Monday, September 11, 2006
A while back, in an exchange with one of the anti-immigration folks, I pointed to the population decline of our inner cities and rural areas and pointed out that immigration can only help them (my birthplace of Lewiston, Maine is a good example). I referred to a study on the benefits that immigration could bring [...]
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Monday, September 11, 2006
The Vicar of Bray
Anonymous 18th Century Broadside Ballad
I know it’s a bit long but it’s a wonderful satire on political opportunism. I have always wanted to write (or better, see someone with more talent than me write) a modern version about a bureaucrat who managed to keep his post through the changing winds from, e.g., [...]
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Sunday, September 10, 2006
Love and Death
by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him
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Thursday, September 7, 2006
Cape Cod
by George Santayana (1863-1952)
The low sandy beach and the thin scrub pine,
The wide reach of bay and the long sky line,
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Wednesday, September 6, 2006
The Man He Killed
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
“Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
“But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
[...]
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Tuesday, September 5, 2006
FIDE’s Presidential Board meets in Elista on September 22 and 23 and one of the items on the agenda is payback for the supporters of Bessel Kok. For many years, actually decades, the United States and Canada have each been separate zones unto themselves (and their championships have thus been zonal tournaments or qualifiers for [...]
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Tuesday, September 5, 2006
“Let Others Write About You”
by Propertius (1st cent. B.C.)
Scribant de te alii vel sis ignota licebit:
laudet qui sterili semina ponit humo.
omnia, crede mihi, tecum uno munera lecto
auferet extremi funeris atra dies;
et tua transibit contemnens ossa viator,
nec dicet “Cinis hic docta puella fuit.”
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Monday, September 4, 2006
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin [...]
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Sunday, September 3, 2006
On His Blindness
by John Milton (1608-1674)
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, [...]
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Saturday, September 2, 2006
Sweet are the Thoughts that Savour of Content
by Robert Greene (1560-1592)
Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content;
The quiet mind is richer than a crown;
Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent;
The poor estate scorns fortune’s angry frown:
Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss,
Beggars enjoy, when princes [...]
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