John Lennon 1940 - 1980

Creating Reality In Kentucky

by Dick Mac

According to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Earth was created by a monotheistic entity five or six thousand years ago. This God also deliberately flooded the Earth, but not before telling his faithful servant, Noah, to build an ark large enough for his family and two of every kind of animal. The ark is alleged to look like the drawing above.

To promulgate this notion, the Commonwealth of Kentucky is providing handsome tax incentives to a corporation whose mission is to debunk science and promote religion.

On Friday, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Kentucky’s second-largest newspaper, criticized Mr. Beshear in an editorial for a plan that it said would result in low-wage jobs and a poor image for the state.

"Anyone who wants to believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible has that right," the editorial said. "However, the way the Beshear administration handled this makes it appear Kentucky either embraces such thinking or is desperate to take advantage of those who do."

When I think of liberal news media, The Lexington Herald-Leader never comes to mind. In fact, no media outlet in Kentucky ever comes to mind when I consider liberalism; truly, not a single institution in Kentucky comes to mind when I consider liberalism and its impact on American culture. Even this local newspaper is questioning the decision.

In the Commonwealth's efforts to promote the theory of Creationism, they are working with Ark Encounter to develop a these park based on the Bible.

The centerpiece will be a "replica of Noah's Ark."

Somehow, this ark is supposed to have been large enough to hold a small number of humans, and a lot of animals, including wooly mammoths, and a pair of dinosaurs that were approximately 74 feet long and weighed about 100,000 pounds.

The story of Noah's Ark is one of many tales in the Bible intended to challenge readers to examine their notions of reality, of right and wrong, of morality and mortality. In a civilized world, these are important lessons, and the story is a good tool to teach children some of these lessons.

Lessons that cannot be derived from the story of Noah's Ark are lessons of science, evolution, history, biology, paleontology, geology, geography, meteorology, or any other intellectual pursuit. It is a religious story used to teach some religious people some lessons of morality.

It's not rocket science to conclude that no government money should be used to promote this enterprise. Any elected official who cannot see the connection between Noah's Ark and organized religion is a buffoon!

Come now, Steven L. Beshear, the Democratic Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Governor Beshear believes the arrangement poses no constitutional problem, and has brushed off questions about his stand on creationism.

"The people of Kentucky didn't elect me governor to debate religion," he said at a news conference. "They elected me governor to create jobs."

But, Governor Beshear is not creating jobs, he is promoting religion with tax dollars. That some jobs may or may not be created in this process is secondary.

We cannot use government money to promote religion.

In Kentucky, Noah’s Ark Theme Park Is Planned - NYTimes.com

The Last Photo of Rimbaud

by Dick Mac

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was born in Charleville, Ardennes, France on October 20, 1854 to a family of modest means. At the age of 17 he was acclaimed as one of Paris' best poets and became a close friend of Paul Verlaine, who was perhaps the best-known, most talented poet of that era.

Verlaine was a reputable married man who enjoyed a bourgeois lifestyle and the affection of a wife and children. He became Rimbaud's mentor upon the younger poet's arrival on the scene. Living the party life of 19th Century celebrity, the two carried-on a life of poetry, absinthe, wine, and good living. Verlaine withdrew from his family and family obligations to pursue a more decadent lifestyle with Rimbaud. The two became lovers and the intensity of their relationship has been the fodder of rumour, stories and films ever since.

Rimbaud was young and pretty and Verlaine was older, financially established and well-connected. Rimbaud's entre to the privileged life of a Paris star was facilitated in no small part by Verlaine's largesse. As Rimbaud became more popular and well-known, his interest in Verlaine diminished.

Verlaine, at this point obsessed with Rimbaud and desperate for his affection, became incensed by Rimbaud's apparent dismissal of him and the quick end to their romance. Verlaine shot Rimbaud in 1873, and was sentenced to prison.

