John Ahern scribbles deliriously,
Some storm-tossed sailors have just landed on some coast outside Africa. They’ve just been saved from a gale sent by Juno, who has a thing with these Trojans. Venus, who has a different thing with these Trojans (Aeneas happens to be her son), comes whining to Zeus, calling him out for not keeping his promises to the poor, destitute Trojans. Not particularly worried about pandering to the special interests of lobbyists—he is a somewhat partisan figure himself—Jove consoles Venus, telling her that, in fact, the Trojans’ luck will turn. They’ll settle in Latium and someday have an empire. Bigger than anybody else’s. An imperium sine fine.
Holli Herdeg writes,
Recently, for a course in world religions required by my high school, I had the opportunity to research and write a paper on the Islamic view of abortion– personally, I found it fascinating. As a sort of maiden post, I thought to share it in a set of two parts– at the very least, that’s how many sections I expect this paper to require. We’ll see.
Islam stands with Judaism and Christianity as one of the three great monotheistic religions. Its adherents number over one billion[1] and are spread out across the globe. Known for its conservatism, as the abortion campaign becomes ever more important in the West, the question arises of how Islam views abortion. According to the earliest Islamic tradition—and now, the more liberal factions of Islamic scholars, abortion is permissible before the one-hundred and twentieth day of pregnancy[2], but not after. However, conservative Islamic scholars, upon closer examination of both the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the writings of the imams, have determined that after the implantation of the fetus in the uterus, the potential for ensoulment is enough to place a ban on abortion, save for cases in which the mother’s life is in danger.
Evgeny Kissin, 38-year-old concert pianist, debuted with the Ulyanovsk Symphony Orchestra at the age of 10. At 13, he gained international recognition for playing and recording both Chopin’s piano concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He was, reputedly, able to hum a Bach tune along with his sister, who was then playing it on the piano, at the age of 11 months. So much for Wikipedia.
On YouTube, you can look up an interview with Kissin, who relates the instance of receiving a good review from a critic when he was 17, but with this barb at the end of the article – “In general, one gets an impression that, up till now, everything has been easy for Kissin in piano playing – sometimes even too easy. Both plusses and minuses of his art come from that fact. Now we only hear in his playing what comes from his great natural gift. This is, of course, wonderful, but in future, something definitely has to change. What? When? In which way? Everything will depend on that.”
John Ahern writes,
Advent
So we begin again
digging our fingernails
to pry out tiny lightbulbs
jamming them back in
to make them blink or blue or both.
Warm, stifling air
we joy in
coming from dragons’ mouths
that first must practice with
arctic winds
while we drive home.
And the dead is silent, the innocent -
bright, trampled, muddied here.
And we rush to make new men and angels from it
but fear to disturb the covering over the marriage
of Heaven and earth.
(I’ve taken from Hannah Roorda’s idea of tearing apart one’s own poetry.) I’ll explain this a little bit and what I meant by it all. I was struck once or twice during this most recent Advent season with some of the symbolism. I knew it wasn’t any good to write it all out in dry prose. But I’m not satisfied with it still, especially the last stanza. I want to know what you think of it.
So we begin again….
The first line is simply there to express cyclicality in the Church’s placement of Advent at the beginning of the Church year. Perhaps what I chose to illustrate this new, recurring beginning was a little mundane – putting up Christmas lights in lines 2-5 – but it’s one of those things you do in Advent, that you associate with Advent, and that never seems to get boring (for me, anyhow).
I’m not sure what to do about the repeated “or” in the fifth line. I think maybe it’s a bit excessive to have an “or” between “blink” and “blue” and I can’t think of any reason why to keep it there. I could point out the long “I” assonance in the third line, ahem, but it’s unintentional and accidental, so it really serves no material significance as far as I can tell.
I don’t like participles in poetry – it makes it cliché pseudo-Eliotic, I think. (There are a lot in this poem, so if you can come up with ways out of them, comment.) But “prying” might make more sense that “to pry” in line 3. I’m hoping for some opinion on that one.
Warm, stifling air…
This only works if that’s a universal experience, but I’ve always found one of the most unpleasant things about winter is getting into a car that’s been sitting out in the cold for hours at night, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the warm air to kick in. You can probably sort it out from there.
