When my more-than-a-wee-bit-of-Irish mother had had about enough of my sass or smart mouth, she would give fair warning that her next reaction would probably invoke violence upside my head by saying, "You're gettin' my Irish up!"
Yesterday, my Irish was up, witness the series of comments accompanying this post, and this later post. Yes, indeed, if two of those clean-cut, suit and tie, Seventh Day proselytizers had knocked on my door yesterday it would not have been pretty.
With the new year here and since I've managed to get more than six months of this blogging business under my belt (I really don't want to call this a (Bill Maher) New Rule) let me just itemize a few things:
1) George In Denver loves comments on his posts. He doesn't get many, but those that he does get are appreciated. But, if one comments on his posts, there's nothing in the blogger's rule book that says he can't get his Irish up and respond to the comment passionately, obscenely (his career cop more-than-a-wee-bit-of-Irish father taught him lots of colorful phrases), agressively and, hopefully, articulately;
2) George In Denver is not fond of those who comment on his posts annonymously. George in Denver finds anonymous comments, for lack of a better word, cowardly. George In Denver believes that if one is interested enough to comment on a post, then one should be brave enough to expose their cyber selves, certainly providing their blog's name, if they've got one, or an email address, or even just a moniker that might give George In Denver some sense of who they are -- like, for example, Messianically Inclined in Tulsa; or Drunk in Davenport; or Just Plain Stupid in Idaho;
3) The thing that really, really disturbs George In Denver about a couple comments he's received is that they are essentially pedantic, teachy, from someone who apparently perceives themself to be the cyber hall monitor. Please! George In Denver doesn't quite go so far as the Rude Pudit in noting: " Mostly, the Rude Pundit doesn't give a shit what you have to say, but if you have to say something, you can send it here." But, George In Denver doesn't do pedantic. It just pisses him off. It just gets his Irish up because George In Denver is a big boy who has been around the block a few times; got his degree; served honorably in the US Army; had a twenty-three year career in public service, the last six of which were spent as a Division Head and Mayoral appointee. No, George In Denver just doesn't need to be lectured to.
Finally, to begin the new year, I want to provide a gift of sorts to everyone. It's Jorge Luis Borges, Another Poem of Gifts (translated by Alan Dugan). Now, another point, 4) George In Denver prefers poetry to bible verse. So, if you've got some poem that explains why the South Asia devastation is, in God's eyes, a good thing, I'd love to read it.
For those not into poetry, please read Borges just once, if not now, then maybe later. Just once...
I want to give thanks to the divine
Labyrinth of causes and effects
For the diversity of beings
That form this singular universe,
For Reason, that will never give up its dream
Of a map of the labyrinth,
For Helen's face and the perseverence of Ulysses,
For love, which lets us see others
As God sees them,
For the solid diamond and the flowing water,
For Algebra, a palace of exact crystals,
For the mystic coins of Angelus Silesius,
For Schopenhauer,
Who perhaps deciphered the universe,
For the blazing of fire,
That no man can look at without an ancient wonder,
For mahogany, cedar, and sandalwood,
For bread and salt,
For the mystery of the rose
That spends all its color and can not see it,
For certain eves and days of 1955,
For the hard riders who, on the plains,
Drive on the catttle and the dawn,
For mornings in Motevideo,
For the art of friendship,
For Socrates' last day,
For the words spoken one twilight
For that dream of Islam that embraced
A thousand nights and a night,
For that other dream of Hell,
Of the tower of cleansing fire
And of the celestial spheres,
For Swedenborg,
Who talked with the angles in London streets
For the secret and immemorial rivers
That converge in me,
For the language that, centuries ago, I spoke in
Northumberland,
For the sword and harp of the Saxons,
For the sea, which is a shining desert
And a secret code for things we do not know
And an epitaph for the Norsemen,
For the word music of England,
For the word music of Germany,
For gold, that shines in verses,
For epic winter,
For the title of a book I have not read: Gesta Dei
per Francos,
For Verlaine, innocent as the birds,
For crystal prisms and bronze weights,
For the tiger's stripes,
For the high towers of San Francisco and Manhattan
Island,
For mornings in Texas,
For that Sevillian who composed the Moral Epistle
And whose name, as he would have wished, we do not
know,
For Seneca and Lucan, both of Cordova,
Who, before there was Spanish, had written
All Spanish literature,
For gallant, noble, geometric chess,
For Zeno's tortoise and Royce's map,
For the medicinal smell of eucalyptus trees,
For speech, which can be taken for wisdom,
For forgetfulness, which annuls or modifies the past,
For habits,
Which repeat us and confirm us in our image like a
mirror,
For morning, that gives us the illusion of a new
beginning,
For night, its darkness and its astronomy,
For the bravery and happiness of others,
For my country, sensed in jasmine flowers
For Whitman and Francis of Assisi, who already wrote
this poem,
For the fact that the poem is inexhaustible
And becomes one with the sum of all created things
And will never reach its last verse
And varies according to its writers
For Frances Haslam, who begged her children's pardon
For dying so slowly,
For the minutes that precede sleep,
For sleep and death,
Those two hidden treasures,
For the intimate gifts I do not mention,
For music, that mysterious form of time.
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