Ukraine Crisis | 15 years old hero of Novorossiya | English Subtitles

What Europeans only partially understand, and Americans not at all, is that the Primary Loyalty of all Russian-speaking People is to Russian Culture, and, through it, to the Values of Western (even Christian) Humanism, of which they see themselves as the Preservers and Protectors...

This is the world-view/philosophy which Putin has indirectly espoused, by contrast, in his denunciation of the "neo-Carthaginian" culture of unbridled capitalism, greed and cruelty of our own Evil Empire; which, when a few months ago I heard it, I was stricken to the heart--as might any Carthaginian have been, had, but for a moment the brazen, loud distracting trumps and timbrels fallen silent, permitting the shrieks of immolated infants to keen through the awful solemn silence of ritual murder.   Ah, the Voice of Truth!

I first became aware that there was a Russian culture, and such a thing as loyalty to it, more than a dozen years ago, on a bus trip from Perugia to Ravenna (per vedere i mosaïci), when, by chance, my seat-mate, a Russian youth from Vilnius, explained it to me--Alexei's English was very good, better than the Italian of either of us at that point.  I was shocked at first, thinking of the past horrors of Stalinism, when he told me that he was a Russian-speaking Lithuanian, but considered himself primarily Russian by culture.   "Goodness," I almost therewith exclaimed, "by what right do you live in Lithuania?"  But I bit my tongue, and said mildly, "Of course, in some things--music, ballet, literature, architecture (I wanted to see if he knew who Rastrelli was)--Russia is supreme, or at least equal with the very greatest."  But that was not all--He wanted me to understand that there is a larger, nay universal, aspect of Russian culture, which by its nature transcends national boundaries. And I, reflecting on the incredible diversity of cultures within Russia, said I supposed there must be.  And then, struck by a sudden fleeting memory of Raïsa Gorbachev meeting, and, quite unintentionally, totally outclassing, then First Lady Nancy Reagan, said, "A transcendent quality, indeed.  When I think of Raïsa Gorbachev--such a lovely, intelligent lady...And I looked at Alexei, whose eyes were suddenly shining, and he burst out: "A great lady.  A genius!"

It's hard to say which is more Despicable, the vicious, genocidal Cruelty of the U.S., Israel, and their NATO allies--or their utter inability to grasp the meaning of the contrary Virtues of Generosity and Disinterested Friendship.

1. This was most noticeably evidenced in the NATO powers' Utter Indifference to the atrocious Georgian bombardment of the sleeping citizens of Tskhinvali on the night of August 7-8, 2008, and in their Pious Horror (such as only lizards, I think, really know how to display) at the Detriment to Georgian Territorial Integrity represented by Russia's and Nicaragua's subsequent (after a crushing retaliatory strike against Georgia) recognition of the Independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  Lizards, such as Bush, Obama and Hillary, have a strangely--and, I venture, contemptibly--inverted concept of Humanitarian values, when it comes to murdering innocent people in their beds, and granting them independence from their murderers.  

As we see today, in the besieging (slaughter of the civilian population) of the cities of eastern Ukraine  --something which NATO powers whole-heartedly approve of, encourage and want to see more of, and which they are piously hysterical at seeing Putin moderate and ameliorate the starvation and murder of, with his two, magnificently timed, humanitarian aid convoys:  Nothing--but nothing--tizzifies a lizard like a threat to some Nazi's Territorial Integrity; and nothing, but nothing, matters less than the murder of innocents.  You'll notice, by the way, that the number of civilians murdered-by-besiegement in eastern Ukraine is estimated by corrupt, corporate Western News agencies like CNN and ABC, to be "about" 2,000; the Ukraineans themselves, and pristine Russian news sources put the figure at more than 10,000.  It's not that they (CNN or ABC) care, Heaven knows, but they just don't want you to care either.

Did I forget to say something about the murders of Palestinian children in Gaza by the fascist Israelis?  Noam Chomsky, I think, has been saying it for me.

