1 Good Morning Kipling, how cheery, GO PACK GO

2

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

This, a thousand times this.

The poem should be read at every conservative meeting/rally/etc. 

3  ³ What do people gain from all their labors
   at which they toil under the sun?
⁴ Generations come and generations go,
   but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises and the sun sets,
   and hurries back to where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
   and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
   ever returning on its course.
⁷ All streams flow into the sea,
   yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
   there they return again.
⁸ All things are wearisome,
   more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
   nor the ear its fill of hearing.
⁹ What has been will be again,
   what has been done will be done again;
   there is nothing new under the sun.

God's mercy be upon all you morons. And now I'm off to have a profoundly unhealthy breakfast...this seems like a triple-bacon sort of day.

4 It ued to be ok for small banks to merge because the commercial customer "needs" were still there and a new bank would sprout up. All those sprouts are dying now and there are less and less commercial "needs" to fill. Few small businesses are starting or surviving. and few people have any idea about making it on their own. We have become a nation of people standing around waiting for instructions.

5 The only poems I ever liked were Fog and The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.

6 Power Corrupts The false leader, annoints A learned man Bets today's favorite, lays the points

7 I see the government envoy that told pezznizle obie to work on a transition in Eqypt has been ignored Obama will own the clusterfuckage to follow. What a jerkoff

8 Wow and thank you, Fritz. I want to add, morality is not necessary because God says it is so, but because it is the only thing that works.

9

I don't need to read your link to totally agree with your assessment...the people that lead us here are all still there and even if someone waved a magic wand and paid us up to zero, they would eagerly drag us right back down into the pit.

10

My Favorite Modern Day Poem

11 Hmm...what would be the copy book headings of today?

12 12, College text books.

13 A 14 year old girl now lies in her grave, guilty of being insufficiently wary. Her 40 year old cousin rapes her, so she is found guilty of adultery. Her punishment? One hundred lashes, with a cane of such and such dimensions.
 
She cheats the sentence by dying before all 100 blows can land.
 
Such is the morality of Sharia law.
 
Iraq and Afghanistan have Sharia law embedded in their constitutions.

14 Posted by: GnuBreed at February 06, 2011 07:36 AM (bvXGR) Yeah, I read that. It suggests one of today's copy book headings: "Islam is a religion of peace."

15 VDH (as usual) makes a profound point: our best minds are now engaged not in creative or productive work, but in non-productive enterprises like law and government. OT but sort of related: folks who are too young cannot appreciate the deleterious influence of the Clinton presidency, when American culture made a definitive turn toward amorality, specifically the idea that the most important thing in life was not getting caught. The president himself embodied this ethic and the concomitant idea that a person should treat himself to anything he can get away with.

16

How did Kipling mix up the marketplace & socialism?

17 This is why history should be the most important subject in school, and why every politician should have a deep education in it.

Nothing ever changes. Warnings are everywhere in history. Only arrogant proponents of the tyranny of the modern ignore them.

18 But, the rich!

19

Since Glenn Beck wrote it, it must be stupid.

/Media Matters For George Soros fact-checking department

20 Hey, instead of a book thread, can we have a Sunday war poetry thread sometime?

(Not today, it's the Super Bowl)

I couldn't begin to count how many times I've read "Dulce et Decorum Est" out loud to myself. Just incredible.

21 How did Kipling mix up the marketplace & socialism?

------------------

He didn't. Each has its own pitfalls. About the marketplace, the Copybook Gods might say, "Man cannot live by bread alone."

22

I don't know if #20 was obscure.

In the radio spots for "The Overton Window," a sppoky narrator recites the poem. Media Matters and other left-wing outlets had a field day with how stupid, bad, and incomprehensible Beck's poetry was.

23 #17: "The Gods of the Market Place" doesn't refer to a free market -- it refers to popular 'modern' philosophy and political thought (the Greek work agora, 'market place', refers to the place in a city where philosophers of the day met and argued). In other words, Kipling is contrasting trendy contemporary philosophy with the hard lessons that history teaches us. I agree with #18, but I also think all politicians should have to complete a basic level of numeracy regarding not just math but accounting. ..fritz..

24 Obscure?

That poem secured Kipling as my favorite poet. He is a Man.

""If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!


That about sums it up in my mind.

