(no subject)

As if to prove that the US does not have the monopoly on hateful, stupid, know-nothing bigots (not that there was any doubt about that...)

BNP would offer non-white Britons £50,000 to leave UK, says Nick Griffin

[far right British National] Party leader says resettlement grants would be partially funded by scrapping 'ridiculous' climate change adaptation policies

(full article from the Guardian)

Notice this offer isn't about illegal immigrants, or even recent immigrants. This is about persuading (and I can imagine what other means of "persuasion" would be used if the BNP were the ruling party) British citizens who happen to be of a race Mr Griffin decides is not "indigenous" to leave their country.

Of course, no one could call Mr Griffin a racist. Goodness no. Despite the fact he's been convicted of distributing racist material and inciting to racial hatred, that his principal criticism of the skinhead racist National Front is that it's too disorganised, and that he thinks black and brown people can't really be British, he tried earlier in his political career to form alliances with Muammar Qadaffi and Ayatollah Khomeini, and he praised Louis Farrakhan at the time. He praises lots of people, in fact; at one point he praised the Nazi Party's Waffen SS. That and his criticism of the RAF for bombing Nazi Germany are a little odd given his recent proclivity for using the wartime RAF as a campaign backdrop (an idea that backfired spectacularly).

30 Poems: Number 2

For today, I just chose something that came to me when I thought "poem"? It's by William Butler Yeats

When You are Old

When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I love Yeats' imagery (I can think of another poem of his I will have to use soon too). I'm not quite sure what to make of the reference to love having fled, though. Did the "one man" leave "you"--was love not strong enough? Or did he leave her by dying (hence the hiding among a crown of stars)? I like to think the latter--it's the romantic in me (as Captain Renault would say. :-)

Either way, as a romantic, I appreciate the idea of someone being loved by many for her beauty and grace, but being loved most and specially by the person who saw past what other people did.

(no subject)

I take a mild and curiously expansive pleasure in being able to arrive home at 8pm, make a simple but agreeable dinner (poached salmon and steamed fresh carrots and broccoli, with McVitie's digestives and tea for afters), and relax on the couch with a DVD, a couple of cats, and the cool, dark night, with a comfortable bed and a trashy novel (a birthday gift from a kind friend) before sleep in prospect.

I also appreciate that, while my commute can sometimes be tiresomely long, I pass back and forth every day, at different locations, over the Potomac River Gorge, the home to hundreds of wild creatures and thousands of different plant species. The day is rare that I don't see a great blue heron, or several, as I drive to or from work.

I know I worry and fret and chafe at all the things in my life that aren't the way I would like them to be. So it bears remarking that there are an awful lot of things that are simply wonderful about it. :-)