          

What was I thinking? I realized only this morning that there is a likely very specific reason for all this rabid, NATOid blather about Ukraine's "Territorial Integrity":

The Huge Russian Aid Convoy, last week--to eastern Ukraine that Kiev for many reasons (some strategic, some genocidal) did not want to let through, and which NATO powers were caught between, the rock of acknowledging the transparent flimsiness of Kiev's claims to sovereignty of eastern Ukraine (and indeed of Ukraine itself), and the hard place of openly denying desperately needed aid to a civilian population being ruthlessly oppressed, dispossessed, shelled, bombed and murdered by militia loyal (if that's the right word, and not just "answerable") to the jumped-up, neo-Nazis entrenched in Kiev--which, over screams of "Violation of Territorial Integrity!" and "Wait! we're not done dithering yet!" Putin simply, unhesitatingly punched his monstrous aid convoy right through Ukrainean Territory, in a brilliant fait accompli, to those desperately needy, Russian-speaking civilians in eastern Ukraine, saying loudly, for all to hear, "Only illegitimate fascist swine, and their creatures and cohorts, would try to prevent innocent, suffering civilians from receiving Humanitarian Aid!"  Peter the fucking Great could not have pulled off so dazzling a coup.  If this doesn't put Putin's approval rating with the Russian people over 90%--Well, wait until the foodstuffs start pouring into Moscow and St. Petersburgh from Central Asia, China and South America from Putin's restructuring of Russian food purchases.  Russians are going to enjoy not being poor any more.   

Anyway, that's why Merkel is doing this Mutt 'n Jeff crosstalk routine with Poroshenko about Ukraine's precious "Territorial Integrity."  Understandable of course, yes--but still: what lying, cowardly, time-serving, blackguardly, hypocritical cynical bastards they are, and no mistake.

Comes now Chancelière Merkel, whose Opinion on the Subject, so far as I know, had not been asked, affirming that "Ukrainean territorial integrity is crucial,"

and calling for a bi-lateral ceasefire and a contrôle effectif of the border between Ukraine and Russia, "since the 'state' is fighting against a separatist insurrection's pro-Russian army in the east."

Poroshenko, gratified but still hungry, then said, "It's time that Peace come to the Donnbass.  The Ukrainean powers will do everything with our European partners to make sure that happens.  But not at the expense of sovereignty, or of the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine."

In other words, the slaughter, by the jumped-up neo-Nazi régime in Kiev, backed by NATO, of pro-Russian and Russian-speaking civilians, will continue full bore.

What is this  reeking bullshit about "Territorial Integrity"?  Since when did Ukraine--maybe the most chewed-over, split up and reassembled territory (this side of Poland) in the world--acquire Integrity?

And why is Frau Merkel so complacent and complicitous in this genocidal farce?  What does the CIA/NSA have on the mealy-mouthed little whore?

Bush Creeps Out German Chancellor, Controversial Footage

And now, God damn to bloody fucking Hell your fucking unsubstantiated and unexamined Notions of what is normal for all People (and all Species) at all Times, while you consider this curious little Anecdote from Pliny [the Elder's] Natural History (XXXIV.61-62):

"Lysippus as we have said was a most prolific artist and made more statues than any other sculptor, among them the Man using a Body-scraper which Marcus Agrippa gave to be set up in front of his Warm Baths and of which the emperor Tiberius [as exclusively gay a man as ever there was] was remarkably fond.  Tiberius, although at the beginning of his principate he kept some control of himself, in this case could not resist the [overwhelming homosexual] temptation, and had the statue removed to his bedchamber [where he could masturbate over it when he fell asleep at night, and when he got up in the morning], putting another one in its place at the baths; but the public [who were all men] were so obstinately opposed to this that they raised an outcry at the theatre, shouting 'Give us back the Apoxyomenos!'--and the Emperor, although he had fallen quite in love with the statue [which was, in accordance with the practice of the time, painted and covered with flesh-colored wax, in order to make it look as life-like as possible, and which had not yet had its verisimilar and proportionate penis lopped off], had to restore it [to its rightful place in front of the warm baths of Agrippa]."

