Below is an advertisement for AIG that ran some time ago. That same insurance company is now asking the Fed’s for a bridge loan and is fighting for its life. If you don’t recognize the words right off the bat look up T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”.
We are sorry that Eilot got dragged into this and we would like to point out that it was not our fault. But the irony was so rich we could not resist posting it.
Instapundit links has linked to this 9/11 tribute every year since it happened. It is mostly pictures and it is quite long.
This week’s poem of the week is A Prayer in Darkness by GK Chesterton.
This week’s essay of the week is a story from Law Dog about a man with Alzheimer’s who decided to go home.
All Along The Watchtower by Bob Dylan is this week’s poem of the week.
Rod Dreher said this about Anthony Lane: “If you want to be a writer, read him. Start with his report from the Beijing Olympics. And don’t stop.”
Naturally, I had to check it out.
He’s not bad that’s for sure. He made the a subject that I am not very interested in (The Olympics) interesting. But he did not quite manged to justify the demigod status that Mr. Dreher tried to ascribe to him.
Still his essay was interesting and I do not regret the time it took to read it. I think what made it interesting is that Mr. Lane was bored by most of the sporting events himself and so wrote about other things. Such as little red cars remote control cars….
The best thing about the shot put was the cars. After the shot landed, and the distance had been measured, the precious sphere would be retrieved by an official and placed in the cockpit of an automobile: two feet long, bright red, with a tail fin—in short, the idealized vehicle that I drew during chemistry lessons when I was nine years old. Now it exists, for real, and there are two Chinese fellows with the best job in the world, who get to steer it back to the shot-putting circle by remote control. (It can also bring a hammer, or even a javelin, which slots neatly into the fin.) I followed the gaze of the spectators around me, and realized that most of them had entirely lost interest in what was happening on the track, so urgently were they tracing the progress of the cars, and so hastily were they revising their list of what they want for Christmas.
Underlying the whole essay is a touch of knowing snark. I suppose that could become obnoxious if that is the style he writes in all the time, but I found it amusing in this piece. I actually laughed aloud at this bit…
The other mystery weapon in Lyon’s quiver was Phil Towle, a performance coach back in the States, whose online messages had been an inspiration. “He’s also been a psychologist for Metallica,” Ryan said, as if to justify the gentleman. I had to steady myself against a passing volunteer. Metallica has a psychologist? What, exactly, is it repressing in its sylvan melodies?
This week’s poem of the week is The Writer by Richard Purdy Wilbur.
This week’s poem of the week is Joel Dueck’s poem “Soar.” Rundy took the name of his new web site from this poem.
This week’s poem of the week is the song Delarey. It was brought to mind by the problems that Georgia is experiencing. The Boers lost their war against the English but they prevailed in the end. When the English withdrew from South Africa they left the Boers in charge. But even still the Boers still cling to memory of their lost war as a badge of honor and so will the Georgians after the Russians have beaten them.
The difference between the Georgians and the Boers is that when the Russians inevitably get draw away by other problems the Georgians will have the demographic majority in their own country. Then it will be a bad time to be a member of the ethnic minorities who sided with the Russians. One only has to think of what happened to the Africans after the English left South Africa even though the Africans outnumbered the Boers. The ethnic minorities that are siding with Russia will not even have that advantage