the eleven virtues of jade

The wise have likened jade to virtue. For them, its polish and brilliancy represent the whole of purity; its perfect compactness and extreme hardness represent the sureness of intelligence; its angles, which do not cut, although they seem sharp, represent justice; the pure and prolonged sound, which it gives forth when one strikes it, represents music. Its color represents loyalty; its interior flaws, always showing themselves through the transparency, call to mind sincerity; its iridescent brightness represents heaven; its admirable substance, born of mountain and of water, represents the earth. Used alone without ornamentation it represents chastity. The price that the entire world attaches to it represents the truth. To support these comparisons, the Book of Verse says: "When I think of a wise man, his merits appear to be like jade."

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

Spent a little time on Wednesday at the bloggers' preview of the National Geographic Terracotta Warriors exhibit in Washington D.C. More pics and thoughts to come. First: Must. Sleep.



p.s. yeah: I'm not sure that "wise man" counts as number eleven, but Confucius said there were eleven virtues so there have to be eleven virtues, right?

what makes for a best day ever?

Converging on Washington D.C. to have lunch with your big sister and your little brother and fill your lungs with oxygen-rich big gulps of laughter pretty much does the trick.

And okay, to D's point, maybe not the best day ever; but almost definitely the best Wednesday ever. Rounded out nicely by dinner with an old friend and a bliss-filled few hours at the Phillips Collection, on top of the whole National Geographic thing.

Plus the kindly Kimpton upgrade to a freakin' suite at the Hotel Helix (where this shot was taken) didn't hurt.

(Love you guys.)

Goodnight, Mr. Jefferson.

Goodnight, Mr. Jefferson.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from Washington D.C.
and one of the best days ever.

inverted canyon

inverted canyon
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

A topographical map of the Grand Canyon floats
overhead at the National Geographic Museum in
Washington D.C.

Spent a little time here tonight previewing the
Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit at a blogger event --
pics and opinions to follow soon.

Posting by cameraphone from Washington D.C.

appropriately inconvenient

Germany observes
no official holiday
on November 9th

the day when
20 years ago
crowds breached
the Berlin Wall

November 9th is
the date
on which Kaiser
Wilhelm abdicated
(1918)

on which Hitler
attempted
to overthrow
the Republic
(1923)

when Nazi gangs
attacked Jews and
their property
(1938)

foreshadowing
the genocide
to come

Found in the 16 November issue of the New Yorker
George Packer writing in Talk of the Town

what is it good for

Illus: Joe Kubert Star Spangled War Stories #137 "War That Time Forgot" Page 4 Original Art (DC, 1968)

Last Sunday our Unitarian minister wrapped up a Veteran's Day service about homelessness among our Vets by admonishing the congregation to create a world in which we never go to war again.

With some discomfort I realized I don't believe such a thing is possible.

I once I did.

In part, I've been spoiled by stories. Good stories, true stories, real stories all have conflict at their heart. The best stories portray the transformation that occurs when that conflict is conquered and resolved.

Conflict originates in the struggle for power, something that, frankly, all of us should grasp for. Owning our own strength, claiming our will to power, is what makes us human and gives us the courage to find the capacity to fulfill the dreams that drive us forward.

But of course, conflict occurs when the will to power of an individual or an entity treads on the autonomy of others.

Conflict cannot be entirely prevented in world that honors democracy and freedom, because preventing conflict means squelching free will and freedom of expression.

War, of course, is conflict out of control; conflict that requires severe remediation; and is often driven by individuals who have exerted their will to power at the expense of others' right to live. War should be the last measure, always, but can we really imagine a world in which it falls out of our lexicon? Falls off our list of options?

What matters more, I realized with a start, having been raised to believe that a conflict-free world of peace is possible, having felt always that soldiers are doing something inherently distasteful, something ultimately shameful; what matters in a way that is more real to me now than dreams of an abiding peace ever were, is to ensure that when the fight comes -- because I'm sure now that it will come -- what matters is that it's a fair fight. [1]

A curious side effect of this realization is that my conflicted feelings toward soldiers -- the career guys who serve honorably and take their duties seriously, several of whom I'm proud to call my friends -- has been transformed into one of greater respect and deeper gratitude.

This idea that war will always be with us is old news to a lot of folks; it's a curious revelation to me because it contradicts my usual posture, and maybe it will shift again as I grow older and greyer and long for pastoral landscapes and quiet places full of courtesy.

As I write this, such a place seems hard to come by.


Speaking of fair fights: The original comic art of Joe Kubert, who inked Tor, Tarzan, and Seven Soldiers of Victory for DC Comics is on auction through Friday »

Also related: How a soldier is working for peace by fighting poverty (see The End (Jake's Story) at the top of the pile) »


[1] Granted: Given the current constructs of war -- in which the poor and disenfranchised are the most likely to die and the multi-national corporations are the most likely to profit -- there is much work to be done to ensure the fight is fair.