Now, Sir or Madam, Con or Asshole, as the case may be, would you care to try to refute the proposition that [male] homosexuality is, and always has been, the normal, default mode of sexuality for the vast majority of normal men--as it is (and, we may assume, ever was) for males of certain other Species, cetaceans (dolphins of all kinds, particularly) and giraffes to name but two for sure, but possibly including cheetahs, elephants and lions. You might start with a snarky, captious Open Question about those theatre-going, sexy male statue-admiring Frequenters of the Warm Baths of Agrippa...Some of whom might just, you think perhaps, have been Women?  N'est-ce pas? Hell, yes--if Vanessa Redgrave and Helen Mirren can play Prospero, and Sarah Bernhardt can play Hamlet...and if indeed the Sex must be granted, by courtesy, the right, as equals with men, to act in the plays of Shakespeare (who never saw an actress in his life)...Surely then, just as trannies now claim to've been the original high-kickers in the riots at the Stonewall Inn  in 1969 (when there were as yet no transsexuals), surely we may suppose that short, gruff, hoarse-voiced "gay trans men" (women pretending to be men in order to dupe, or argue, gay men into having sex with them) were among the sculptor Lysippus' earliest, most ardent admirers.  In fact, if I look closely at the Apoxyomenos, at what I had thought, or just assumed to be a rude, late barbarian penectomy, I think I perceive, instead, a crude early phalloplasty.  Bring it on, ladies.

Among the few priceless Treasures in my keeping--always at hand--is a tiny, half pocket-size Latin Dictionary, on every page of which I am always, on re-reading, discovering a glittering jewel of fact or fancy from the last Era of the World in which the Gods were kind to Man....

Yesterday, before stepping into the shower, I read in it, "Acqua Virgo, noted for its coolness and purity."  And I fell into a revery about my first excursion to Rome:  I'd deliberately arrived a couple of weeks early, before my summer-quarter Italian Language classes started in Perugia, 60 miles or so, as the crow flies and the train runs, north of Rome.  After scouting out Perugia and idyllic environs afoot for three or four days, I took the morning train to Rome, arriving at the Termini around Nine O'Clock, and set out a piede for the Vatican, past the Colosseum, Nero's Golden House, the Forum, the Monument to Victor Emmanuel (with stunningly beautiful carabinieri marching around it, and standing, breathtakingly, at attention), across the Tiber (looking sadly diminished, I couldn't help thinking) via the Ponte Sant'Angelo, up Mussolini Boulevard, and across Bernini's still fabulous piazza/colonnade, to the very front door of St. Peter's, feeling not a little like Frodo at the Gates of Mordor.  I went in, unchallenged, and strolled around in the gargantuan, gloomy Pompes funèbres of the interior, and took the guided tour--¿why not?--of the gold and jewels in the basement, then headed out.  Back down Mussolini Street, where I stopped at sidewalk cafe for a gelato and a whizz, and was molested (importuned, I should perhaps more moderately say) by an ancient Gypsy crone with hair as black as shoe polish and lips as red as a fire truck, who wanted money, and whom I stamped my foot at to shoo her away, causing her to curse me, and the nice middle class Romans sitting at near-by tables to purse their lips and shake their heads at me disapprovingly--a lot to absorb:  Italians do not necessarily or absolutely not approve of beggars, even Gypsy crones, begging from you in your sacrosanct space at a cafe table, and do not think it's always okay to be dismissively rude to them.  So noted.

So then, fairly early in the afternoon, back across the Tiber, heading in the general direction of the train station, I noticed in my Tourist Guide Map a large area of green about two thirds of the way back to the Termini, designated Giardini della Villa Borghese, so, as the day was growing quite hot, I directed thither my flagging spirits and dragging steps, hoping maybe to find some shade in which to repose myself--and/but what I found was very earthly Paradise. First, just inside the walls of the garden, within a shady grove of immemorial elms (Ombre mai furono), was a marble fountain with a copious single jet of water, which fell, splashing and tinkling, into a broad, deep basin--beside which I knelt and, into which I plunged my whole fevered head clear to the neck. Oh God was it cold, and pure, and fresh! and I cupped my hands and drank from it, and it was delicious. And that, I now know, was water from one of the branches of the Acqua Virgo, now called Vergine.  But then I knew not its name, and I walked further on till I came to a small lake or large pond, surrounded by raked gravel paths and nodding plain trees, on the far shore of which there was a little temple in the Ionic mode with a legend in Greek on the entablature above the columns which proclaimed "Asklepios Saviour."  And I found a bench in the shade of the trees, beside the path on this side of the pond, on which I stretched myself out and took a nap for twenty or thirty minutes, from which I arose completely refreshed, and not the least embarrassed or ashamed to have done so.

