Between Two Worlds

Matthew Arnold's Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse is captivating poetry from one of the nineteenth century's best poets. It includes one of Arnold's most famous lines:

Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.
Their faith, my tears, the world deride—
I come to shed them at their side.

Oh, hide me in your gloom profound,
Ye solemn seats of holy pain!
Take me, cowl'd forms, and fence me round,
Till I possess my soul again;
Till free my thoughts before me roll,
Not chafed by hourly false control!

Mr. Cook Goes to Washington

Apple has never been the biggest participant in U.S. national politics, but it looks like CEO Tim Cook is bypassing K-Street and doing a little lobbying himself:

Tim Cook met with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) today. It is unknown what the topic of discussion was, but it's possible that Cook was lobbying Boehner to pass a tax holiday that would allow Apple and other companies with large overseas tax holdings to bring back their earnings at a lower corporate tax rate.

I'd love to know how the conversation went.

On a Happy Note

This is the sort of news story that just needs to be shared:

The funeral of a 28 year-old waiter in southern Egypt turned into a celebration when he woke up after being declared dead. […] A doctor sent to sign the death certificate found it strange that his body was warm. At closer observation she discovered he was still alive.

126.

One hundred twenty-six years ago, the most influential theologian of the twentieth century was born. Yes, as one of my colleagues put it, May 10 is “Happy Barth-day.” In the spirit of celebrating, I wanted to share the following excerpt from Barth's preface to the English edition of der Romerbrief:

No one can, of course, bring out the meaning of a text (_auslegen_) without at the same time adding something to it (_einlegen_). Moreover, no interpreter is rid of the danger of in fact adding more than he extracts. I neither was nor am free from this danger. And yet I should be altogether misunderstood if my readers refuse to credit me with the honesty of, at any rate intending to ex-plain the text.

Frequently Barth has been denied that credit, unfortunately, and that has meant a lot of the good correctives Barth offers concerning the modern Church have been missed by many parts of that Church. Paying attention to Barth's own care for the meaning of Scripture would help assure many of Barth's “opponents” that there might be more to the Swiss theologian than they wish to admit.

Abe Lincoln for WI Governor?

CNN reports on an odd bit of the Wisconsin recall election contest:

mediaman sat down with Arthur Kohl-Riggs, a young Republican who carries the values of President Abraham Lincoln and even looks quite a bit like him. Kohl-Riggs, 23, is running against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in the recall election, which is tomorrow. He decided to join the race to educate the public. 'Mainstream media's investigative laziness has rendered them unwitting accomplices to Scott Walker's extreme corporate agenda,' Kohl-Riggs told mediaman in an interview on May 3.

What the Thunder Said

A little sampling from T.S. Eliot's the Waste Land seems appropriate as the thunder pounds off in the distance like so many reports in a distant fireworks display.

After the torch-light red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and place and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mud-cracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

Nothing to Sneeze At

Kerry Grens reports on a rather fascinating finding:

Amish children raised on rural farms in northern Indiana suffer from asthma and allergies less often even than Swiss farm kids, a group known to be relatively free from allergies, according to a new study.

Giving Up Reading

Harry Marks presents a humorous take on the pledges some bloggers will take to do something seemingly difficult (and arbitrary) allegedly for some reason that will lead to a better life, but really mostly oriented towards publicity and obtaining more readers:

Abandoning reading will force me to be better with my time, vastly more aloof to current events, and a complete bore to everyone around me. And if you're still crazy enough to be talking to your computer screen, you might be asking, “Why couldn't you just limit how much you're reading instead of cutting it out completely?” The answer is simple, young one - because common sense doesn't get page views.

Towering

The new One World Trade Center sounds (and looks) quite impressive. I haven't followed it all that closely in recent times, so I was surprised they had made as much progress on it as they have. Too bad it isn't going to be the tallest structure in North America.

How the NYT News Room Works

This seems to be uncannily accurate to the way the NYT is covering Apple these days.

HT: Gruber