Gives me great respect for the men of his age. No one around like that now. Too squishy.

25 Has Ogabe "played" basketball since taking one in the kisser? 

26 O/T I have to tell someone about this because I just didn't know. I quit a very good job up north to move south and chase a dream of becoming a Teacher. My wife is a heavy duty business chick and she pays the bills so we live well. I jumped through the fuckstory they call the Ed program at an NC state institution. Two and a half years of biting holes through my tounge while I listened arrogant, misguided, libtard fucking Ed PHD's. I had to sit and listen to an associate Dean of the Ed program drone on and on about how George Washinton was the Osama Bin Laden of his time. I never wanted to hurt some one so bad in my life. Now I am doing my internship at a rural NC Middle School. I have never been exposed to such abject poverty and hopelessness in my life. I swear I did not know it could be this way in America. I come home in tears everyday. I watched a twelve year old girl go student to student asking for one tater tot so she could take them home and feed her three year old brother. Shit like this everyday all day and it just doesn't stop. Sometime during the day I try to teach them geometry and why that is important. I get why the honest libtards are fucking crazy. I'm getting crazy too. The difference is that I am educated enough to understand the fix is jobs. The way to get jobs is to make NC and America a destination for business. That's done by making it easy to do business in this country. I get it but so many others don't. On this birthday of one of the greatest men in history, I pledge not to quit. I beg of all of you to work hard to get these Libs out of office, shrink this fucking oppressive damaging government and get these poor fucking people back to work. There are hungry babies that depend on it. God bless all of you fucking rons.

27 Are you cribbing off of Beck now?

He just read this poem within the last week or two.

28 If I were in charge of Americas greatest conservative college, I would make Beck the Dean of the history Dept. Love him or hate him, the man can teach.

29 #28: Nope, not cribbing off Beck. Don't watch his show and wasn't aware that he was quoting from this poem. I posted this poem on my own blog over two years ago, so maybe Beck is cribbing off me. :-) ..fritz..

30 For the illiterate morons, that's can't read this either, here it is being read.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwRyyUgLbQo

@OldSailor, I couldn't agree more.

31 @Fritzworth lol, I stand corrected.  I'm going to have to start reading your blog then.

32 Beck wasn't the first.  He never is.  People have been using "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" in modern political commentary for almost three years now, since the banking collapse started and it became clear that Barry Lackwit was going to win the 2008 election. 

Kipling is often portrayed as an unabashed imperialist,

Kipling is one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted poet/writers of recent literary history.  Those who condemn him as imperialist, colonialist, etc., have obviously never read his work, just stupid ivory-tower commentaries on same.  He championed the working-class and the rank-and-file soldier, had great respect for native peoples, and hammered the ruling class and mindless civilians every chance he got.  Yeah, he was an ardent British nationalist, but how could you grow up in late-Victorian England, with all its enormous technical and social advances, and not be a British nationalist? 

33 This

34 I watched a twelve year old girl go student to student asking for one tater tot so she could take them home and feed her three year old brother.

There is absolutely no reason for children to be going hungry with all of the different food programs in place today. They are actually feeding low income students in the schools here breakfast and lunch.

In addition, all of the poverty programs like food stamps are geared to the purpose of feeding children. If her brothers is going hungry it means that her parent(s) is/are too stupid or lazy to sign up for the programs or they are selling their food stamps on the black market in order to purchase non-food items.

What you should do is notify social services to have a look at the home front. Of course, like most gov agencies, they are only interested in paper and comfortable "office work" so it will not do much good.

You see private charity and local churches who used to do a good job in looking out for this kind of stuff has been replaced by incompetent government.

35 Shorter, modernized Kipling:

'Life's a bitch, and then you die.'

Not as pretty, though, but the same gist.

36 Wow, shows how dumbed down we have become. Some really good thoughts expressed in that poem, but I will literally have to re-read it to get a better handle on it. My brain is weak this early am.

37 I seriously am not awake enough to absorb the poem. I will wait until later to read it.

38 The observant Joseph Rudyard Kipling holds top billing in my mind. He witnessed his world's destruction, having his heart ripped from him, losing the son he had sensed to be his best gift to the world. Yet like Job, the torments of hell refined their essential, humbly persevering faith. That faith in wisdom is a pearl of great price which while acknowledging the faults of pride in power, endeavors for peace within, through personal sensibilities as the universal human responsibility.  Such grains of wisdom confound fools who habitually swallow camels of dogma and fabrications yet choke on a gnat of essential truth.