Thence I continued my walk to the train station, passing many splendid mostrae and baroque monuments too numerous to mention, and regrettably I had no time to stop and view them as they deserved.  And but/yet, just a few hundred meters from the Termini there were two little baroque churches side by side, each different, but both of such striking individual beauty that I just had to pause to look at them:  One, whose name I forget (Santa Susanna?), was the American Catholic church in Rome, famous for the number of actors which worship there--and may even be buried there.  It was the other, however, Santa Maria della Vittoria that I was drawn to, and into, mysteriously, as by a homing beacon: and there--with Vespers just started and me nearly causing a scandal with my uncontainable exclamations of astonishment, rapture, and delight--Bernini's Saint Theresa of Ávila in Extasy.  I was barely able to tear myself away in time to catch my first class (for the coffee and all the lovely people in their lovely first class clothes) train back to Perusia Venerabilis.

And now a Surprise, perhaps a Treat, for those who've come to think of me as hidebound and ineducable: A Confession of gobsmacked Bemusement:

I had hoped that the Revolution, as elsewhere explained and, to the best of my ability, fomented, would rise Phoenix-like from the smoking, impure blood of the Pigs (Policemen) of Ferguson, Missouri, once the vengeful citizenry thereof and thereabouts had roused themselves, by contemplation of the atrocious police murder of the unarmed and innocent Michael Brown, to pursue and slay them. What I had not expected was that the inconsequent Negroes to whom we had confided this important and necessary task  would work themselves into a properly tumultuous and clamorous fury--and start merely busting things up and looting.  Sheesh.  Looting.  Of all the dumb-ass, low-minded derailments of serious Revolutionary purpose and resolve!

So I'm thinking of writing a handbook like Lenin's "What Is To Be Done," and making sure it gets distributed before the next mass protest of the Police murder of an unarmed Negro.  I'll begin with a   capsule history of the American and French Revolutions.  Then I'll introduce the characters of Patrick Henry and Charlotte Corday, with an explanation of why both are useful rôle-models, but that of Charlotte Corday is to be preferred (Saved 100,000 lives!).

I'm going to take a nap now.

A Fault of mine perhaps is, as a Westerner of the United States (Pacific Northwesterner, actually), to dismiss out of hand, the Mafia/Corrupt Establishment-ridden Eastern United States--particularly the loathsome, brutal excrescence of what, with a disdainful little smile, I call "Jew York City."

I acknowledge that NYC has wonderful museums and fine cuisine--but Jezus God Almighty is it ugly--and not just physically:  The New York accent in English is a bastard, slovenly, petty shopkeeper's or petty criminal's dialect; and I was shocked to observe that even the French, Spanish and Italian spoken there sound vulgar and uncouth.  So I'm not surprised that what popular support there is in the United States for the rogue, criminal state of Israel comes from the 6,000,000 Jews of NYC.  It didn't faze me either when Chris Cuomo's big brother Andrew, the Governor of New York State, founded an anti-corruption commission--and disbanded it the instant it turned its attention to himself.  And the riots at the Stonewall Inn?--I guess I'm the only one who noticed that they weren't really about gay rights so much as about the unofficial, but long established, collusion between the Mob and the NYPD in oppressing gay men with phony criminal charges and jail sentences--and beating them (up) if they dared protest, or were not alacritous enough in their abject submission; and in fact, often beating them whether or not they protested, and whether or not they submitted meekly, just for the pleasure they took in beating them--something (the malefic, everyday workings  of systematic injustice) which those who live under tyranny apparently grow habituated to and learn to expect, but which I, as a Far Westerner, with no experience of the Mob, or Dirty Cops, or of a totally Corrupt, Compliant and Venal Officialdom and Judiciary, found, at first, unbelievable, and which I still regard with repugnance and incredulous contempt.   Get the Art out, I  say, and nuke 'em!--But of course, I don't mean nuke the kids, or the dogs and cats:  I may be Savonarola, or Charlotte Corday, but I am not Jehovah.  Or Tamurlane.  Or Harry Truman.

