When you get tired of reading
all the beautiful words
by lousy human beings, and come to

the end of your patience with the voluminous
indeed inexhaustible
mediocrities of goodness,

what to do? I suggest –
I don’t know.
Let him think.

And if there are no words

to this place give him back
the illiterate sleep: no need
the Haldol needle night-night;

let him go quietly; not
in horror
not in glory.

     Franz Wright, Entry and Prayer

Although Gore and his wife voiced regrets that they could not accompany their son on his journey, they tried their best to equip Kal-Al for life on his new planet, providing the infant with a Keynote slide-show presentation of all human knowledge, a self-growing crystal fortress from which to monitor glacier shrinkage, and a copy of Al Gore’s 1992 bestseller, Earth In The Balance.

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From Boing Boing.

The only reason I regretted not going to Bonaroo this year.

Want your mind blown? Check out their cover of “This Land is Your Land,” courtesy of WFMU.

French photographer and street artist JR has just completed his latest epic project, “Los Surcos de la Ciudad” (“The Grooves of the City”) in Spain. Seeking to tell the tale of the ancient Spanish Mediterranean port city of Cartagena in the region of Murcia through the faces of its oldest residents, the 25-year-old artist spent three days photographing the city’s elders and then transferring the giant-sized portraits onto the city’s walls both new and old and in various states of decomposition. (via Ektopia)

(via J-Walk Blog)

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[Link, via J-Walk Blog]

Young Tom Riddle will be played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, nephew of Ralph Fiennes, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. [Link]

In early June 2008, the British Museum and the British Army (Multinational Division), with the full support of the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq, undertook a unique joint project to assess damage at a number of archaeological sites in southern Iraq. (via MetaFilter)

In The Buried Book, his recent account of the rediscovery of The Epic of Gilgamesh, David Damrosch observes that the poem portrays Gilgamesh as one of the great kings of Sumer by emphasizing his accomplishments as “custodian of ancient cities and monuments that have to be maintained and repaired.” Indeed, in the prologue of the epic, the poet describes the story he is about to tell as an artifact of the past, to be discovered—as in fact it was by archaeologists in the nineteenth century—and carefully preserved:

[See] the tablet-box of cedar
[release] its clasp of bronze.

[Lift] the lid of its secret
[pick] up the tablet of lapis lazuli and read out
the travails of Gilgamesh, all that he went through…

The example of Gilgamesh was forgotten in 2003, and we may never know how many other such “secrets” have been lost as a result.

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Stories from the past week that stood out.

July 17

• Viagra is for a medical condition, birth control is a “lifestyle choice.”

July 21

• “Obama couldn’t go to Iraq if it wasn’t for McCain.”
• “If they want to rent a bus, show them where they can rent a bus.”
• “The difference between Obama and Osama is just a little B.S.”
• Dobson reconsiders support for McCain.
• “It’s like being in AA (minor league baseball) and all of a sudden you’re playing in Yankee Stadium.”
• Rice says that she has decided which candidate she will vote for in November; she isn’t saying who it will be.
• Obama leads McCain by 3 points in New Hampshire.
• George and Laura Bush to divorce after election because of Condi Rice.
• “Until the rest of the Department of Defense sees the Internet as a battlefield that it should dominate, we will continue to give our enemies all the information and tools they need and give them an advantage that can defeat our best weapons and tactics.”

July 22

• Bill gives Bush Admininistration retroactive immunity for possible war crimes. (Of course there’s still the The International Criminal Court to worry about.)
• Indicted for war crimes, Sudan cites US as example why it needn’t comply.
• Maliki not only endorsed Obama’s plans for withdrawing from Iraq, but his office then explicitly approved the endorsement before it was printed.
• “We should tell Maliki, loudly and in public, that he owes his job to us, and that further prosecution of our military operations in his country will be conducted with regard only to US interests, as determined in consensus by our established domestic political processes. And if he doesn’t like that, he can go to hell.”
• Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked Congress for a declaration of war against Al Queda.
• Obama leads McCain by 2 points in Michigan.
• 14% of LGBT Adults Favor McCain While 60% Favor Obama.
• So there’s an interest to determine whether we could define CO2 from automobiles as somehow different than CO2 from power plants.
• Robertson advocates Israel strike Iran before the 2008 election.
• “Mitt Romney is Nixon on Prozac. Giuliani is Nixon on crystal meth.”
• “Find more, use less.”

July 23

• Cindy McCain robot gets new head.
• Well, I called the Obama campaign several weeks ago and said that I’d like to go and my invitation has apparently been lost in the mail.
• “What I’m afraid of is that if Sen. McCain picks one more relatively boring, normal, mainstream Republican white guy… he just makes the ticket seem boring compared to the level of energy and drive and excitement that Obama has.”
• Blackwater affiliate Greystone Ltd, registered offshore in Barbados, is an old-fashioned mercenary operation offering “personnel from the best militaries throughout the world” for hire by governments and private organisations. It also boasts of a “multi-national peacekeeping programme,” with forces “specialising in crowd control and less than lethal techniques and military personnel for the less stable areas of operation.”
• The political controversy that has swirled around Pastor Hagee reminds me of one of the unique lessons in the Bible about leadership. In Greek mythology, the leaders were flawless and virtual demi-gods. It was impossible for mere mortals to try to emulate them. The heroes of the Bible, however, are humans, great humans, but with human failings.

