Halloween in the Empire

On reading Google news this morning…

House approves $87 billion
for Iraq, Afghanistan
CNN

Hey, if the U.S. is now an empire like the leftists say, shouldn’t we be making money from our colonies?

On reading further…

Study: Bush donors rake in contracts
USA Today
Bush Got $500,000 From Companies
That Got Contracts, Study Finds
New York Times

Oh, now I get it…. We’re the colony!

And so this year’s appropriate Halloween wear includes…

Bush Hats and Pith Helmet:

“The pith helmet served traditionally and mainly the military colonial forces of Europe and the United States. It received widespread recognition as the head-dress for notable missionaries such as Stanley and Livingstone….”

War of Ideas

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently declared a “war of ideas.”

Here is some background– notes made to help clarify my own thoughts.

Today, the 22nd “Socialist International Conference,” held every 4 years, concludes.  This is a non-communist gathering of various countries’ Social Democratic parties.  It has been called a gathering of “dinosaurs” (rather like the Democratic Party in the United States, or Tony Blair).

More relevant is the following history:

The First International
1864-1876
Founded in London, led by Karl Marx.

The Second International
1889-1914
Founded at a Paris congress, collapsed with the outbreak of World War I.

The Third International
1919-1939
Founded by the Russian revolution, also known as the Comintern.  Said to have ended with the Hitler-Stalin nonaggression pact, officially dissolved in 1943.  Succeeded by a Stalinist, hence non-international, organization.

The Fourth International
Founded by Trotsky in 1938.  Ended in various splinter groups after World War II.

The Fifth International
In process of formation.
See Movement for a Socialist Future and
The Fifth International?.

Pulitzer Ritual

Today is the feast day of
Saint Joseph Pulitzer,
who died on October 29, 1911.

In his memory, here are two links:

A Columbia Journalism Review article

on the Indymedia movement, and the movement’s own site,

http://www.indymedia.org/.

In Memory of Soong Mayling

Dissing Dissent:
In White House actions, a troubling echo of life in communist China
By Liu Baifang

This is from the well-organized leftist site
http://indymedia.org/.

Related links:

Commentary on Baifang essay, and

two links that appear to be about this same Liu Baifang:

Liu Baifang, wife of Orville Schell, and

Liu Baifang, Producer
(Red Corner, Gate of Heavenly Peace).

Going Beyond

“Any American who tries to go beyond ‘America good, terrorists evil,’ who tries to understand — not condone — the growing world backlash against the United States, faces furious attacks delivered in a tone of high moral indignation.”

– Paul Krugman, 10/28/03 NY Times

And those who launch those furious attacks face a reborn, well-armed, well-organized, international socialist movement with their own grandchildren in the vanguard.  No, Communism is not dead.

For a view of this movement from the left, click here.

For a view from the right, click here.

Dream of Heaven, continued

“…I am going up the hill on the grass behind juniper trees birches the road dusty she is coming up the other side yes there she is look it is who is it not Berty no Molly no a girl with red hair comes through the oak trees beautiful loves me puts out her hand kisses me we are kissing become one face floating in air with wings one fused face with wings Turner sunset and this and this and this and this and this WINGbeat and WINGbeat where whirled and well where whirled and well where whirled and well —”

— Great Circle, by Conrad Aiken, 1933.
    Pp. 297-298 in paperback published by
    Arbor House, New York, 1984.

For related material, see the poems of Conrad Aiken, the 1947 novel Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, and the 1936 poem “Altarwise by Owl-Light,” by Dylan Thomas, whose birthday is today.

Surrealist postscripts:

The above dream contains a Turner sunset; a critic once called the work of Turner “pictures of nothing.”  For details, see my entry of 8/23.

The time of this entry, 8:28, is a reference to the date, 8/28, of the Feast of St. Augustine, who was puzzled, as many still are, by the nature of time.  For details, see my entry of 8/28.

Dream of Heaven

“Heaven is a state, a sort of
metaphysical state.”

— John O’Hara,
Hope of Heaven, 1938

“Frère Jacques, Cuernavaca,
ach du lieber August.”

— John O’Hara, Hope of Heaven 

Frère Jacques
is a
  “canon à quatre voix.”

For another, purely visual,
four-part canon, see the
owl-like picture

in the web page
Poetry’s Bones.

See, too, the Wallace Stevens poem
“The Owl in the Sarcophagus,”
and hear Stevie Nicks as the voice
of The Wizard Owl in a story titled
 Frère Jacques.

Long Time Gone

Today’s hymn from KHYI, Plano, Texas…
(played at 11:15 AM Sunday, CST):

They got money but they don’t got Cash;
They got Junior but they don’t got Hank.

From the album Real Time,
by Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott.

Update of 1:50 PM EST…

Thanks, too, KHYI, for what may be
becoming my favorite Texas hymn
(played at about 12:45 PM CST)….

Love at the Five and Dime,
by Nanci Griffith

ART WARS for

Trotsky’s Birthday

Part I:
Symbols

From my entry of July 26, 2003, in memory
of Marathon Man director John Schlesinger:

For the meaning of the above symbols, see
Kubrick’s 1x4x9 monolith in 2001,
the Halmos tombstone in Measure Theory,
and the Fritz Leiber Changewar stories.

No se puede vivir sin amar.

Part II:
Sunday in the Park with Death

  To Leon from Diego –
Details of a mural,
A Dream of a Sunday Afternoon
in Alameda Park,
Fresco, 1947-48,
Alameda Hotel, Mexico City:

Three’s a Crowd:

Symbol:

On the Left

See this analysis of the organizers of today’s March on Washington.  For a much better organized Commie effort, click here.

On the right

A site in honor of Picasso’s birthday