So I didn't pay much attention when the unmitigated horror of Rikers Island began spreading in the news like an old-fashioned stink bomb.  So guards beat up inmates--youthful inmates...kids...40% of whom are mental patients...guilty of no crime.  And then, just last night, I read in the August 4th edition of the New York Times:

"In an extraordinary rebuke of the New York City Department of Correction, the federal government said on Monday that the department had systematically violated the civil rights of male teenagers held at Rikers Island by failing to protect them from the rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force by corrections officers...The result was a staggering number of injuries among youthful inmates."

And that ain't the half of it.   

But what I propose is to: Get the goddamned names of those sadistic prison guards (Isn't "corrections officers" just a tad grandiloquent?), and their superiors--telephone numbers, home addresses, and brief descriptions (hopefully with photos) of what they look like, and what they did to whom (so far as can be determined)--and Publish our Little Annotated List on the Internet, so that it may be referred to by Anonymous Friends of Liberty while they hunt down those "corrections officers guilty of using unnecessary and excessive force," and their superiors, one by one, and slay them in condign fashion.

It seems on reflection that the Revolution (Great Slaughtering of Pigs) might as well begin with the "corrections officers," and their superiors, on Rikers Island, as with the SWAT teams of Miami, or the Police Force in Ferguson, Missouri.  But we do need those lists ("Kill Lists" as they are quite probably called by that sallow, jocular Lizard in the White House)--just as we need providential anonymous patriotic Partisans of unsullied Conscience--as Chance and Opportunity permit--to slay the guilty Swine so listed.

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"The two murderous States are the US and Israel. By tolerating their endless Slaughters and endless Lies, the World prepares its own Demise."

The wanton Murder, by the Police in Ferguson, Missouri, of Michael Brown, an unarmed and innocent young Man, seems to have begun the tearing of the social Fabric, of the final Severing of Allegiance to their Government by the American People:

From now on--until Constitutional Government and the Rule of Law, of Habeas Corpus and Due Process, is restored to us--the Government of the United States as presently constituted must be reckoned the Enemy of the People of the United States:  It is now the part of all true American Patriots to flout the laws, ukases and proclamations of the civil and military authority foisted on us by executive appointments and by corrupt and unfair elections, and--as they murder us--to slay, by any means at hand, the agents of militarized law enforcement. Kill the pigs of Ferguson, Missouri! Kill every goddamned one of them!  Then you may turn a destructive ray on the police forces of Anaheim and Los Angeles, California.  And do not stay your red right hand from annihilating the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the NSA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and those who practice, and those who approve the practice of Torture.  There are many such enemies, all deserving violent death, some deserving death under tortures; but do not, though you grow weary, fail to bring, to an untimely and hopefully painful end, the members of the SWAT teams in Miami, Florida who--when raiding and gratuitously (Every night seems to be Krystallnacht for Miami SWAT teams) busting up private homes (for which, ordinarily, they have the wrong address)--punch any small children they find there in the face with their fists, and club them in the back of the head with their rifle butts. Seriously, kill them.

We've a lot of bloody work ahead of us, until the Patriot and Homeland Security Acts, and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, are repealed, secret courts are abolished, standing armies in peacetime are disbanded, and Presidents stop murdering American citizens, and their children, on a whim:  We'll just have to keep reminding ourselves that we are the ones with consciences, and that people (if they really are people, and not flesh-eating lizards from outer space, as I myself half believe) who don't have consciences aren't really all that much alive to begin with; it's unlikely even that they have souls.  Which is kind of funny, considering how many of them are  professed Christians.

Suicide for mercenary and/or volunteer Soldiers (i.e., who are not compelled, by military Conscription or the Laws of their Country to BE Soldiers), as for any who might be described as Killers for Hire or Pleasure--if they have committed Crimes against Innocents, or have been complicit in such Crimes--I whole-heartedly approve of and wish to encourage.