Today, I'd guess that Ronald Reagan enjoyed Rudyard Kipling's works immensely. Reagan could well have resembled a character from one of Kipling's stories, I'd bet.

39 You can thank Nancy Pelosi and Bill Clinton for giving China permanent most favored trade status. Permanent status should be repealed -- we need to return to a year to year decision. As Arlen Specter warned back in 2000, we've lost the ability to control China.

Posted by: Downsized Upscale at February 06, 2011 08:44 AM (IhHdM)

We can't....they own us.

40 You know vic, I thought the same way. In the urban communities that's usually how it works. The rural communities is a much different animal. DSS is a government entity understaffed by crooked pieces of shit. They take the easy to manage children, those that are not too fucked up, and arrange for their system of friends to foster them so they get a check. The children that are too difficult are left in impoverished homes. We call DSS. There are too many, to spread out, for them to handle. "In addition, all of the poverty programs like food stamps are geared to the purpose of feeding children. If her brothers is going hungry it means that her parent(s) is/are too stupid or lazy to sign up for the programs or they are selling their food stamps on the black market in order to purchase non-food items." Yes, they buy liqour, crack, meth and porn. Yes, fucking porn WTF. You know the hardest part? When my daughter looks at me across the dinner table and says "I don't like that". On the same day that a student comes up to me and says, "Your kids get dinner"?

41

Not as pretty, though, but the same gist. --Posted by: nickless the still-banned

Your gist, stuck on futility, missed the point of insight.

42 Your gist, stuck on futility, missed the point of insight. Shit, I have to go get my third cup of coffee to figure that one out.

43 Only fools or fellow looters in on the take deny that my policies would lead us right back into this mess if all debt was forgiven tommorrow. Also you are all racists.

44 Kipling is often portrayed as an unabashed imperialist,

But of course the Socialists would portray any sense of ENLIGHTENED cultural heritage to be obsolete. Isolate Kipling to his historical era, and strip him of all his experiential array of understandings. Paint him in the corner of the imperialist as if Kipling had no young romantic regard for the natives and nature. Erase all credits due the poet who saw through the rise of elitist Marxism as it emerged to rule Britain.

All the more reason to read Kipling now, to put his critics in their appropriate corner.

45 great post- thanks. 

46 They denied that Wishes were Unicorns Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful Skittles things.

Kipling is pretty hip.

47 TEHERAN, Iran — A state-owned news website on Saturday said Iran's broadcasting authority has banned Iranian TV channels from showing cooking programs that present recipes for foreign cuisine.

48 Shit, I have to go get my third cup of coffee to figure that one out. --Posted by: Oldsailor

"Modernity is marked by abbreviation."

In the winnowing, notice who whittles away what. When the baby is discarded with the water, something's all wrong.

49 Oh come let you adore me.

50 Your gist, stuck on futility, missed the point of insight.

Posted by: Plateau Plato at February 06, 2011 08:50 AM (H+LJc)

No, not really.

Kipling's pointing out that the people who offer you Utopia are selling you a pipe dream. Life is hard, will be hard, and will continue to be unyielding to dreams of Utopia. Discipline, sacrifice, and principle are crucial to facing the realities of human existence, and those who promise a short-cut or a new 'solution' to those fundamental realities are full of crap.

Life's not going to play along with the fad of the moment. Never has.

51 Court bans man with low IQ from having sex
A man with a low IQ has been banned from having sex by a High Court judge who admitted the case raised questions about “civil liberties and personal autonomy”.

52 This also speaks to the left's conceit that not only are they the best and the brightest, able to manage brilliantly all of man's issues, but that they are also the pinnacle of intellectual development.

I have seen no evidence that we are any smarter than those who went before us. I see abundant evidence that we have learned nothing from those who went before us.

53 We are all socialists now. Obama is FDR! Obama is Reagan! Coming this Easter: Obama is Jesus!

54 Porn???? I had heard of liquor and drugs but buying porn with food stamp funds? That is a new one on me.

What needs to happen in instances like this where children are being starved so the parent can get drugs etc is to restore orphanages and place the children in them.

