" alternating lightly stressed (or unstressed) and heavily stressed syllables. This is the famous/infamous Iambic Pentameter. The unstressed and stressed syllables together constitute a "foot", the basic metrical building block. There are other feet such as Anapestic with two unstressed beats followed by one stressed. In "The Destruction of Sennacherib" G. G. (Lord) Byron gave us:
         

                               The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold

                               And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold

                               And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea

                               When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Pentameter has five feet per line as in the sonnet line given in point #1 above. Tetrameter has four feet per line as in:

You Can Not Find Them All

If I am tied to yesterday

It is with bonds so intricate

That I could not unwind the ends

If I could find them all.

For I am tied to yesterday

As colored leaves to autumn chill

Or to the wind that blows the leaves.

You cannot find them all.

The poem above by the anonymous young lady has two feet per line, called Dimeter. If the reader wants more examples, the information is widely available.

So! What makes a bunch of words set together a poem. Flowery language is not necessary. Rhyme is not always required. The real difference is in the structure. If one piles a lot of boards together, it is not a house. The boards must be arranged in a particular way. Piling a bunch of words together does not make a poem. There must be structure. Unfortunately for MR B and anyone else who might appreciate the word-art of the maker, much of what is passed as poetry today is, in fact, not poetry at all by any sensible definition. It is words half chewed and spit out upon a page. It is prose chopped up into random lines. If you doubt it, check for yourself. Investigate the work of the currently lionized (so-called) poets.

MR Bodkin is tempted to take the path of the often overwrought P. B. Shelley and simply "fall upon the thorns of life" and bleed!

The Civil* War - It was the economy, stupid!

*Misnomer to be addresses in some subsequent essay.

In his last foray, MR Bodkin alluded to the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian utopia personified by the yeoman farmer. MR B trusts that this will be in the mind of the reader as this essay unfolds.

1) A common perception is that the "War Between The States" as many southerners prefer to call it or American Civil War as history books prefer it was a war over the slavery issue. On this point, let us reflect on the words of someone whose knowledge about the era in question should be given significant weight, President Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he stated in a letter to Horace Greeley that if he "could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it." This does not mean that Mr. Lincoln approved of slavery. There are many quotes and anecdotes that clearly show that he, like any person who could lay claim to being civilized and sane, knew slavery for the evil that it was, is and shall always be. It just means that the issue being fought over was not slavery.

2) States rights is another issue that was certainly in the forefront in the times leading up to the war.    There were states, Virginia for example, many of whose residents considered themselves first and foremost citizens of their state, not the USA. This is essentially why Robert E. Lee accepted command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and not command in (or of) the Union Army. The political situation and issues of personal loyalties, while important in effecting some of the particulars of the war, were not the reason(s) that the war was fought.

3) Slavery could have been eliminated in any one of several ways. Questions regarding powers of states versus the national government would have continued to be argued as they are still argued even today. The problem was that the primarily agrarian southern states wanted and needed to have access to both domestic and foreign markets for their produce and northern states wanted and needed government encouragement for and protection of their expanding industrial/manufacturing economies. MR B will not attempt to discuss tariffs, taxes and trade in this limited format. If the reader wants to explore the details, there are many sources in libraries and websites.

The simple truth in this case, as in so many others, can be found by following the money.

Differing economic needs and priorities were the fundamental causes of the bloody internecine war. IT WAS THE ECONOMY! (And it was stupid!)

Thomas Jefferson: The Biggest Loser

MR Bodkin has, admittedly, been known to share a common American admiration (idolatry?) for Thomas Jefferson. TJ is unquestionably one of the favorite, sometimes THE favorite, of the Founding Father. (He has his own MONUMENT, after all!)

Nevertheless, if you consider these factors:

1) TJ's vision of the USA was as an agrarian utopia. His home was Monticello, a working farm. He favored a small national government with power reserved to the states. He did not trust or approve of banks. He opposed the borrowing of funds by the government.

2) TJ's great political rival, Alexander Hamilton, favored a strong national government. AH was a New York lawyer. He was the primary force behind the establishment of a national bank. He proposed that the national government assume the debts of the states and wanted to delay payment of national debts.  

3) Think about it. Is the USA agrarian? This was recently very much an industrial nation, though it seems now to be more a nation of pencil pushers. (No offense intended. I spent many years earning my pay as a pencil pusher.) Agriculture is unquestionably an important, vital part of the national economy, but the yeoman farmer is not the current American Idol. Do we have a small national government? Ever heard about a thing called the Federal Reserve? The National Debt?

TJ certainly seems to be a pretty good candidate for the USA's Biggest Loser.