Such suicides serve several worthy purposes:  They confess the guilt, and by their nature the magnitude of the guilt, for which there can be no atonement.  They afford as perfect an act of contrition for crimes against Innocents as may be had in this sub-lunary world.  They proclaim plainly, so that none may fail to understand, the unpardonable criminality of the enterprises and the governments which engaged them, most often in secret for "National Security's" sake, in the perpetration of war-crimes.  Truly, they have nothing better, and in fact nothing else to do than kill themselves.

Actually, in my Experience, the Renisha McBrides of this World--Blind Drunk Women of Color who bang threateningly on your Door at 4:30 in the Morning--

are not uncommon; and, what is more, they are damned nuisances, and there's no point in pretending they're not.  Stressed they they may well be, but their blood alcohol level is too high for them to qualify as "Damsels in Distress."   When they have shown up on my porch, as one did, notably, in the late winter of 1973/74, swinging a heavy ax and accusing me of having stolen from her her white boyfriend (whom at the time I barely knew, but did eventually become friends with), it has been the work of but a few seconds for me to wrest the ax from her grasp, poke her in the stomach with the haft of it, and, when she turned away, to kick her fat ass (with my bare foot--Ewwww!) clean over the side of the porch into the yard; where she lay sobbing for a minute or two, before crawling and limping to the sidewalk at the edge of the yard, and finally, under a hail, from her, of curses, imprecations, and tearful pleas for me to restore the love which I had purloined away, retreating into the darkness whence she came.  I kept the ax, in case she decided to come back.

I hope that Theodore Wafer is reading this blog and taking note:  Shooting a Renisha McBride in the face with a shotgun, while momentarily satisfying, given our natural feelings of revulsion for her personally, and our indignation and annoyance at her clamorous intrusion at so ungodly an hour, is simply overkill.  We need, as white men, to master ourselves, and to use no more force than the occasion requires; no more than to slap her, or poke her in the stomach with an ax-handle, to get her attention, and then--kick her off the porch:  She'll go far, far away, all on her own.  And we won't be serving time for Manslaughter and 2nd Degree Murder.

Suicide for Some

is a reasonable, logical, normal course of action.  If one is in pain, such as that of bone cancer, or attainted of a wasting disease, a lethal dose of morphine or sodium pentathol, self-administered, were an option we would all like to have open to us, and should concern no one but ourselves. Even suicides for no discernible reason whatever, like that recently of Robin Williams the great comedic actor, while they disappoint, we must dismiss ultimately as none of our business.  It is only those suicides which seem like cowardly and unnecessary submission (such as Seneca's), or a paltry and cowardly evasion of justice (Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, etc.)  that we feel, by common impulse, that we may properly judge of adversely.  Seneca--bearing in mind how little flight had availed Cicero to shield him from the malignant, partisan, searching hatred of Mark Antony, and resolving to be a lot quicker than Cicero--should, in my opinion, at his first apprehension of Nero's unappeasable resentment and envy, have used his reputed great wealth to move himself and his household, faster than he could be pursued by agents of the emperor, to Parthia, and thence hired a caravan to bear him safely to India, where, in the tranquil Punjab (even in Kashmir) under the Kushana, he might have flourished, and learned Buddhism, and grown truly wise.