The parents would then be jailed and sterilized so they can no longer produce children as a source of income.

But that would be "cruel" don't you know.

55 Court bans man with low IQ from having sex

Sigh.

56 BOOOORING!

57 Kipling predicted this:

John Hinckley Jr -- Pride of the Progressive American Penal System

58 It is truly a sad thing when centuries of learning and hard fought victories over oppression are given up so easily to leisure and greed.  If we were any bit as strong and independent as the early Americans, we would have forced change in Washington a long time ago, but since we have accepted the bribes time and time again they own us.  Just like China owns us because without them no longer exist as a nation.  You want to regain our Freedom and restore America as a beacon of hope then it is time to get very serious about restoring this country to is Constitutional foundation and putting an end to the tyrannical federal government. 

It won't be easy, but those Gods of the Copy Book knew people were corrupt and lazy and put a system in place to protect us from ourselves.  We broke down the power of the states with direct election of Senators and allowed the fat federal fingers into a bunch of pies they should never have been in.  If you want to put them back in their box then the repeal of Obamacare is just a start and abolishing the Dept of Ed is just the first of many. 

It won't be easy to force people to be responsible for themselves after so many years of government dependency, but we must teach them and ourselves self discipline and delay gratification.  We are indeed in for rough water ahead, but if we listen to the Gods of the Copy Book vice the Gods of the Market Place we may just make it out alive.

59 I gotta add one more poem that I like. High Flight is pretty good.

For all the Reagan fans: PowerLine has a good video of Reagan being interviewed by Mike Wallace on three occasions. It made me want to strangle Wallace, but Reagan was excellent.

60 As they say,33) this, he grew up in India, in the aftermath of the Uprising, he was a chronicler to all the going on, in the NorthWest Frontier, 'Arithmetic on the Frontier'
would be a powerful antiwar poem, in other hands, as he describes the disparity
of the fully trained British soldier, vs. the Ghazi's jezail (the equivalent of a Taliban'
s AK 47") I believe he wrote that in memory of the battle of Maiwand, which is also commemorated by Conan Doyle, in Dr. Watson's injury

61 Well, I don't know nuthin about about readin an such... But I do watch TV! Q: Who's the Worst American Idol Contestant Ever? A: President Barack Obama!

62 Clearly unintentional pile-on libel of Sarah Palin by Reuters:

Last month, she accused critics of "blood libel" in linking her inflammatory rhetoric to a deadly Arizona shooting spree, igniting another in a series of firestorms around her.

The "blood libel" phrase, which refers to a false, centuries-old allegation that Jews were killing children to use their blood in religious rituals, has been employed for centuries to justify the killing or expulsion of Jews.

Has the phrase "blood libel" been used to justify killing or expulsion of Jews? Or, has the libel itself been used? I think the latter. As I said, clearly unintentional.

63 The only thing I ever learned about Kipling in high school was that he wrote the White Man's Burden, representing the racism of the age.

64 When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle, and blow out your brains,
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

65 My favorite Kipling story is still Riki Tiki Tavi.

66 I don't know if I like Kipling, because I've never kippled.

67 Cool poem. Thanks.

68 Good stuff.

69 >>I gotta add one more poem that I like. High Flight is pretty good. One of my favorites, very moving. It's no surprise that Reagan (well Noonan and Reagan) finished his Challenger speech with the most powerful part of that poem when bidding farewell to the astronauts who were killed. And was the real genius of Ronald Reagan. People who debate the individual accomplishments and actions Reagan took during his presidency miss the point. Reagan understood the failings inherent in an all powerful and inevitably tyrannical government and rejected it out of hand. Instead, he put his faith and trust in the individual to make their lives better and to make the country strong. Obama says "Yes We Can". Reagan said "Yes You Can". Reagan understood the character and essence of America in a way Obama and his ilk never will.

70

TEHERAN, Iran — A state-owned news website on Saturday said Iran's broadcasting authority has banned Iranian TV channels from showing cooking programs that present recipes for foreign cuisine.

Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at February 06, 2011 09:04 AM (tvs2p)

Oh, crap! Only local recipes. You mean I have to cook the goat now instead of fucking it?

71 Oldsailor, it is simple, if not satisfactory. If you believe there is abuse or neglect, you report it. Then you follow up on the report. Cronyism is deplorable, but kids need to eat. If they don't get helped, report that to someone else. In parallel, put a local minister on it.

