The true patriot
May 25, 2008 by Bill
On this weekend of memory…let us remember that…
“There are certain words…our own and others we’re used to…words we’ve used…heard…had to recite…forgotten….Rubbed shiny in the pocket…left home for keepsakes…inherited…stuck away in a back drawer…in the locked trunk…at the back of the quiet mind…”
Liberty…equality…freedom…to none will we sell…refuse…or deny right or justice. We hold these truths to be self-evident. I am merely saying…what if these words pass?…what if they pass…and are gone…and are no more?…It took a long time to buy these words…it took a long time to buy them… and much blood…and much pain…”
Stephen Vincent Benet
On this weekend of memory, please do forget cold beer and picnics for a few minutes and remember these words. Memorize them. Read them to your children..neighbors and friends. And then…read them…again…over…and over again.
There is not a privilege nor an opportunity that modern society offers that has not been paid for by another person’s blood or another person’s labors. We live by liberties that other’s won and died for. We are protected by a Constitution and Bill of Rights that others wrote and created. We live daily…in every area of our lives…on the interest of the principle that has been paid.
LIBERTY…FREEDOM…what if these words pass and are no more?
Christian history…101
May 18, 2008 by Bill
When Alfred North Whitehead was the Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University he made this observation: “Christian theology has been the greatest disaster in the history of the human race.” Was he correct?
A brief review:
391 A.D. Christians burn down one of the world’s greatest libraries in Alexandria that housed over 700,000 scrolls.
1099: Christian crusaders take Jerusalem and massacre Jews and Muslims. In the streets were piles of heads, hands and feet. Millions were killed as a result of the Crusades.
1208: Pope Innocent orders a Crusade against the French Cathars. Over 100,000 were killed by Arnaud’s men at Beziers.
1231: Pope Gregory 1X establishes the Inquisition. Inquisitors were given license to explore every means of horror and cruelty. Victims were rubbed with lard or grease and slowly roasted alive. Ovens built to kill people, made famous by Nazi Germany, were first used in the Christian Inquisition of Eastern Europe. The gruesome tortures used on hundreds of thousands of non-Christians were so repugnant and horrible that I cannot even describe them to you.
1377: The Pope’s army descended on the Italian town of Cessna. For three days and nights beginning on February 3, the slaughter continued. The squares were filled with blood. Women were raped, ransom was placed on children, and priceless works of art destroyed. Over 3000 were butchered.
1497: The Church began an enormous burning in Florence. The works of Latin and Italian poets, illuminated manuscripts, women’s ornaments, musical instruments, and paintings were all burned.
1500s: The witch hunts are going full speed ahead. Members of the clergy proudly report how many they have killed. The Lutheran prelate Benedict Carpzov bragged that he had killed over 20,000 of the horrible “devil worshippers.” Historians estimate that more than nine million (NINE MILLION) persons were executed after 1484, mostly women. This was as brutal as anything that happened in the Nazi’s 20th century holocaust.
1572: On St. Bartholomew’s Day, over 10,000 Protestants are slaughtered in France. “We rejoice that you have relieved the world of these wretched heretics.” wrote Pope Gregory X111.
Writers on writing
May 11, 2008 by Bill
I recently read a wonderful interview with Sam Shepard in the New York Times. It brought back memories. His mother was often in the front row of my Sunday Symposiums. You remember of course that Shepard played Chuck Yeager in the movie “The Right Stuff”. What you probably do not know is that Sam Shepard is considered today to be the most important American playwright since Edward Albee.
The interview revealed that he writes in an old, run down, cabin in the woods a short distance from his home. He has almost a contempt for ‘word processors’. He said when he writes he wants “real pages” from his old typewriter that he can hold, and feel, and get to know. His current play “The Late Henry Moss” just opened in San Francisco. It is said to have the greatest assembly of actors ever gathered together on one stage, from Sean Penn to Nick Nolte.
I wondered how many other major writers have no use for ”word processors”. I have over a dozen books about major writers and how they work. I looked through them all to find out how many others felt that way about “real pages”. I discovered that the overwhelming majority have no use for ‘word processors’. A great many prefer writing by hand on a legal pad. John Updike writes in longhand as do Saul Bellow and Pablo Neruda. William Styron said: “I am most comfortable with a no. 2 pencil and yellow sheets, that produce “real pages”. Joyce Carol Oates, a professor at Princeton and winner of the National Book Award, said: “I write in longhand. I gave up word processors forever. They are not for me. They diluted my creativity. It was just shimmering words on a glass screen”.
I have been asked many times over the last 20 years about how I write my essays. I start by sorting out the cascade of subjects that are flowing toward me every hour of every day. Once I respond to a subject I begin my process of “brooding” over it. Webster defines “brooding” as “to sit quietly and thoughtfully, to meditate.” I read everything I can that is related to my subject, usually on my patio where I am most deeply myself. I feel myself living in every tree and flower, the clouds, birds and animals that come and go. After I have outlined the essay in my head I move to my old Canon typewriter to write my roughs on “real pages” that I can hold, and feel. After dozens of changes by pen and pencil I am ready to type it into the computer, via email, and send it to the newspapers the way they want them.
It has been said that “the writer is the intelligence of his/her soul.”. Perhaps that is the ultimate definition. A library inscription in Trajan’s forum in Rome reads: “Dispensary to the Soul.” Barbara Tuchman wrote: “Without books (real pages) history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.”
Sam Shepard said he must hold and feel “real pages” in order to write well…so that it becomes an extension of his soul. I understand that. A great many writers, with Nobel and Pulitizer awards, share in that view.