Whereat, suddenly, I am struck with a cynical aperçu, fruit of long observation: For men of median wits and lesser Virtues--but who are thought clever, even wise, by their contemporaries (Nero, of course, for one, but Henry VIII for another, and Louis XIV for yet another--and, among us, such lights as Joseph Campbell, William James, Thomas Dewey, Michel Fouquet, Stephen Jay Gould, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, George Lakoff, William Kristol, Gertude Himmelfarb and Norman Podhoretz) confrontation with wisdom higher than their own ignites a furious, even murderous resentment.  Think of Henry VIII and Thomas More; Louis XIV and Fénelon; George Lakoff and Stephen Pinker; Midge Decter (Mrs. Norman Podhoretz) and Gore Vidal....Hmmm, I see that it doesn't always work, or works backwards.   Still it does sometimes; and I'm wondering who the pseudo-historian Joseph Campbell might ever have met, who, just by the fact of his superior intelligence and deeper understanding of things, must have scorned and shamed Campbell, and made mock of Campbell's ignorant, presumptuous and nasty "Viennese Depth Psychology" approach to the Divine Science of Mythology.  When I first ran across the complacent idiocies of the insufferable, pragmatic, half-vast metaphorist George Lakoff, my second thought (after "how odious and untrue"), imploring Heaven, was, "Surely there is a Champion of Truth out there somewhere who can confute this Monster of Pious Unwisdom--and then, almost immediately, I discovered, as if on cue, the dire, delicious things that Stephen Pinker had said right to Lakoff's face (or anyway by return email). Oooh.  Like a thunderstorm on a hot day in Umbria.  Like a reprieve from the Emperor.

Then, as in the course of too long an afternoon under the Vela of the Flavian Amphitheater,  I was rather less gratified to see what a silly hash Noam Chomsky made of Stephen Pinker--but still pleased to see the blood flow.  So it goes.  Ave Caesar!

Dragging butt so late in the morning, I've made me an absolutely exquisite iced coffee, as delicious as it is galvinising, and nothing fearing,

I have summoned, via Google, from the World Wide Web of Infinite knowledge, Emmanuel Kant's Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Morals, and I'm reading the damned thing with delight and perfect concurrence:  I like it as well, so far (nine paragraphs in), as if I had written it myself; almost as much as a treatise by, say Diderot or Condorcet, so unexceptionably is it polite, lucid and reasonable.  Yes, yes, yes it is just thus that we must distinguish between an empirical/scientific philosophy and a moral philosophy, if we are to avoid making a hash of both, and understanding neither....

So when is the ax going to fall?  At what point, devouring one by one the translucent petals of the "thin knife" fugu sashimi laid out like a chrysanthemum in front of me, will it dawn on me that I've stopped breathing?

Well, it fell, like a shower of plum blossom petals--cogné come un prunier--right at the beginning of the first section, where suddenly the discourse is enriched with  matter pulled straight out of the philosopher's ass: And "the good," which had been problematical enough in its own right, becomes the utter fecal mess of a "good will."  About which, meseemeth (for I have read a few paragraphs ahead, just to make sure), Kant knew less, and had more mistaken notions of, even than Jean Jacques Rousseau or Mary Baker Eddy.  There is no point in continuing.

Except that I know that there are (out there in the world) hysterical, shrill, vastly ignorant and infinitely presumptuous, neo-Marxist, social constructionist, feminist, queer theorists, who are dogging my mildly misogynist, rationalist, gay Zen humanist tracks through the Stygian Postmodern Darkness that has fallen at the End of Times--waiting till I falter or slacken my pace so that they can besmirch me with their feces, and, while they scream, like shrikes and kestrels, that I am violating them by ignoring them, raping them by dismissing them--and beg me only just to listen to them, and not to squirm, while they decapitate and dismember me with their fingernails, and fingernail clippers, and sharp little teeth.

Against that time, when the Daughters of Madness will crawl out of the woods at me, intending to defile me and destroy me, I will learn a few of their shibboleths:  "Patriarchy, Objectify, Male Gaze, Slut Shame, Phallocentric"--maybe even the "V." word (Alhough, as a Catholic lady of my acquaintance, recently deceased, used always to say about the "S." word, "If you say it, you get some on you").  Anyway, when that time comes, it will be helpful, I think (even if it's only just funny), to explain to the shrieking Maenads what Emmanuel Kant meant by "objectify," and why he thought that objectification, homosexuality, masturbation, and even sex itself, were all "wrong."