72

60, Sandy Salt, exactly right.  The reason the left can't stand us is, we recognize the fallen nature of man and do not expect man to be perfectable.  The left, on the other hand, has always believed that man can be re-made and made perfect this time, if only they are in charge of his reconstruction:  remember the Soviet New Man.  It is because the left believes in the perfectability of man that they want nothing more than to drive the Gods of the Copybook Headings from our memories.

 

Really liking this poetry thread.  Let's do it again.  I don't "get" modern poetry but Kipling is grand.  I wouldn't mind being exposed to modern poetry that has a point either, in the interests of broadening my literary horizons.

73 Kipling's "Just So Stories" and "Jungle Book" are pretty much mandatory if you have kids. Buy them now if you haven't had the pure pleasure of reading them to your children. If your kids are old enough to read by themselves, they'll definitely enjoy them. Kipling's short stories are all pretty much winners too.

74 Kim remains a fantastic read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Library_100_Best_Novels

75 74, you don't grasp the numbers, I didn't either. I guess you just have to immerse yourself in it. Problem is, once you do, you can't wash it off.

76 Excellent post, fritz.

I didn't know of this poem until now but you're correct about its relevance.

Well done.

77 Actually, I do grasp the numbers. Really. But, the first responsibility YOU have is to report it. That part is YOUR job. A step past your job is follow-up. A step past that is minister. Don't let the massiveness of the problem overwhelm the need of one particular child. My clinical motto was "Save one child at a time.". If a skyscraper was burning, would you hesitate to save one because you could not save them all?

78 One of things I like about my son's first grade teacher, an actual nun teaching class, is that she has the kids using a copybook.  They have to write their assignments (math, religion, and english) in sentences or formal statements - in addition to the all of the colorful stuff in their various "workbooks". They name, date and title each page - and write a list of their homework due at the end of each day in their copy book.  If they get in trouble - they write what happened in the book.

Very effective, but "forgotten" method - it seems handing out workbook pages is a lot easier.  It is very easy to flip back through the book to evaluate progress. If there are any teachers present, please consider it.

Thanks for the poem - I will print it out and send it in to her.( The classroom email/webpage isn't working out as well as the copybook.)

79 I wouldn't mind being exposed to modern poetry that has a point either, in the interests of broadening my literary horizons.

-------------------

If by "modern" you mean 20th century, and you have interest in things military, try this:

http://tinyurl.com/2uw5u9

Click on Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in particular.

80 If you desire Kiplings accurate view of our current state, seek out "A Servant When He Reigneth". That poem, along with "Gods of the Copybook Headings" should be mandatory for all.

81 Whoops - my link in #82 doesn't actually have any poems. Well, they're widely available online.

82 Emily Dickinson at her coldest and clearest:

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

Via Dr. Weevil

83

"Do you like Kipling?"  "None of your business, and you're a very naughty boy for asking!"

The last two stanzas of this poem were were used by Heinlien as chapter notes in one of his books. (Starship Troopers IIRC) That got me turned on to Kipling early as a kid. If you like this one try "The Sons of Martha."

I still remember the way some in the press tried to savage McCain in the 2000 campaign when he replied to the question, "What is your favorite poem?" with Kipling's "If." It was the contention of some that Kipling's less PC (in the modern age) works gave them the right to tar McCain as a racist.

84

" it's that the mindset that led us here, as VDH points out, still pervades most of government and much of society."

 

it sure does, the most common answer I get when I tell people about how bad our economic woes really is "I have faith in our country, we're America we will always be on top" (or some other trite, meaningless crap)

and when I ask them "On what evidence do you base that unshakable faith?" all I get is a blank stare... it's scary how willing people are to live in denial.

 

btw, Kipling is the bomb!   

85 I think people are just too afraid to accept the truth about what our $14 Trillion in debt really means and what is going to happen when we can no longer service the debt and provide any government services.  That third rail of social security is going to be nothing compared with hyperinflation and loss of all savings.  I hate being an oracle of doom, but unless our government gets very serious about fixing social security and medicare there is little hope for the future other than the fall of America.  Sure we will still be around see Greece, but our way of life and the American Dream will be things of the past.  We will be trying to take out a loan to buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of gas.  Think things are bad now, try $8 a gallon gas or $5 loaf of bread. This is mild compared to what can happen, but the sad part is that even if we do everything right tomorrow those things are still likely to happen.

