done.

(sleep!)

"Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted-and few have been able to resist the temptation for long-to clothe their own particular aspirations and actions in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also.

"The lighthearted equation between a particular nationalism and the counsels of Providence is morally indefensible, for it is that very sin of pride against which the Greek tragedians and the Biblical prophets have warned rulers and ruled. That equation is also politically pernicious, for it is liable to engender the distortion in judgment which, in the blindness of crusading frenzy, destroys nations and civilizations-in the name of moral principle, ideal, or God himself.

"On the other hand, it is exactly the concept of interest defined in terms of power that saves us from both that moral excess and that political folly. For if we look at all nations, our own included, as political entities pursuing their respective interests defined in terms of power, we are able to do justice to all of them. And we are able to do justice to all of them in a dual sense: We are able to judge other nations as we judge our own and, having judged them in this fashion, we are then capable of pursuing policies that respect the interests of other nations, while protecting and promoting those of our own. Moderation in policy cannot fail to reflect the moderation of moral judgment."

--Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations

or in the name of democratic capitalism.

have just rediscovered grits. amazing. am currently bobbing head like an idiot and tapping my foot. and mouthing the lyrics at blazing speed. in the middle of the coffee house. boo yah! also found street-brit hip hop group The Streets. good stuff.

six pages of my last fifteen pager done. i'm going to bed. tomorrow is writing day. and after that comes a lot of finals. i am very tired.

i want to eat real bananas. do you?
i want to fly to tanzania. do you?
i want to swim in might rivers. do you?
i want to sit on a warm rock. do you?
i want to talk about hippos. do you?
i want to jump off waterfalls. do you?
i want to sip chai with maziwa. do you?
i want to eat at the HastyTasty. do you?
i want to make music with Mike. you too?

let's go!

sigh...why did we let it go by so fast?

---

p.s. but...!
i'm sitting in Houghton's brand-new and very charming coffee house, listening to my friends Jon and Jon and Alan and Blaine and Mike and Aileen play improv jass Christmas tunes. that's incredibly cool :) now all i need is some caramel apple cider...who wants to buy me a caramel apple cider?

Went and saw the Nutcracker last night, performed by a rather impressive Russian ballet troupe. Very cool. The world is full of beauty. Sometimes that beauty takes the form of fairy tales, and the beauty is the excitement of mystery and possibility that fills every day.

In another note, a friend of a friend double majored in ballet and AIDS relief and education at a major ivy league school. good grief.

I am listening to Five For Fighting's "America Town" album. In spite of all the scorn certain women have heaped upon the band in general and "Superman" in particular, I'm increasingly impressed and thinking, hmmm...

I think I'd like to buy this CD. Perhaps its the stress...


--Recipe for Futility:
One 15 page case-study on Imperial Japan through the eyes of Robert Jervis' Security Dilemma.

One 5 page paper on political theory in Herman Melville's Billy Budd, for the charming and harsh Herr Doktor Meilaender.

One 8 page paper on East African Folklore, for my favorite professor. Except it's several months overdue.

One 8 page paper. For my senior seminar. hmmmmmmm...

And four finals. Four blue-book finals.

An ominously sore throat and swollen lymph nodes and achy head.

Blurred vision.

I am going to die...

but not yet. not today. today, Hans Morgenthau and John Mearsheimer are on my side. and if not, Thomas Merton will always be my friend.

"Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste
with a distempered appetite. To be generous,
guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those
things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets..."

-Lady Olivia, Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare may have been a dirty man, but he was brilliant too, and he knew human nature. Nothing makes you a prisoner like self-centered pride or arrogance, and nothing makes you free like laughter.

with a satisfied smile, i clicked the little spell-check button at the top of the night's effort. i wrote nine pages of reflection on Tanzania and me and philosophy about life and culture and it was a pleasure to write and hopefully just as pleasant to read. oh, i am immensely satisfied. it's good to write something and feel like a competent writer again.

i was skipping along quite nicely, telling the dictionary to ignore words like "Arensen" and "homestay" and "Wasafwa" and "intercultural studies" when suddenly my spell checker popped up the word "Kenote" which is really strange because Anne Kenote had absolutely nothing to do with my Tanzania experience; she hadn't even learned to say "Hujambo" and kupiga "Hodi! Hodi!" yet. How did she get into my paper? and then I remembered seeing her near my computer with that mischevious little smile on and I thought, wait a minute...

and here's what I read smack in the middle of a paragraph about Dr. Arensen's old friend the Commissionary (and his wife) in the Sudan and his avid love for checkers:

"Right in the middle of important, pressing business or entertaining visitors they would stop for an hour of games and tea and cheerful, inane banter. Then they would up and get back to business, filling both with ample gusto. And I think that Anne Kenote is the coolest, whatever I was writing about, I now count as rubbish because the thought of the illustrious Anne takes over all previous thoughts a man can entertain. So that’s all. Grade me as you will but I refuse to recant. I will die with these last words on my lips..."

And I'm very glad that I spell-checked this document before printing it up and handing it in. And Anne Kenote is a hilarious and creative individual (by the way, in case you run into Anne, make sure you say it like "Comma", not "Can" or "Fanny." She hates that.

Josh Miller got up and read this poem at tonight's poetry reading in the beautiful atmosphere of our new coffee house. It's beautiful. It's a fight every day to try and reach out past the common alienation and loneliness and make the connection and find some sense of shared humanity, and some days the fight goes better than others.