And the dead is silent, the innocent -
bright….
The first line explains it all, but I’m not sure the first line really works. What’s dead during winter or Advent, you ask? Well, everything. Plants, trees, grass, rocks, dirt, water, and all that. And I’ve noticed that in winter, everything (especially right before it snows) is quiet. The innocent is the snow.
The first line of the third stanza is synecdoche, and I’m not sure it works in this context. Anyway, the “innocent” snow is always very bright, but spoiled by the trampling and muddying. There’s some Christo-centric symbolism here I think, which is part of the reason I wrote the poem.
The cover is snow. One always wants to go out to build snowmen and wriggle around in the snow, but there’s something sacred about the snow that one is afraid to uncover. It seems improper to go and disturb it. Again, there may be some symbolism here that I’ve taken from the Virgins with Lamps and Oil, and Weddings, and all that.
For interest’s sake, I have a versed version here of the first two stanzas. Something arises up in me that kicks against free verse, so from conscience I wrote this (it’s not in meter, necessarily, but it’s syllabic):
So we begin again
our fingernails digging
into tiny lightbuls
to make them blink, blue (or) both.
We joy in stiffling air
from dragons’ mouths that first
awaken arctic winds
this while we’re driving home.
I don’t like at all, but I do like the “awaken” in line 7 more.
*******************
Here are some more haikus I’ve written down on whim.
Moldy pancakes soaked
In syrup, squished together.
It’s cytology.
(Nick suggested “cytology time” for the last line, which I at first thought was corny, but now it’s growing on me.)
*
like plane propellers
shattering my wine goblet
from too much Wagner
(Probably inspired by one of the Tenors. Thanks to Gabrielus who helped me out on this one.)
*
Glory be to God
for my sinus infection
around stinky cheese
*
Women, wittily
vaunt their two X Chromosomes.
Hm. I wonder Y
(Composed for my fellow Biology students, and most especially, MrsH.)
I’m sure you’re all very familiar with the Intelligent Design Movement. It’s largely backed by the Discovery Institute, and its central aim is to propagate the “theory” that there is an intelligent designer of the universe. Its primary argument has to do with something called irreducible complexity, which I won’t go into here, and don’t have nearly enough background to prove or disprove. I do, however, have an objection to Intelligent Design on more theoretical grounds.
The Intelligent Design movement posits that Intelligent Design is a valid scientific theory. Scientific theories are generally agreed to be models which (1) are supported by a fair amount of evidence, (2) explain a certain set of phenomena, and (3) have a truth procedure* via the scientific method.
As I said before, I’m not in a position to analyze the evidence for Intelligent Design. And Intelligent Design could conceivably explain certain phenomena. Thus far, no objections. But when we get to the truth procedure and the scientific method, I think ID runs into trouble.
The physical sciences are empirical, and have been for a very long time; largely because the huge majority of scientists want to keep it that way. I’m somewhat skeptical as to whether this ought to be the case, and there is a little bit of blurring the line amongst the Philosophy of Mind community, especially. But until this change becomes more than merely blurring, the truth procedure for any theory must be empirical. Intelligent Design does not have such a truth procedure.
Let me elaborate. Let’s say I have a theory. My theory states that my tongue should look red. To test this hypothesis, and to prove my theory consistent with reality, I have to conduct an experiment: I go look in the mirror and see if my tongue is actually red. But when it comes to Intelligent Design, you can’t do this. The “theory” states there is an intelligent designer, but an intelligent designer outside the physical universe is not empirically verifiable. He does not have a truth procedure via the scientific method, and thus, must be thrown out of science.
Finally, I would like to note that this is not some obscure technicality those nasty Darwinian Evolutionists are pulling on Theists because they hate their guts. The same objection has been brought up against other “theories”. For example, String Theory has been attacked on these grounds, notably by Peter Woit in his book “Not Even Wrong”. Science is, for the present, empirical; until that changes, the Intelligent Design Movement has no case.
* A truth procedure is a procedure through which we can verify the truthfulness of a given piece of information.
