Goodbye Is Too Good a Word

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together:
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, "Don't hope
On this side of the grave."
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.

--Seamus Heaney

The Cure at Troy

The Official Theme Song of the George W. Bush Presidency

The Final George W. Bush Press Conference

A clueless, pathetic fucking embarassment, to the last.

LDS Relief Society: Creatively Bankrupt?

Sometime during the Christmas season, a hand towel and a candy cane appeared on my doorstep, accompanied by the following letter. Either the Relief Society is rapidly running out of ideas, or the members have all suddenly become rampant fans of Douglas Adams:

The Towel

At first glance, one looks at a kitchen towel and thinks, "Wow, a towel. . . I needed a new one," or, "Wow, a towel, the old ones are getting stained and worn." But, have we ever stopped to think that for years, even thousands of years, the towel has not just been used in the kitchen, but for a variety of reasons?

Take for example: the mother who wipes the tears off a little child to sooth the physical and emotional hurt; the physician who binds the wounds of a bleeding patient; a woman in her home wiping her hands as she moves from task to task; the weary traveler who wipes his sweated brow; the manager of a boxer who "throws in the towel" to save the life of his protege; or the young man wiping the grease off his hands as he fixed the old jalopy.

Not withstanding all the above examples, perhaps the most significant use of the towel was about two thousand years ago when our loving brother took an ordinary towel in his hands and dried the feet of his disciples only hours before his crucifixion.

Sure, the towel is a handy item with a myriad of uses; but it also had a deep symbolic meaning when seen in the hands of the Savior doing a work of kindness for his fellow men.

So, take this towel, knowing it is given with love, and do works of goodness with it, as the Savior worked goodness with his, so many years ago.

With love,

The *********** Ward Relief Society Presidency

Really? A towel?

All in all, I think I'd rather receive another copy of the Book of Mormon.

The New Gestapo

VIA EMAIL
November 17, 2008
Southern Utah University
351 W Center St
Cedar City, UT 84720

Re: Copyright infringement

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am contacting you on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc. (RIAA) and its member record companies. The RIAA is a trade association whose member companies create, manufacture, and distribute approximately ninety (90) percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. Under penalty of perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its member companies in matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings, including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet.

We believe a user on your network is offering an infringing sound recording for download through a peer to peer application. We have attached below the details of the infringing activity.

We have a good faith belief that this activity is not authorized by copyright owners, their agent, or the law. We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized activity. Specifically, we request that you remove or disable access to the infringing sound recording.

We believe it is in everyone's interest for music consumers to be better educated about the subject of copyright law and music. In addition to taking steps to notify this network user about the illegal nature of this activity, we encourage you to refer him/her to the MUSIC Coalitions website at www.musicunited.org. The site contains valuable information about what's legal and what's not when it comes to copying music.

You should understand that this letter constitutes notice to you that this network user may be liable for the infringing activity occurring on your network. In addition, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you ignore this notice, your institution may also be liable for any resulting infringement. This letter does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims for other relief are expressly retained. Moreover, this letter does not constitute a waiver of our members' right to sue the user at issue for copyright infringement.

It is likely that this DMCA notice is not the first you have received from us or other copyright owners. Interested in exploring technological options to potentially receiving fewer of these notices? Many universities have implemented technological anti-piracy tools and report receiving fewer copyright infringement notices. Please see here for a listing of some of the businesses that offer network management tools to higher education institutions: http://www.musicunited.org/12_Resources.html

Thank you in advance for your prompt assistance in this matter. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via e-mail at antipiracy2@riaa.com, via telephone at 1-800-223-2328, or via mail at RIAA, 1025 F Street, NW, 10th Floor, Washington, D.C., 20004. Please reference Case ID '102686' in any response or communication regarding this infringement.

Sincerely,
Jeremy Landis
Online Copyright Protection
RIAA



List of infringing content------------------------------

britney spears blackout

-------------------------

INFRINGEMENT DETAIL

--------------------

Infringing Work : britney spears blackout

Filename : Britney Spears-Blackout [2007][CD+SkidVid_XviD+Cov]192Kbps

First found (UTC): 2008-11-12T00:49:44.51Z

Last found (UTC): 2008-11-12T00:49:44.51Z

Filesize : 109312479 bytes

IP Address: ***.***.***.***

IP Port: *****

Network: BitTorrent

Protocol: BitTorrent

Driving Back the Darkness

And so it was that Gwaihir saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes, as down the wild wind he came, and daring the great peril of the skies he circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill, while the world shook under them, and gasped, and rivers of fire drew near. And even as he espied them and came swooping down, he saw them fall, worn out, or choked with fumes and heat, or stricken down by despair at last, hiding their eyes from death.

Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire.

--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?

--Toni Morrison, Beloved

AP Photo by Rob Carr, via the New York Times.

I Believe

In 2004, after the results of the last presidential election, I put together a playlist for my radio show that expressed my deep disappointment in where the country was headed. I called it my "Break-Up Tape for America."

Tomorrow, the country will again go to the polls, and I have reason to believe the results may be more in line with what I believe are this country's greatest strengths: optimism, unity, dedication, and a willingness to work toward what is good for all, not just the wealthy few.

It has been a long and, at times, tiresome campaign. We have seen the best--and the worst--of the candidates. In the past eight years, the country hit bottom in a way that I hope I never live to see again. I lost a lot of faith in not only the election process, but the very character of the people who inhabit this nation. That loss of faith was, perhaps, a reflection of my own sadness at the blind eye many citizens turned toward the actions of their government: authorized torture, unjust imprisonment, unwarranted surveillance and loss of privacy, greed, environmental irresponsibility, and a deep cynicism about the role of the United States in the world and the capacity of its citizenry to resist such cynicism.

If, as the two presidential candidates have been promising, this is to be an election for change, I, for one, welcome it with open arms. It is no secret which of these candidates I think offers the best hope for this change, or which I believe will raise the character and tone of this country closer to its promised ideals. But, on the eve of a national election, this is perhaps a time to remind ourselves of the great power we have, on an individual level, to enact change ourselves. We need not wait for a charismatic or determined national leader to show us the way (although it might not hurt to have a leader capable of such inspiration); we can--and should--do this ourselves, on a daily basis, for the betterment of our own lives, if not for those of our neighbors and fellow citizens. We have, and always have had, this power, though the Bush administration has done everything in its power to make us forget this.

As the election has been drawing closer, I have found myself returning to some of the music I enjoyed in my twenties, a time when most of us are optimistic and eager for what the future holds. It is no great surprise that I also find in this music a feeling of nostalgic security that helps subdue, for a time, my great anxiety for tomorrow's election and the future of this country. One song in particular has come up again and again on my playlist, a song that expresses both the promise and uncertainty of the days ahead, and a song that offers, at its core, a firmness, a faith, in one's ability to meet those challenges, that promise.

I offer it here, along with these comments, as a kind of personal token of my faith and hope in you, in us, in our sometimes troubled nation. Whatever your political leanings, please vote. And let's hope that the next few years will do more to bring us back together. I believe we can be better and that we will be better. In short, I believe.