New Rule: Do the Wrong Thing | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

My Rendition of Kipling's Sestina of the Tramp Royal

RUDYARD KIPLING

1865 - 1936

 

Sestina of the Tramp-Royal

1896

 

Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all-

The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.

Speakin' in general, I 'ave found them good

For such as cannot use one bed too long,

But must get 'ence, the same as I 'ave done,

An' go observin' matters till they die.

 

What do it matter where or 'ow we die,

So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all-

The different ways that different things are done,

An' men an' women lovin' in this world;

Takin' our chances as they come along,

An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good!

 

In cash or credit-no, it aren't no good;

You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,

Unless you lived your life but one day long,

Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,

But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,

An' never bothered what you might ha' done.

 

But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done?

I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,

In various situations round the world-

For 'im that doth not work must surely die;

But that's no reason man should labour all

'Is life on one same shift-life's none so long.

 

Therefore, from job to job I've moved along.

Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,

For something in my 'ead upset it all,

Till I 'ad dropped whatever 't was for good,

An' out at sea, be'eld the docklight die,

An' met my mate-the wind that tramps the world

 

It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,

Which you can read and care for just so long,

But presently you feel that you will die

Unless you get the page you're readin' done,

An' turn another-likely not so good;

But what you're after is to turn 'em all.

 

Gawd bless this world! Whatever she 'ath done-

Excep' when awful long-I've found it good.

So write, before I die, " 'E liked it all!"

 

 

 

A sestina (Old Occitan: cledisat [klediˈzat]; also known as sestine, sextine, sextain) is a fixed verse form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, normally followed by a three-line envoi. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas, rotated in a set pattern.

The invention of the form is usually attributed to 12th-century troubadour Arnaut Daniel; after spreading to continental Europe, it first appeared in English in 1579, though sestinas were rarely written in Britain until the end of the 19th century. It remains a popular poetic form, and many continue to be written by contemporary poets.

 

An envoi or envoy is a short stanza at the end of a poem used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.

 

The poem was written in 1896, the year in which the Kipling's, harassed by their quarrel with Beattie Balestier, returned to England. During his last two months in Vermont. as Charles Carrington recounts (p. 239):

One day in July Rudyard sat down and completed, in a few hours, a composition in one of the most rigorous of all verse-forms. He called it “Sestina of the Tramp-Royal.”

 

General Flynn's Proposal to Reform Intelligence Community

General Flynn's Proposal to Reform Intelligence Community

http://www.voltairenet.org/article194312.html

General Flynn is getting ready to rock the world of US intelligence and override all post 9/11 reforms. This would put an end to the obsession with secret prisons and targeted assassinations and mark a return to the true nature of intelligence: making sense of and anticipating developments around the world.

placing all 16 Intelligence agencies under the exclusive authority of a Director of National Intelligence, supposed to supervise information sharing;
 abolishing the line between agents on the ground and analysts in favour of functional centres such as the ones we see in the TV series 24.
As we had highlighted at the time, and as General Flynn has also subsequently emphasized:
 the Director of National Intelligence clearly had the power to centralize intelligence which until then had been dispersed, but he lacked the power to interfere with how the different agencies were operating. So for example, he did not have the power to remove an incompetent officer.
 key point: the current functional centres excel in providing information instantly. They are able to pinpoint an individual anywhere in the world and, if need be, eliminate him. But this is not Intelligence. The correct term is crime. Even if the CIA miraculously topples the regimes that the White House disapproves of and sets up secret prisons, it is not by any measure more knowledgeable on anticipating political developments, and to a lesser extent still, military developments.
 

The next country to leave the EU - and about time for the sake of Greece

Germany demands that Greece abandon democracy

"German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Greece to carry out unpopular reforms if it wants to stay in the Eurozone, ruling out debt relief for Athens. The warning may signal yet another emergency in the continent already beset by multiple crises."

If Greece had left the Euro in 2009, it would have already recovered since its lower valued currency would have reduced imports, spurred Greek industry exports, and made Greeks buy Greek products. Instead, Germany has profited from the lower Euro, increasing German exports and jobs while Greece, Spain, Italy, and France suffered. 

Cute Cartoons

 

Austrians reject far-right candidate in presidential vote, stalling the advance of populist forces in Europe

Austrians reject far-right candidate in presidential vote, stalling the advance of populist forces in Europe

from the NY Times 

 

To say that "Austrians reject" is a gross exageration - nealy half did not. To ignore the trend is silly: Each election, Hofer's party, the FPÖ, grows, the conservatives and the socialists shrink. The Greens are also gaining, but they do not have near the numbers of the FPÖ. The post of President is cerimonial. When the economics fail and the illegal immigrant problem and numbers grow (70% are not refugees), expect the FPÖ to rule. Moreover, the other parties have had to change their positions to be more inline with his, such as building a fence to keep illegal immigrants out. In case you don't know, Austria already has the highest percentage of real refugees from the Cold War and the Clinton Monica Lewinsky Serbian fiasco. Austria has not voted to lose its national identity to Muslim or Arab culture. It is not the USA, a nation of immigrants. Austria did not vote to support the immigrants - rather it is forced upon them by the EU.

 

And lastly, Hofer is not "far-right", "Nazi", or fascist: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 

 

jimmy