86

Oldsailor: that is when you do what my mother and father did -- they brought them over for dinner (our closest neighbors back when I was a kid...much the same story as your girl) and let them eat.  They got their bellies fill; I got a lesson in being grateful for the food on my plate...and to be ashamed for being such a brat about picky eating.  You go and chew their parents out; tell them to take care of their kids; I don't buy into that "it takes a village" claptrap, but as adults we do have some obligation (yes, obligation) to children.

Unfortunately, society (and perhaps the people that make it) have made it increasingly hard for the individual to do the right thing (emphasis on "individual", which is the only thing, again imho, that works).

87 80, My wife and I are in the process of trying to adopt a child from this mess. A girl that is 13 and has been bounced around the foster system. She is a good kid and DSS don't want her adopted because then their friends that foster children stop getting checks. I want to be angry with you but I can't because I once thought like you. I will just say you really do not understand the depth and breadth of the fuckstory that is the DSS.

88 Anyone reading this ever lost a pet, particularly one you've had for many years?

Particularly a dog?

Kipling's poem in regards to this matter is particularly effective.

http://www.lgd.org/library/kipling.htm

89 Kipling is also a helluva prose writer. I've read Kim a dozen or more times and it gets better each time. About the British spy service in India and Afghanistan in the late 1800's, it still has relevance today.

Also see "The man who would be king" ( A great movie with Sean Connery as well), tales from the Hills, "Captains Courageous" and others.

In 1915 or so, Kipling spent some time on RN Destroyers, Submarines and trawlers and wrote an excellent book about it. Very good for some insights into the war at sea in WWI. Called "Sea Warfare" is is available free for Kindle from Amazon.

The others should be free as well. If not on Amazon, in Gutenberg in Kindle format.

It had been a while since I had read the Gods of the Copybook Headings. Thanks for reprinting it.

John Henry

Book notes is one of the best features of AOS.

90 Reading this article by the wise and insightful Victor Davis Hanson over dinner last night left me somewhat depressed
------------------------------------------
Love ya buddy, but are you sure it was the content of his article and not the act of reading VDH over dinner on Saturday night that left you depressed?

91 A Servant When He Reigneth ---Rudyard Kipling For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear. For a servant when he reigneth, and a fool when he is filled with meat; for an odious woman when she is married, and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress." ---Prov. 30:21-22-23. Three things make earth unquiet And four she cannot brook The godly Agur counted them And put them in a book--- Those Four Tremendous Curses With which mankind is cursed; But a Servant when He Reigneth Old Agur entered first. An Handmaid that is Mistress We need not call upon. A Fool when he is full of Meat Will fall asleep anon. An Odious Woman Married May bear a babe and mend; But a Servant when He Reigneth Is Confusion to the end. His feet are swift to tumult, His hands are slow to toil, His ears are deaf to reason, His lips are loud in broil. He knows no use for power Except to show his might. He gives no heed to judgment Unless it prove him right. Because he served a master Before his Kingship came, And hid in all disaster Behind his master's name, So, when his Folly opens The unnecessary hells, A Servant when He Reigneth Throws the blame on some one else. His vows are lightly spoken, His faith is hard to bind, His trust is easy broken, He fears his fellow-kind. The nearest mob will move him To break the pledge he gave--- Oh, a Servant when he Reigneth Is more than ever slave!

92 Beck has mentioned "Gods of the Copybook Headings", but from what I've seen (I haven't had much time to watch TV the past few months), he got it wrong, which is too bad. He would do well to rectify that instead of smearing Kipling.

The Gods of the Marketplace is not the free-market; it's the liberal or socialist who is trying to sell 'new' ideas, who say that the traditions and manner of living we enjoy is outdated, unnecessary in the face of progressive ideas, who promise us all these goods and bounty, and are empty promises. Yet the Gods of the Copybook Headings, who promote the traditional ideals of morality and conduct are what we eventually end up having to turn to when the new fad passes and is seen to fail.

