licentious radio

Saturday, February 8, 2003
[10:40:01 AM]

In this country, we've mostly forgotten that poetry matters. Matters, perhaps, not so much for the individual poems, but at least for the license to express one's life. It's the *license* that the Stalins and Bushes of the world fear and hate. There's a fine old tradition of following authority: the Church tells you what to believe, the State tells you what to think, the right time to open your mouth is never. Poetry is subversive in the worst way.

Pollit on Poets for Peace [thenation.com]:

Trying to Write a Poem Against the War

My daughter, who's as beautiful as the day,
hates politics: Face it, Ma,
they don't care what you think! All
passion, like Achilles,
she stalks off to her room,
to confide in her purple guitar and await
life's embassies. She's right,
of course: bombs will be hurled
at ordinary streets
and leaders look grave for the cameras,
and what good are more poems against war
the real subject of which
so often seems to be the poet's superior
moral sensitivities? I could
be mailing myself to the moon
or marrying a palm tree,
and yet what can we do
but offer what we have?
and so I spend
this cold gray glittering morning
trying to write a poem against war
that perhaps may please my daughter
who hates politics
and does not care much for poetry, either.

[10:19:13 AM]
When the masses are numb enough, you can get away with *anything*. Chucko Hagel was elected to the US Senate by computer voting machines from his own company. How about that? It's like Halliburton going into the voting machine business. Appearance of impropriety? Nah.

[10:09:21 AM]
Jon Udell touts scripting languages over Java and C++ (for many cases). The fewer lines of code you write, the better. It's easier to maintain and change. It's easier to add more features. The smaller *team* you can get away with, the better -- better four good scripting people than twenty Java programmers -- if only for coordination.

(By the way, I *have* given up Infoworld as part of my daily scan, but I'm trying to read the columnists despite the interface that now requires constant scrolling. You also have to remember that the *obvious* link to click on doesn't go where you want to go.

But the most remarkable thing is the source code. The following is reproduced in every paragraph tag:

'Sup with that?)

[9:47:11 AM]
Good to see Rummy explaining his comments about Germany. The explanation is worse than the first time around, though. Now it's even more clear it's just a "with us or with the terrorists" thing. Somebody needs to check Rummy's meds. Why don't the Germans ask for his resignation? We're in this together, after all.