I am trying to break your heart

Seized in 1614, Tisquantum somehow escaped slavery in Spain and made his way to London and then Newfoundland, where he boarded an English ship headed toward his homeland. During his five year absence, the New England coast had been hit by a devastating plague, probably introduced by European fishermen or sailors. Thomas Dermer, captain of the ship that carried Tisquantum south in 1619, described villages ‘not long since populous now utterly void,’ or inhabited only by dying natives covered in ‘sores’ and ‘spots.’

Reaching Tisquantum’s home, formerly a large and thriving settlement called Patuxet, Dermer found its inhabitants ‘all dead.’

It was to this ravaged shoreline that the Mayflower passengers came late the following year.

From Plymouth, the very last chapter of Tony Horwitz’s A Voyage Long and Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and other Adventurers in Early America, in which he ranges far and wide across the Americas recounting the 600 years worth of European exploration and settlement before the pilgrims landed, somewhat haphazardly, on Plymouth Rock.

on the road to Michigan

Cattail
Originally uploaded by Eric M Martin

pointed North I come upon
the road stained red
from edge to edge

and then
the deer undone

like a cattail on an autumn day
when it bursts its casing

and casts to the wind

freedom trash

Bra-burning never happened. It was completely made up by the media. A couple of women protesting a Miss America pageant threw some bras into a garbage can, and somehow that became this longstanding idea of feminists as bra-burners.

Jessica Valenti of Feministing.com in the Sunday New York Times Magazine.

NPR did a piece on the bra-burning myth a couple years back in which Carol Hanisch, one of the protest organizers, attested:

We had intended to burn it, but the police department, since we were on the boardwalk, wouldn't let us do the burning.

The perpetuation of the myth may have been born as the result "a New York Post story on the protest [that] included a reference to bra burning as a way to link the movement to war protesters burning draft cards."

Also tossed in the Freedom Trash Can that day: mops, girdles, pots and pans, and Playboy magazines -- items the protesters called "instruments of female torture".

roadside wisconsin

... joy to
the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner
backyards, moviehouses' rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or
with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings
& especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys
too ...

From Allen Ginsberg's Howl

serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude

I’ve been Ajax. I’ve spoken to Ajax.

Sgt. First Class Tony Gonzalez, an Iraq combat veteran from Brooklyn, speaking during a panel discussion on readings from Sophocles' plays Ajax and Philoctetes, and quoted in this morning's New York Times.

The tragic readings were staged in Manhattan by Theater of War, an independent production company that recently received $3.7 million from the Pentagon to visit 50 military sites "through at least next summer" with the production.

Aristotle is not mentioned in the piece, nor is his theory of how Tragedy, properly executed, effects catharsis, "through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions".

But our soldiers were mentioned -- one out of eight who have returned from Iraq suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- as was their sore need for some kind of salve.

homeless complements

Illus: 1870 Can Opener from Patent Pending Blog

The homeless have a tough time opening cans unless they have openers.

Archaeologist Larry Zimmerman, who conducted an archaeological survey of the homeless with student and colleague Jessica Welch, commenting in November/December 2009 issue of Archaeology on how "donations can simply go to waste if complementary items are not also offered."

Zimmerman and Welch found many cans around homeless sites unopened for want of a can opener and many hotel guest-size shampoo bottles unopened for want of running water. Survey findings indicate that "shoes, food, blankets and clothing can be put to better and more creative use and reuse if they are given with common-sense items such as shoelaces, scissors, rope, glue, and razors."

buddy's mini mart, somewhere in michigan

buddy's mini mart, somewhere in michigan
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone
from the road home.

sale/lease/build to suit

sale/lease/build to suit
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from Ann Arbor, MI,
where there are a lot of these.

not recommended

not recommended
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

But the Department of Transportation
has gotta do what they've gotta do.

Once again, posting by cameraphone
from Omaha, Nebraska.

Tom's Terrific Antiques

Tom's Terrific Antiques
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

"How long have you been here?" I asked Tom of Tom's
Terrific Antiques after I rang ('only when the sign is lit;
ring to enter' read the handwritten sign on the door) and
received entrance to his shop on Leavenworth across
from Bronco's Burgers.

"Too long," he said, laughing. And then: "Fifty years. But this is it."

"You're not buying any more?"

"No. I'm dying."

Posting by cameraphone from Omaha.

serv 'urself & save

serv 'urself & save
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Bronco's of Omaha, NE
Est. 1959

Did I deliver or did I deliver?

earlier.

earlier.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from Omaha.

dealer's choice

Harry Truman's "motto, 'The buck stops here,' refers to the dealer's button or placeholder, because during the 19th century hunting knives with buckhorn handles often served that function.

From Bluffing at the Highest Levels in this morning's Wall Street Journal.

Photo by b1-66er and used without permission only because 1) I'm posting from this hospital room and 2) it was the only poker-like imagery I happened to have on my phone (so lucky for me it was an excellent image) and 3) I haven't had a chance to ask him yet.

(hey b1 -- mind if I use your photo?)

Posting by cameraphone from Omaha.

morning breaks at the Magnolia

morning breaks at the Magnolia
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo

Posting by cameraphone from the
Magnolia Hotel, Omaha, Nebraska