August 6th having been Hiroshima Day, and the day after tomorrow (the 9th) being Nagasaki Day, I hereby proclaim this (the 7th): The Emperor-Still-Thinking-About-It Day--

Or, as it is apparently going to be remembered for the rest of Eternity: the day before two hurricanes in a row smote the Island of Oahu.   Reasonably and responsibly I should be laying in supplies, preparing for possible electricity and water shortages; so I will, late this morning, after I'll have seen my nice (Virgo, like myself), half Chinese, lady doctor, Laurie Lee, and will have got my monthly prescriptions, go to Walmart on Keeaumoku St., to get my prescriptions filled and to buy a few of those items (like concentrated cranberry juice and perhaps an external hard drive) which lie so conveniently to hand, and en vrac, at Walmart.

The Ethiopians are coming!

In my inbox this morning, a startling, nay alarming, frontpage item in Le Figaro: Une réunion de crise s'est tenue à Nice à la suite d'une note confidentielle de la Police aux frontières alertant sur l'entrée en France, via la frontière italienne, d'un grand nombre d'illégaux érythréens...Tout part d'un état statistique des migrants par voie maritime en Italie: Entre le 1er janvier et le 30 juin 2014, 61,591 migrants irréguliers ont débarqué en Italie...Ils n'étaient que 7913 pour la même période en 2013...Les Érythréns représentent 31% de ces migrants (18.282).  Les Syriens arrivent en second position, avec 10.371 (17%)."

There was no indication in the article of what is causing these slender and comely, though dusky, Eritreans to invade Mme. Bardot's homeland in such overwhelming numbers:  Only a few seem to be claiming refugee status, and many, if not most, seem to be merely passing through France on their way to Germany.  The Animal Rights' Champion, and former Sex Kitten, will also be relieved to know  that Eritreans are Christians like herself, and--while they are endowed by Nature's God with Zobs (Zizis, Bites or Pines) considered by many reliable authorities to be the largest in the world, which complement majestically their heroic though gracile stature--the practice of genital mutilation of any sort is unknown among them.  If they do stay in France, they won't be importuning French doctors to break their Hippocratic oaths by cutting their prepuces off.

I little thought, throughout my middle to late teens--when I was reading (besides a great deal of history, art history and science fiction) Ayers, Carnap, Hume, Wittgenstein and, before and above all, Bertrand Russell--

that I was acquiring a cast of mind, and a predisposition to think of myself and the universe in the light of a rather focused, perhaps even somewhat narrow, rational and scientific empiricism.  I allow that it might seem somewhat narrow, or perhaps, let us say, captiously dismissive of the claims of metaphysics, idealism or existential philosophy--or even, by the squoogy, subjectivist non-standards of neo-Marxist Postmodernist Continental non-philosophy, that it must seem so.  Being steeped, as it were, in Lord Russell's sublimely clear and sensible world-view (particularly in his History of Western Philosophy, which I virtually memorized, and in his wonderfully lucid explications of modern science and especially of Einstein's theory of Relativity) I have never troubled myself to anatomize or systematize my own personal philosophy. Which is not to say that I have not regularly, and as the occasion warranted it, scrupulously and carefully examined my conscience, and paid heed to it as the voice and presence of the Eternal (which is my inmost Self) in all my thoughts and deeds; but that I have always been confident of my thusfar-acquired understanding of the universe, and of its workings, and of my place in it; and confident, moreover, that what I do not know yet (for I am finite and knowledge is infinite), I will always be able to apprehend, hopefully in timely fashion and as the occasion requires.  And of course. it goes without saying, that I consider it my chief duty (and pleasure) in life--so long as I draw mortal breath--to go on learning, and never, ever, to miss a chance to learn something.

And thus, without much thinking about it, I view Objective Truth of the External World--the world/universe outside ourselves--as the province of Reason and Empirical Reality, whose nearest approximation is to be found in faithful representation(s) of it by Science--and madness or insensate vanity were it to seek to attain Objective Truth (the truths of the World/Universe outside ourselves) by any other means.  Of Inner Truth--Subjective Truths, Psychology, the Truths of Music, Harmony, Aesthetics, "Categorical Imperatives," Sexuality, Language Acquisition, Conscience and Reason itself--I will speak more anon; but I note, for now, that those with the least understanding or knowledge of it, and who have therefore least right to speak of it, are, invariably, those who have most to say about it, and who, in speaking of it, sully it unspeakably:  e.g., Emmanuel Kant in his 'Lectures on Ethics.'