the United Kingdom does not support freedom of speech? I was confused about the recent sentencing for a Twitter crime until I understood that there are numerous exceptions* to what those in Britain can say freely in a public forum. Hmm.
* I learned this through conversation a few days ago; so, apologies for the lazy Wikipedia research. But you have the internet at your fingertips as well!
The protagonist, standing at the edge of Pont de l’Archeveche, preparing to leap into the Seine below, looks ahead: “Barges, I understand you. You spend your rectilinear lives in these narrow canals. You wait in front of locks. You cross cities and towns, towed by tugboats proudly proclaiming, as they pass under city bridges, that they have whistles like real ships. All told, you’re just like me. You will never make it to the sea.” Then, later, “even suicide now seemed useless. He knew himself to be interchangeable within the crowd and utterly incapable of dying completely.”
The only novella of Jean de la Ville de Mirmont, published in 1914, the author died the same year, just shy of 28 years old, as one of the early French casualties of the Great War. I just came across this author recently – via a short story in which a flock of petrels chases the sun as it sets – and, while his work is somewhat difficult to obtain, his prose style is effective… so, I thought I’d share.
While I’m not in New York at the moment, I have been following the recent coverage. Like most observers, I’ve noticed that the only constant amongst the participants has been the lack of visible leadership and undeclared purpose of the protests. Yet the reasons for their demonstration are clear: they represent a fringe embodiment of their generation’s discontent, a generation that feels both disenfranchised (jobless, excluded from the realm of big business) and yoked to the errors of those in power (highly indebted to the previous generation, yet perceiving little investment in their future, in terms of infrastructure, green energy, education, etc.).
As uncertain of the specific political agenda of the protesters as everyone else, I’ve generalized to suggest chants to better unite them (at least, more productive than signs bearing “We are the 99%” and “If the world were to end tomorrow, I’d still plant a tree today”). For example:
In a corner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Veronese c. 1570, “Alessandro Vittoria”
Douthat on Sex, or, How to Tell a Tale of American Monogamy
Ross Douthat’s op-ed columns for The New York Times usually trickle with a charade of self-deprecation – a charade because it’s clear he thinks he’s winking down from atop the highest chair in the room – while readers mistake the whiny drone for a squeak of his sneaker against the polished mahogany: an affront from which it is best to turn away. To be fair, as a young social conservative writing for a prestigious left-leaning periodical, he has his work cut out for him. And, with only the brilliant David Brooks even approaching Douthat’s end of the political spectrum at the Times, one can expect his ideas to be frowned upon by many of his readers.
…So, holding my breath after a short prayer for assistance – one that increased the urgency of my plight, since upon closing my eyes I saw that the sexual act I had imagined moments before was still calling out for attention – I tried to read beyond the drivel that dripped down the page before me.
And, as expected, it was difficult to get past the fact that he’s simply unable to build a strong case for values that he holds but that are not objective standards against which individual choices can be measured, or that can be recommended to and imposed upon society at large.
Monogamous relationships possess (and possess is perhaps the precise word for its use in this article, since as a socio-conservative “value” monogamy assumes the mutually-agreed possession of bodies; despite my tease above, social conservatives seem unconcerned with issues created by unrealized notions of promiscuous desire, or any desire, and instead carry repression behind tightly-puckered faces like so many badges of honor) enormous benefits, not least of which is the Continue reading →
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