Visiopoetics

“Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought.”

“A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.” - John Rawls, A Theory of Justice

“we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

- Martin Luther King Jr., excerpt from “I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington,” August 28, 1963, Washington, D.C., very worthwhile full text here.

Updated for late summer. Please enjoy my refreshed exhibit at the marvelous Millmont Grille, locally owned and operated behind the Barracks Road Shopping Centre.

The Christian Science Monitor kindly features a poem, “Where did I put the night?”

In the event the night is recovered, there will be a very high reward for information leading to its return.

“a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, philosophers and divines” - Emerson, “Self-Reliance.”

Also, this is probably not a monarch.

This song is about my great great (if not good) Uncle Dan. The Italian crowd is laughing at the beginning because the Boss mispronounces city (”chee-TAH”) as summon (”CHEE-tah”) when he tries to say it’s good to be in their very beautiful city. Like “Hey guys, it’s good to be in your very beautiful lawsuit” — but not that smooth.

Also: reports indicate Tucker “died with a toothache in his heel.” Rattlesnake? Dermoid cyst? Damn genes.

(Artwork is oils on 16″ x 20″.)

You caption it if you prefer. But that is all I want to say.

This week, in “Wait, when did I miss this?” — Monkeybicycle ran a lovely May batch of one-sentence stories including one of mine.

I think I was taking a very long, deep post-finals nap. And then it was June.

On Slate this week, Christopher Beam asked: “What if political scientists wrote the news?”

The tagline (lowconcept) says it’s a spoof, but I find it quite chilling. Mostly because I read the piece without laughing once — I kept thinking these are great empirical points and basic questions the media should be routinely making/asking. I know the best comedy is true, but… Isn’t the punchline here really the unasked question of why the hell mainstream media doesn’t ask this stuff? That was the premise to be mocked by highlighting what the actual foci are instead of this. It’s the aberrant distance between logical and actual, far larger than the necessary distance between our minds and hearts, that’s so terrible and thus potentially hilarious.

Or maybe I’m a political scientist. Technically, that is what they pay me for. (Suckers.)

In completely related news, my herb garden is flowering. The entire bed, all at once. Party in the lavender.

The latest Guardian poetry workshop graciously repeats the illustrious venue’s previous error of giving me external validation and fabulous constructive criticism. Thank you, Guardian.

It IS always the adverbs that get me. Bounding all over myself perpetually and valiantly and descriptively and all.

(Artwork is oils on 16″ x 20″ - but this was a group of smaller and not Siberian irises that bloomed a week later, when I wasn’t in the middle of the end of the semester.)