Unfortunately we don't learn. We don't learn that people need purpose and work gives self respect and an objective. We haven't learned that life isn't perfect and utopia is a dream, and that the best guarantee of opportunity is personal freedom. Instead the Gods of the Marketplace tell us that we are obliged to support people in crisis at all costs, to our own detriment, because the new morality says it must be so, and we must give up our treasure because surely it must have somehow come at the cost of the good of the collective. And because people want to feel good about themselves, they follow the Gods of the Marketplace.

93 Re #65: Damning "The White Man's Burden" as "racist" is stupid and facile---and common in today's educational climate. The poem is dedicated to the US in the Philippines---i.e., when the US was dealing with the Moro insurrection following the Spanish-American War. Kipling was welcoming the US to the responsibilities of imperialism---for, while Kipling was indeed an imperialist, he viewed empire not merely as a profit-making enterprise (something his short stories fully recognize), but as an exercise of responsibility by the more-developed nations on behalf of the less-developed. This is not a popular view today, if stated in terms of "empire." Yet there remain echoes of it in the leftwing view of the uplift that progressive types demand the West foist upon the Third World. In point of fact, Kipling's was the much more honest view, for he details the work which Westerners did in terms of public health and peacekeeping, but was completely unapologetic about the revenue which the West exacted from its subject nations in exchange for these blessings. The Left of today demands that the West also provide public health services, financial aid, and occasional impositions of public order upon the more chaotic areas of the globe, but mandates that they be done without the compensation that the empires of old extracted.

94 Wonderful poem, btw.  I've never heard of this one.  Thanks.

95 Note, by the way, as regards "The Gods of the Copybook Headings," certain allusions which are both funny in themselves and which are relevant to our own day: "On the first Feminian sandstones" is a slap at feminism, and the destruction of traditional marriage. For more direct allusions to this, check out Kipling's references to "the barren women" in his short story "One Side of the Question," and to his stories, "The Mother Hive" (very, very relevant today) and "My Son's Wife," in which he directly attacks what he calls "the Immoderate Left." "In the Carboniferous Epoch" is an allusion to the coalminers' unions "robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul." It is relevant to our own problems with global-warming alarmists and carbon-trading. Further reading recommended: Kipling's story "A Walking Delegate."

96 Sorry about the open "bold."

97 I've enjoyed this poem for decades now, thanks to its inclusion in a book of science fiction short stories. In fact, I keep it on my computer, and have posted it on the outside wall of my cubicle everywhere I've worked. No complaints, so far. Anyone who's read Kipling at lenghth would NOT accuse him of racism.

98

From memory (so apologize for errors) from "The Sons of Martha"

They do not teach their Gods will rouse them, a little before the nuts work loose.

They do not preach his pity allows them to drop their jobs when they damn well choose.

As in the thronged and lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand, wary and watchful all their days, that their brethrens day may be long in the land.

 

Much of the vitriol directed at Kipling during the McCain  episode came from the poem about the Zulu war titled (IIRC) "Fuzzy Wuzzy" a reference to the Zulu's hairstyles. Imagine Imus's "nappy headed ho" brouhaha times ten. The interesting part is that for all of its colorful and unPC language (as well as a frequent sprinkling of the n word) the poem is told from the part of a British soldier paying homage to the superior fighting ability of the Zulu warrior.

99

91 You can be mad at me if you want to, but I do understand the CPC  system -- I understand quite well that they will leave "unpromising prospects" in abusive or neglectful homes and toss others (or high visibility cases) into foster care.  Foster care which is often worse than the homes the children came from, or the kids go to group homes which are horrible places.

That's why I don't like working through government agencies, and really don't like turning the kids in...because sometimes they are better off in their crappy homes. I was talking about taking a personal stand, something people rarely do anymore...and no, I won't back down from the idea of personal obligation: children are at our mercy, and we, as adults, do have an obligation to protect them if we can.

If that philosophy pisses you off, so be it.

100 @102 "Fuzzy Wuzzy" did not refer to the Zulus, but to the army of the Mahdi during the uprising in Sudan: "'Ere's to you, Fuzzy Wuzzy, and your home in the Sudan You're a pore benighted 'eathen, but a first-class fighting man..."

101 Thank you busssawmonkey. That will teach me to discuss poetry without checking the works themselves before opening my fat mouth. It looks like I swapped teach and preach in the first two lines of the stanza I quoted also.

102 altın çilek - fx15 - leke kremi - yudali - maurers - ozon yağı