Tigger's Lament

No one understands me, I tell you

I'd quit bouncing if I had the choice;

but I'm imbalanced, hyperactive

why don't you try being

the sole representative of your species, and see

how you turn out?

Instead of sympathy

I get Owl's platitudes, Rabbit's constant nagging

Pooh's too stupid, and Piglet's too worried

to really listen; Gopher's too busy,

Eeyore's depressing, and I'm tired

of invading Roo's family life.



Sometimes I wish

Christopher Robin would take me out

of the Hundred-Acre Wood

and put me back where I belong

where the gods weren't so cruel to leave me

isolated--a place with she-Tiggers to marry

that feels like home.



But that's just story-book thinking.

So I'll keep bouncing through fields and trees,

trample Rabbit's garden, singing my songs

of feigned happiness hoping that someday

the lie becomes truth.

by Josh Miller

a little moment of Shakespearean greatness from the weekend.



'the making of the madman' and a look I like to call 'blue steel,' for the latest 'derelicte' show.

Here's an interesting thought from my old friend Tracy's blog:

"Saturday, December 04, 2004
We went to see The Gondoliers yesterday because our friend Dan Walter was performing in it. Janelle makes these signs that spell out "SEXY DAN" so we could hold it up during curtain call. However, I lost the "N" that I was supposed to be holding during the second act. Next thing you know, we were jumping up and cheering and holding up a huge sign spanning an entire row that spelled out 'SEXY DA!!!' "

hmm...as some of you know, I'm performing in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night tonight...just a thought.

:)

John Leo, in "The Loudmouth Emmys" (US News and World Report, December 6th, 2004 edition), a hilarious and yet very, very sad synopsis of the worst in American political rhetoric.

"Natalie Mains, apparently surprised that many Dixie Chicks fans hated her famous anti-Bush comments of 2003, said, 'I realize I'm just supposed to sing and look cute so our fans won't have anything to upset them while they're cheating on their wives or driving around in their pickup trucks shooting small animals.' Then she complained that the political climate is 'so the opposite of me as a person and what I believe in.' It's just about opposite my personhood too, Natalie."

there's nothing like grace to make a bad day rock. now...back into the foggy mystery.

Dustin
Lindsay
Chris Jones
Cheryl
Rachel :)
me

for the rest

much thanks to jonathon gitelson

now...who do you think of?

'Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last day' ... that is how long the Aiel say they'll fight.
-- Ingtar, The Great Hunt, by Robert Jordan

and that's how long, it seems, i'll be writing this paper.

jonathan gitelson is impressively artistic...

"I have already explained the nature of civil liberty: and, with respect to equality, the word must not be understood to mean that power and riches should be equally divided between all; but that power should never be so strong as to be capable of acts of violence, or excercised but in virtue of the exercisor's station, and undert he direction of the laws; and that, in regard to riches, no citizen should be so sufficiently opulent to be able to purchase another, and none so poor as to be forced to sell himself. (Footnote: 'If you wish to give consistency to the State, bring these two extremes as near as possible towwards each other, and allow of neither excessive wealth nor beggary. These two states, naturally inseparable, are dangerous alike to the common welfare; the one gives birth to the favourers of tyranny, the other to tyrants, and they traffic between them with the public liberty; the one buys it, and the other sells it.') This supposes on the side of the great, moderation in wealth and position, and on the side of the lower classes, moderation in avarice and greed.

"This equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera which never can be reduced to practice. But, if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not try at least to regulate it? It is precisely because of the force of circumstances tends always to destroy equality that the force of legislation must always tend to maintain it."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

thoughts:
rebuttal of Adam Smith's invisible hand?
based on the idea that a society in which one person is not free is a society in which no one is free?

it reminds me of the principle put forth in feminist theology, whereby a people deny and lose their humanity when they deny the humanity of another. in objectifying and demeaning women, we objectify and demean ourselves, losing our place in the created order...

i want to be a connoisseur of life

so, downright one of the best movies ever: "As Good As It Gets."

best thing about it? the sheer unpredictability--it feels like real life and yet it's still beautiful.

best quotes: while, the dog has the best ones, and they're all untranslatable. How about Melvin Udall, "I'm drowning here, and you're describing the water!"

best simple symbolism ever in a movie. and best demonstration of trust and betrayal, confidence and forgiveness.

okay...time to study for East Asian History and Politics' one question blue book exam tomorrow. hoorah!

friends, i have bad news.

i was perusing TIME, which someone had kindly left in the basement restroom of the library, when his smiling face leapt out at me from the obituaries page.

Howard Keel, star of the most amazing musical movie ever to have graced the silver screen, died of colon cancer. The dapper, courageous, visionary Adam Pottamie of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is no longer with us. But his inspiration and model will live on for all buckskin-clad bearded men with hearts of gold fearlessly trying to find their way (and a wife) in this all too harsh world.

we pause for a moment of silence.

in honor of Eli Knapp and Timothy Inge, it's time to try a haiku. this one is called "Honda" and it's about a little feisty unpretentious prancing beauty of a bike with a big 600cc heart.


wind whips sharp--playful
empty road beckons and yawns
alone, alive--free


and a little free verse

my own red rocket
would go with me.
spread out our wings and
blur this scenery away.
too much anxious power
wrapt up purring in
too little a frame
calls to the itch
aching in my bones
to give speech in speed--
with deep cry to deep--
and run and run
in wind and road and sun
as sunset calls to sky
burning in the day's end.


well. a bike would be really nice right now.