rosncrantz13

I'm forced to wonder as I see person after person compare someone whose politics they disagree with to the purveyors of the most tragic and detestable events in human history. In case anyone needs to brush up:

The Holocaust: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=1...

Stalin's forced famine in Ukraine: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=1...

Passing healthcare legislation is in no way akin to the unrepentant and purposeful extermination of millions of innocent human lives. Comparing the president and other political figures to Hitler or Stalin isn't, in any way, intelligent, witty, or funny. In addition, it only cheapens and detracts from whatever point you were attempting to make in the first place (assuming you were actually making one). It is of course fine to disagree with and find fault with the president, and likewise any other politician; however, these comparisons are nonsensical and immature. Please just think about what you're really saying before saying it.

I don't often write poetry but I thoroughly enjoy reading, analyzing, and discussing it. I thought I'd try to start an interesting discussion on a challenging work by an established poet. Here goes:

The Man-Moth by Elizabeth Bishop

Here, above,

cracks in the buldings are filled with battered moonlight.

The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.

It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,

and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.

He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,

feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,

of a temperature impossible to records in thermometers.

But when the Man-Moth

pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,

the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges

from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks

and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.

He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,

proving the sky quite useless for protection.

He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

Up the façades,

his shadow dragging like a photographer's cloth behind him

he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage

to push his small head through that round clean opening

and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.

(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)

But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although

he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

Then he returns

to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,

he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains

fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.

The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way

and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,

without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.

He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

Each night he must

be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.

Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie

his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,

for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,

runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease

he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep

his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

If you catch him,

hold up a flashlight to his eye. It's all dark pupil,

an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens

as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids

one tear, his only possession, like the bee's sting, slips.

Slyly he palms it, and if you're not paying attention

he'll swallow it. However, if you watch, he'll hand it over,

cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

Your thoughts?

There are so many but Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and David Berman would have to be near the top of my list.

When Hillary was still in the race conservative talking heads relentlessly hounded her for playing the "gender card." Sarah Palin, however, has gotten a relative free pass. Anyone catch the daily show last night? How can you defend that?

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?vide...

Let's get some facts straight:

1. Wright's context of saying "God Damn America" was not anti-American and neither was it a curse on our country. He was discussing our nation's overwhelming belief that God must, necessarily, agree with the actions we take. He was saying that it is unlikely that a Christian God would support America's treatment of its own citizens and America's treatment of itself as being superior to God.

2. Saying America is run by rich white men is not racist. Can you please name the last president who was not a rich, white man? How many black senators have there been in the history of our country? 5! This is not racism, it's the truth. Our country is run, predominantly, by white men.

3. The stretch involved to call this man a terrorist is the worst. Wright NEVER said that America deserved 9/11, he was merely suggesting why it could have happened: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon