Today marks the advent of the YEAR OF THE DRAGON, and according to Chinese horoscope lore, the Dragon is a powerful and generally benevolent creature, and so I hope that everyone enjoys much happiness, good health, and prosperity during the coming year.
Died 22 January 1901 – Victoria, who reigned as Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Empire for nearly sixty-four years – the longest reign of any female monarch in history. Let us be honest: Most of the purported gains that women have made in the past century seem all but inconsequential when measured against Victoria’s stellar achievement. After all, essentially decorative titles such as Secretary of State, Senator, CEO, M.D., and Professor pale in comparison with “Queen” and “Empress of India.” I therefore suggest that women, particularly American women, need to move beyond their relatively minor accomplishments by both emulating Victoria and, more importantly, attending to her wise words: “The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of ‘Woman’s Rights,’ with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent…”
Her Feminist Majesty
"Queen Anne's Lace"
Born in 1965 in San Antonio, Texas, Scott Harding is an American artist who works in oil, watercolor, pastel, and pencil. Harding is especially adept at painting the human form, and while his style is generally realistic, it is complicated by a subtle impressionism, and it is hard not to be moved by the beauty and passion that emerge from Harding’s canvases. In addition to being impressive artistic accomplishments, Hardy’s paintings are a reminder that, despite so many examples to the contrary, something good can come out of Texas.
"Eyeing the Goods"
21 January 1983 – American writer Anthony Hecht wins the Bollingen Prize for Poetry. Hecht, a schoolmate of Jack Kerouac in New York, became interested in poetry while attending Bard College. However, the defining moments for his life and art came during his experiences in combat during World War II, especially what he encountered while helping to liberate Flossenburg Concentration Camp on 23 April 1945: “The place, the suffering, the prisoners’ accounts were beyond comprehension. For years after I would wake shrieking.” I recommend that people read Hecht’s “Third Avenue in Sunlight” and “More Light! More Light!,” as well as “It Out-Herods Herod. Pray You, Avoid It,” which I have posted below.
Tonight my children hunch
Toward their Western, and are glad
As, with a Sunday punch,
The Good casts out the Bad.
And in their fairy tales
The warty giant and witch
Get sealed in doorless jails
And the match-girl strikes it rich.
I’ve made myself a drink.
The giant and witch are set
To bust out of the clink
When my children have gone to bed.
All frequencies are loud
With signals of despair;
In flash and morse they crowd
The rondure of the air.
For the wicked have grown strong,
Their numbers mock at death,
Their cow brings forth its young,
Their bull engendereth.
Their very fund of strength,
Satan, bestrides the globe;
He stalks its breadth and length
And finds out even Job.
Yet by quite other laws
My children make their case;
Half God, half Santa Claus,
But with my voice and face,
A hero comes to save
The poorman, beggarman, thief,
And make the world behave
And put an end to grief.
And that their sleep be sound
I say this childermas
Who could not, at one time,
Have saved them from the gas.
Died 21 January 1950 – George Orwell, an English author who wrote, “All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.” I invite you to consider Orwell’s statement in light of what are often incredibly misguided but widely-held views concerning (to name just a few examples) the environment, jobs, energy policy, science, education, and religion in the United States. Orwell’s point: The blame for the disparity between rhetoric and reality in American life cannot be placed on politicians, who are, after all, merely the spokesfools for the electorate that keeps sending them to office. Put bluntly, we are stuck with a slate of absurd candidates largely because they best articulate our collective delusions about the world and our place in it.
I have two recommendations: First, as soon as possible read Orwell’s ever-timely essay “Politics and the English Language.” Second, read and then ponder seriously the quotations from Orwell posted below. Doing so will help inoculate you against some of the more egregious expressions of intellectual and cultural nonsense currently being touted as “truth.”
“Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.”
“As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.”
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory
beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper.”
“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.”
“In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
“Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.”
“Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless it can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”
“Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.”
“Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”
“One cannot really be a Catholic and grown up.”
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.”
“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
“Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible.”
“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.”
Born 18 January 1892 – Oliver Hardy, an American comic actor who was, along with Stan Laurel, a member of the famous Laurel and Hardy team. Ollie and Stan were among the few movie stars to make a successful transition from the silent to the sound era, and I have three recommendations for my readers. First, watch everything Laurel and Hardy ever made; at their best, they are the greatest comedy team in film history. Second, from their silent film archive watch “Two Tars” and “Big Business.” In these two short features you will find the classic pattern that informs most of the work of Laurel and Hardy: A seemingly innocuous incident soon results in increasing conflict, until events descend into complete anarchy. Finally, from the sound era archive watch “The Music Box,” a brilliant comedic gem, which is, regrettably, the only Laurel and Hardy feature that won an Academy Award.
"Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into."
Died 18 January 1952 – Jerome “Curly” Howard, American comic genius and member of The Three Stooges. I spent many hours of my misspent youth in coffee shops, arguing over the respective comedic talents of Curly and Shemp with humor-challenged fools who championed the cause of the latter. Of course, there is no argument: Shemp is amusingly competent, but Curly is the peerless King of Slapstick.
"Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!"
Born 17 January 1899 – Al Capone, a notably successful American entrepreneur, who once said, “I don’t even know what street Canada is on.” It’s a shame that Mr. Capone isn’t alive today, because with his wealth of practical business experience and slender knowledge of geography, he certainly would have been a serious contender for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination.
An Important Service Announcement: I Am The New Prophet Of Professional Football And Everything Else.
The false prophet Tim Tebow has fallen from grace, but fear not, for I have received a sign from the heavens that I am the true apple of god’s cosmic eye. You rightly demand proof, and here it is: Behold the photograph below, which shows a black feather that miraculously appeared in my front yard this morning. It is obviously from a raven, and so here is the bold prophecy on which I stake my claim to divine favor: The Baltimore Ravens will win Super Bowl XLVI. After the Ravens prevail, I will immediately devote myself to the serious business of becoming an American religious celebrity by establishing a non-profit corporation with its own non-accredited university, setting up a tithing schedule (you will all be sending me 20% of your earnings – and that’s gross earnings, my slavish devotees, not net), being a color commentator on ESPN, marketing sacred artifacts (holy feather dusters, Black Bird of Happiness ceramic figurines, Poe Boy sandwiches, etc.), and promoting my new book on radio and television talk shows – “In Tim We Trust – Nevermore!”
Born 15 January 1929 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., American religious leader and civil rights activist.
Given the frequently benighted state of religion and politics in America today, one quote from Dr. King should be better known: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Dr. King’s birthday would be a decidedly appropriate occasion on which to ponder the arbitrary and ultimately artificial character of many of the boundaries people and nations spend so much time building and defending. For example, Dr. King was inspired by Gandhi, who was in turn inspired by Thoreau, who at least partly derived his notion of passive resistance from the doctrine of “ahimsa,” or non-violence, that he encountered in his investigation of Buddhist teachings.
My point is that in every moment of our lives we are surrounded by thought lines, the convergence of which find expression in our ideas and actions, even if we are often unconscious of their existence and origins. However, the more we come to understand that we and our society are the products of multiple cultural and historical influences interacting in countless but generally unsuspected ways, the greater becomes the likelihood we will evolve into more tolerant and compassionate beings and thereby move closer to realizing Dr. King’s magnificent dream of universal justice.
Pagan Patriots – 45 Biblical Broncos – 10
Since so many evangelicals have insisted on viewing Tim Tebow as an actor in a cosmic morality play and the Dark Side has prevailed, I hope that they will now have enough integrity (doubtful) to join me in becoming a devoted servant of Bill Beelzebubichick. On behalf of all intelligent, well-educated, superstition-free Americans – I thank you, New England.