When Verlaine was released in 1875, the former lovers had one more meeting, where Rimbaud announced that he would be leaving France to make his fortune elsewhere. Verlaine became a penitent Catholic and lived the remainder of his life as such.

Rimbaud was by this point a major influence on popular culture and the arts (and he remains a major influence today); but, at 19 he was done writing poetry and set off to conquer the world.

Rimbaud is known to have been an arms smuggler and gold dealer, and it has been suggested that he was also involved in the slave trade. He settled in Abyssinia, married, and lived the remainder of his short life in obscurity. He died at 37, in 1891. There is little documentation about his post-Paris life, and this has added to his allure as the world's first punk: famous and infamous, well-known and completely secretive, a child of the world not to be found anywhere, rebellious and debauched. The picture to the left has always been assumed to be the last image of him, taken as a self-portrait, in 1883.

The images we usually see of Rimbaud are of his youth, when he was an up-and-coming poet, a man-child, living a life of celebrity among the most famous names of Paris.

Interest in his adult life is, as he would probably like, minimal. Only those of us who love his work and his legacy have ever cared much about the last part of his life.

It is very exciting to have a new photo of the adult Rimbaud appear. The photo (at the top of this article) was taken at the Hotel de l'Univers, in Aden, Abyssinia, where Rimbaud is known to have spent the last years of his life before dying of cancer aged 37.

The link below is to an article from today's issue of The Telegraph.

French booksellers discover first adult Rimbaud picture

Thanks to Rodney for the tip!

If we're going to fuck the hungruy, at least we could pay them for it!

by Dick Mac

Republicans block child nutrition bill.

We have squandered our National Treasury on two worthless wars: one an unwinnable war against a concept, an invisible enemy called terror; and the other against a leader who didn't have any weapons of mass destruction but whose country has quite a bit of oil.

Then we gave the modest surplus in our Treasury back to the people who most benefit from expensive wars. Now, we are without funds to maintain civilization; but, the wealthiest among us are enjoying tax breaks between $80,000 and $1,600,000.

We have been told repeatedly that by giving this money back to the wealthiest among us, they will use that money to invest in new business and stimulate the economy so as to benefit even those even at bottom of the economic food chain.

We have been doing this for thirty years and not one single job has been created by this notion; in fact, the people who most benefit from those tax breaks are moving most of the jobs they control off-shore to other nations, leaving Americans even less-employed.

So we are fighting a war against a concept like "terror" (a war that cannot be won any more than we can win a war against inanimate objects like "drugs"). Then instead of improving our own military, the government is spending a ludicrous amount of money hiring "consultants." These "consultants" are what we used to call mercenaries. They are expensive. We are fighting an unwinnable war against an invisible enemy and paying the highest possible dollar amount for it.

We are spending something like ten billion dollars a month on these wars. The rich are paying less for civilization than they ever have in the history of civilization. The nation's infrastructure and government are crumbling. The gap between the rich and the poor widens on a daily basis. We are unable to educate our children and we blame the teachers for it. We are unable to care for the sick and we blame the hospitals as they are closing. And we are letting the hungry go without food.

Is this America? Is this the America that became the greatest nation in the world, in the history of humanity?

No, this is Reagan's America. An America that is a regional power at best that can't win a war with the world's most expensive military, is held in disdain by its closest allies, is watching its housing market crumble, its citizens sink into unpayable debt, its children without a decent education, its population without any hope of surviving a major illness, and the wealthiest 2% earning more than anyone could ever have imagined refusing to help fund the civilization from which they have so greatly profited.

I hear so-call "conservatives" talk about restoring America. To what? I thought this is what "conservatives" wanted. A small, ineffective government with a bloated military, and dwindling social services. A nation that can't even feed its hungriest children.

This is what you wanted, and this is what we've got.

So, all you working people who vote Republican: keep it up, soon you'll be hungry, too. Soon, you won't even be able to afford teabags!

World AIDS Day

The battle continues.