July 24

• Obama was at the Tiergarten in Berlin, amid a sea of people. McCain was at “Schmidt’s Sausage Haus und Restaurant” in German Village, an enclave of Columbus, Ohio.
• Obama Leads Big Among Hispanics.
• John McCain picking up ground on Obama in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
• Air Force missile launch crew fell asleep.
• In Roman times the employees of Fannie Mae would be decimated, i.e., they would draw lots and 90 percent of them would beat the unlucky 10 percent to death with clubs.
• “Would you please tell me, Miss Donnelly, why I should give one twit about this woman’s sexual orientation, when it didn’t interfere one bit with her service?”

July 25

• “Obviously one is interested in a candidate looking towards the future rather than the past.”
• The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).
• White House gave FOX commentators talking points.
• “For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice.”
• ACLU releases three new documents on the government’s torture program. “If a defendant acts with good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent. A defendant acts in good faith when he has an honest belief that his actions will not result in severe pain or suffering…Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is reasonable basis for it.”
• “He got up there in front of 200,000 people and he glommed on to one of the most ridiculous and one of the hateful stereotypes about America, which is that we torture. The fact that he did that on foreign soil I think is absolutely atrocious.”

July 26

• “But if history is any indicator, military courage, persistence and a capacity to kill the enemy in large numbers usually work to the benefit of such nations.”
• ‘Mean Jean’ Schmidt is a lying bitch!
• The way a lot of people were interpreting the Obama-Clinton primary results led to the conclusion that neither candidate could beat John McCain because both were showing “weakness” among some key groups, even though both were polling ahead of McCain in general election trial heats at the time. But the “weakness” of both candidates simply reflected the fact that they were evenly matched with about half of Democrats preferring each of their choices – it didn’t say anything about either candidate’s actual strength in November.
• Obama’s vice presidential search team has floated the name of a former member of President Bush’s first-term cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama’s running mate.
• McCain defies aging, even though he is legally too old for most important jobs.
• And now, he made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops.
• Obama far more popular with American Jews than Lieberman.
• The Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States.
• Rove’s map has Obama reaching 270 without any of the toss-up states. (More interesting albeit dated, discussion of Electoral College breakdowns here.)
• Second arrest attempt on Karl Rove in Iowa leads to 4 arrests.

July 27

• “How can American’s seriously consider this fraud and his pack of goons as people competent to lead America at time of war? Please give me someone who actually knows what the US military is and is capable of doing. Not some illetist that wouldn’t know and Army uniform from a Chicagop hotel doormans uniform.”
• The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.
• “A poignant aspect of this president’s two terms is his unrequited love for blacks and other minorities.”

This slam of a supposed Guinness ad on YouTube – it proved to be a fake – reminded me of this authentic Guinness ad.

Above, our front yard; below, the driveway.

• Ryan Halverson was being booked for public intoxication in Freeport, Texas when he leaned forward and licked Sgt. Jay Newton on the face. Halverson evidently found Sgt. Newton to be tasty, because he tried to lick him a second time before the sergeant stepped out of the way. [Link]
• Body Of Christ snatched from church, held hostage by University of Central Florida student. [Link]
• 5,000 gallons of healthy, all natural molasses spilled on highway in Sugar Land, Texas. [Link]
• From Utah: After gesturing to the 22-year-old Vitaly Kovtun to roll down his window, passenger Stephen Cox asked, “Excuse me, sir, do you have any Grey Poupon?” Kovtun responded, police charge, by pulling a handgun from his glove compartment, cocking the weapon, and leveling it at the prankster’s auto. “Here’s your Grey Poupon, roll your fucking windows up,” Kovtun said, according to a probable cause affidavit. [Link]
• “According to a Lebanon, IN Police Department news release, Katherine Gunther, 36, was performing a Wiccan “ceremony of thanks” in Oak Hill Cemetery around 12:15 a.m. Saturday when she ran the blade through her left foot. She said in an interview Monday that she’d had a run of good luck recently and wanted to give thanks with the rite.”
• Police have arrested 18-year-old James L. Harris for stealing at least three county buses and driving them on their routes. According to Miami-Dade police, Harris would take the buses from several Miami-Dade Transit bus depots in the county and drive the buses on their routes, picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. He would then return the buses at the end of the day. [Link]
• The son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is suing Duke University, claiming he was wrongfully kicked off the golf team. The lawsuit claims the coach has interferred with Giuliani’s efforts toward becoming a professional golfer. [Link]

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Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
like a police-whistle
Where it says table read horse
Where it says horse read my migrant’s bundle
Apples are to remain apples
Each time a hat appears
think of Isaac Newton
reading the Old Testament
Remove all periods
They are scars made by words
I couldn’t bring myself to say
Put a finger over each sunrise
it will blind you otherwise
That damn ant is still stirring
Will there be time left to list
all errors to replace
all hands guns owls plates
all cigars ponds woods and reach
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake
the word I allowed to be written
when I should have shouted
her name
      Charles Simic, “Errata“