The Core

A few quotes from a recent poetry binge.

Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
  -- Wendell Berry, "Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front." https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/B/BerryWendell/ManifestoMad/index.html
 
The poem that quote is from is worth a read in its entirety. First published in 1973, it has the prescient line: "When they want you to buy something, they will call you."


I am done with apologies. If contrariness is my
inheritance and destiny, so be it. If it is my mission
to go in at exits and come out at entrances, so be it.
I have planted by the stars in defiance of the experts,
and tilled somewhat by incantation and by singing,
and reaped, as I knew, by luck and Heaven’s favor,
in spite of the best advice.
  -- Wendell Berry, "The Contrariness of the Mad Farmer."
  https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-contrariness-of-the-mad-farmer/
 

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, you are surely lost.
  -- David Wagoner, "Lost" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31967
 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
  -- Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-133/the-summer-day/

That last one is super famous and oft-quoted. In general, though, I am not a fan of Mary Oliver except her poem Wild Geese.

My favorite poet, bar none, is Marie Howe, but her poems read better in full. I won't try to quote them. I will only recommend two.

"The Affliction"
https://poets.org/poem/affliction

"What the Living Do" (I used to have this one memorized; it is a poem about/to her brother who died of AIDS)
https://poets.org/poem/what-living-do

Well, sh##. I guess I better work on a better balance there.

"You got to lose to know how to win"

-- Aerosmith, 'Dream On'

"I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda."

William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (location 6057 in the Kindle version)

Spotted on Twitter just now:

"“Instead of arguing with facts and logic, use a thought-terminating cliche.”

Although, I would not say that the politicians with medical training who serve in the US Congress have a particularly laudatory track record on medical issues either. Partisanship always seems to take precedence, at least for high-profile, hot-button issues (vaccines, insurance, etc)

There are a lot of quotable lines in that article.

Excerpts with paywall-busting link to original here
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/7/2108942/--It-s-Time-to-Stop-Living-the-American-Scam