Down and out semi poet who is down and out in the Low Country of South Carolina after living in Atlanta which is not to be confused with the south, the old south or the new south. Atlanta was a global metropolis with all the pluses and minuses that comes with that. The low country, low because it is low, 8 feet above sea level, is not Podunk but once you get to Podunk, turn left. I try to chronicle a small part of all that through my daily haiku for you.
lift toward greatness the visionary, without narrow jealousy
He had in him all the lift toward greatness of the visionary, without any of the visionary’s fanaticism or egotism, without any of the visionary’s narrow jealousy of the practical man and inability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of an ideal.
No more practical man ever lived than this homely backwoods idealist
but he had nothing in common with those practical men
whose consciences are warped until they fail to distinguish between good and evil,
fail to understand that strength, ability, shrewdness,
whether in the world of business or of politics,
only serve to make their possessor a more noxious, a more evil member of the community,
if they are not guided and controlled by a fine and high moral sense.
President Theodore Roosevelt on President Abraham Lincoln from remarks made at the cornerstone laying of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial, February 12, 1909.
Teddy could pick a photographer out of a crowd at 500 yards …
quizzical sense earth far more fascinating place than allowed it to be
In my reading I often come across a short collection of words by an author and I say to myself. that might work as a haiku if I could connect it with something.
In my adventures, I often come across a scene and take a photo and I say to myself that might work with a haiku if I connect it with something.
We had taken a walk today along what is called Fish Haul beach on the north end of of Hilton Head Island.
This is the location of the one of the first successes the Union Army and Navy had back in 1861 in the Civil War.
You can look out over the waters where Port Royal Sound and the Atlantic Ocean come together and I said to my wife that take away the few cottages you could see, and this is what it looked like back then except there were 40 warships under sail, moving a circle as they fired some 4000 shells at Confederate forts on the Phillips Island to the north and Hilton Head island to the south.
The shelling lasted about 4 hours and all the Confederates ran away.
“And nothing has changed,” I said again.
It was an extremely low tide and we were able to walk further back along the salt marshes behind the beach front.
We came to a pond that we have looked at for years but never from this side before.
There were dead trees and reeds and marsh grass and sea shells.
It was place and a view new to us.
And I thought …
In a few hours, the tide will come and rearrange all this.
Nothing in front of us will stay the same.
This view, what we are seeing, will never been seen in this way again.
And I thought of this passage from True North by Jim Harrison.
“ … [the] quizzical sense that the earth was a far more fascinating place than I had allowed it to be.
I was not inclined at the moment to blame anyone else for the number of ways I had been single minded in the wrong direction.”
I told my wife I wanted to stay at the point until the tide turned and wait as long as possible amd leave just before the tide cut us off.
I wanted to see it.
My wife stared at my and shook her head and walked back the path out of the marsh.
I have this quizzical sense that the earth is a far more fascinating place than I had allow it to be.
I am not inclined at the moment to blame anyone else for the number of ways I had been single minded in the wrong direction.
Mr. Hubert was commenting how today’s software is so full of ‘bloat’ due to the quick and easy way to make webpages and computer software by focusing on making the software work and not caring how it managed to work, whether it called in software outside your program or not.
Mr. Hubert wrote that this outside software and this desire to make things work and not care how if worked used an unbelievable amount of code as well as created an unbelievable amount of security risks.
Mr. Hubert quoted a paper from 1995 (!) where a Mr. Niklaus Wirth said, “To some, complexity equals power. Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling — the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.”
I started making webpages back in 1995.
I can still type out code as fast as I can think it when I have to, but that isn’t so much in demand anymore due to web page building programs and tools that any one can use.
I decided to test the hypothesis that these tools use too much unnecessary code and I made two simple web pages.
Off the top of my head I wrote the code for a page that said, “HELLO WORLD” and uploaded it to a server.
Then, using WordPress, I made a page that said, “HELLO WORLD.”
I used 6 lines of code.
WordPress used 537 lines of code.
OVERBROAD strokes paint this picture I know.
Still …
I read the phrase out load again.
To some, complexity equals power. Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling — the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
Admiring this grand sweep and combination of words, I thought of today’s political news cycle.
Keep that in mind and read this again.
To some, complexity equals power.
Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling —
The incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
“There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.“
Mr. Twain’s story was published in Harper’s Magazine back in December 1899.
Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling —
The incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration.
Am I missing something from the news cycle today?
I don’t think so.
It is just as Frank Lloyd Wright might have said with a smile and a wave of the backhand.
God, it is something face the sun know you are free hear the undersong
IT is something to face the sun and know you are free. To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean: It is something. To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands, Clean for the day book today and the record of the after days, Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last, and ready, So to have clean hands: God, it is something, One day of life so And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying. Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth. O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum. And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men, proud of their hands—clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the fight, the pay and the memories — O the men proud of their hands.
Clean Hands by Carl Sandburg as printed in Smoke and steel, (New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920)
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth
On June 17, 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Monroe, “I sincerely wish you may find it convenient to come here. The pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect but the utility greater. It will make you adore your own country, it’s soil, it’s climate, it’s equality, liberty, laws, people and manners. My god! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy.”
Two years before the Constitution, they were both future Presidents but that was a job that didn’t even exist yet.
As I drive to work and face the sun with clean hands I feel the sun on my face but cannot help but hear the sob and its undersong.
I read the news and I think, My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of.
No Haiku For You 