Poets Laureate and killing machines

Owing to some technical delays brought by a truly remarkable thunderstorm, the weekly podcast FROM OUT OF THE CITY may not be up until later this evening or even early tomorrow. Don't worry...I won't let it slip.

I found a listing of the state Poets Laureate at the Library of Congress website.

The State Poets Laureate

Note than several states do not have official poets laureate, and the position sits vacant in a few others...lobby your state legistlatures for the establishment of the position if your state does not have it, and nominate your favourite poet from your state if the slot is currently vacant in your state.

Sat down and re-watched "HELP!" the other evening. I still enjoy the hell out of that film, with his now more than 40 years old. The Beatles will always be that young to me, in my mind. That four young men (they were from 22 to 24 when this movie was made) could have such a jarring impact on Western Civiliztion is always a marvel to me...and something hard to explain to those born too late to see the strides taken, not just the fossils of the footsteps.

Interesting pair of articles in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. The cover story is an interview with Keifer Sutherland. He comes across as a charmingly human individual, despite the consuming fire of working on the pressure cooker that is the TV series "24" day and night and night and day. The other is a rather shocking piece on the psychological conditioning the US military uses to turn young men and women for whom killing another person is wrong into killing machines who do not perceive it as killing, but in abstract terms.

We are building, have built, a culture of death, and then we wring our hands over our lack of value. When you tear down the cornerstones and foundations of our humanity, expect the apocalypse. Don't tell children it is okay to kill if you use the right word for it, then ask them to have moral compasses. The hypocrisy is staggering.

A friend asked me the other day if I was going to ask a mutual acquaintance out. I had to give him the twenty minute lecture on cowardice that seems to be my Catechism of late. Besides, having been already a victim of my own bad judgement, the monastic life doesn't look so bad...maybe I just need to view it in simpler, abstract terms.

Nope. Love, to me, will always be a big thing...