MacDuff: A Teaser From Act One, Scene One

...Hecate: Peace! I the mistress of your charms should not be called to your account
The toll, the cost, the reckoning of the amount is mine to assess
Our wayward son, MacBeth has come to know his destiny
Yet there is no end to our accursed calumny, so be contented, children mine.

Armed mutiny, spurred by our blessing, affirmed the faith that you profess--
Led another soul, piked and splayed, to the very gates of blessed Inverness
Where cursed blood will drip and stain, cast a pall on Malcolm’s pious reign,
And dissolve the Scottish crown to nothingness.

Childless MacBeth and his haglike queen have played their part…now comes the triumph of our art.

Third Witch: I prithee, sisters, to whom should we direct our wrath? Who will bear the rough cross of our distemper?

First Witch: He who is of no woman born! He who slew the bold MacBeth! Though no king, his kingly virtues cry to heaven, and must be smothered by the same deep and dark desires enkindled in MacBeth.

Second Witch: In him we will find no man so easily led, and no fiendlike bride to nurse the hestal flames.

Hecate:

Then let us bring to bear our hellish wrath
And shake this titan from his servile path.

Tonight a heavy fog enshrouds the Scottish hills
The swollen river wears the treeroots white
As greymalkins call, and warblers trill
The tide will climb the banks tonight
The feeble dams will burst and walls will crumble
and swallow up homes both proud and humble
Babes emerging from the womb
Will sleep soundly in their riverbank tomb
From there we'll disinter their bones
For use in spells most foul.
Let every curse distill in hearts of Malice
And lead MacDuff to drink from Poisoned chalice (cackle).

...What do you think?

Interesting Stuff My Friends Write About and the Mali Update

K. Christian McGuire, a founding member of the infamous Dead Language Society and former bassist for Nero's House Band has a new website up with tracks from his varied musical catalogue. If enough people visit his site, I'm hoping I'll have the leverage to ask him to do an updated cover of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron.


Listen to Christian's Tunes Here:

Sam, my transplanted New Yorker friend at 911 press covers everything in New York City from Quaker meetings to fashion at 911 Press. Be sure to read several posts.I've yet to ask him what his blog title means.

For voyeurs who want to have a glimpse at expat life in Tokyo, Oakley obsessions, and the music scene, I highly recommend Rickandheather.net

For those of you who expressed concern about Mali, she's doing fine, although our high-energy Ridgeback is having a hard time adjusting to her mandatory sedentary lifestyle. She's almost through with week one of her six-week recovery period. By the time she recovers, I'll probably be able to teach in Ontario just in time to cover Laurie's maternity leave.

Mali Has A Broken Leg

Our poor baby broke her leg in a freak accident tonight. It's 12:37, and the pain meds are wearing off. None of us will get much sleep.

The Top 1%

We all knew they would eventually conquer the world.

Dan Stout and Faust Gertz have officially become internet demigods via their website Manufactured Environments.

Their eclectic, hip, and technologically literateblog is ranked in the top 1% of all blogs according to technorati.

Congratulations, guys, and thanks for still returning my calls.

There Goes The Neighborhood: Advice For Mark

My old friend Mark knows how to appreciate the pastoral splendor of the countryside around his El Prado, New Mexico home. I always look forward to his purple prose.

He wrote me the following a while back, soliciting my advice, and I'm sure he won't mind if I ask my wise and worldly readers to contribute as well (writers like Mark deserve a wider audience):

The summer rains begin that afternoon. Clouds pile and roll over the peaks
and lightning cracks purple bolts. It’s magnificent. Nearly everyday a
rainbow (a double or a triple!) slides from the earth, arching over the
mountains and town. Leandro and I had just unloaded our first haul of boxes
at the new house and were leaving. Leandro had asked again if there was a
stream at this house. A car scooted around a bend in the lane and I pulled
over to let it pass by. While pointing to the whirl of clouds over the
mountains to Leandro, the car stopped, and through the rain-streaked window
two feet from my own, the face from newspapers and TV, the Secretary of
Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. My neighbor. He was beaming a smile and waving
at us. An appreciative motorist. A friendly neighbor. A politician.

The most malignant patriot drives a Toyota. His back-up Mazda in the
driveway. Secret service in Lincoln SUV’s surround the place.

There won’t be any petty crime at our new place. But it’s probably on
several lists as a place to blow up.

Leandro reminds me to dip my hand in the stream before holding the brown
trout and taking it off the hook. He wets his own hands. Takes hold of the
trout and eases it back to the river. He’s learning to read.

I’ve asked people for advice on how to deal with my new neighbor and
received:

-kick him in the balls
-flip him the bird
-“good, now the peace parades can end with a party at your house….”
-kill him with love

Send your heartfelt advice because I intend to present the list to the man
when I lend him a fly rod and invite him to join me on a stream. I hear he
attended Princeton, but it seems to me the guy needs some remedial work in
reading. I’ll pair him with Leandro, then vanish upstream; chapters of my
own lost since childhood to recover.

...Or Is It?

A Ron DiCianni lithograph available at the Presidential Prayer Team's store.

It's So Hard To Find Good Divine Help These Days

God creating stars with the assistance of what appears to be child labour.


It's a well-known fact in western, capitalistic, nominal democracies, that market-based reforms inevitably bring the greatest benefit to consumers and, in general, turn society into a breathtaking utopia of peace and prosperity.

One thing, however, is holding us back.

The reform isn't reaching the upper echelons of power. For a change, I'm not referring to the president of the United States, but rather God him/her/itself.

I'm sorry to say it, but God has become rather complacent. Perhaps its because, in so many theological marketplaces, he faces no competition. In Norway, Christianity is the unchallenged state religion, and in Iran, God can sit pretty, knowing that his Islamic gig has cornered the market.

Adam Smith would not be pleased. It's time for reform. Here are my recommendations.

First of all, God needs to sell shares in his corporation. Sure, we've all heard about angels, cherubim and seraphim, and the community of saints, but they're hardly a board of directors. If shares of Heaven, Inc. were publicly traded, we could attract investment from previously disinterested parties. Those willing to cash in on tax-free lands deals, for example.

Secondly, privatizing Heaven would make this God character responsible for results. As it stands, you pray for something, and maybe you get it, maybe you don't. Their corporate slogan "God works in strange and mysterious ways" hardly instills confidence. If the phone company were to give me that kind of service, I'd take my business elsewhere!

As a fan of marketplace reforms, I was pleased to see that, at least in America, this God fellow is being held to account. Here's the article:


Judge Orders God To Break Up Into Smaller Deities

WASHINGTON, DC—Calling the theological giant's stranglehold on the religion industry "blatantly anti-competitive," a U.S. district judge ruled Monday that God is in violation of anti-monopoly laws and ordered Him to be broken up into several less powerful deities.

"The evidence introduced in this trial has convinced me that the deity known as God has willfully and actively thwarted competition from other deities and demigods, promoting His worship with such unfair scare tactics as threatening non-believers with eternal damnation," wrote District Judge Charles Elliot Schofield in his decision. "In the process, He has carved out for Himself an illegal monotheopoly."


Read The Article From The Onion:

Call Me Ishmael

I was going to write something about the current spinning of the situation in New Orleans, but why bother?

President Bush's approval rating sits at 38% according to the most recent polls, and I'm convinced that he could juggle hemopheliac infants while tap dancing on a burning crap-encrusted American flag, and that same 38% would still consider him the second coming.

...Am I correct in my assumption?

Priorities

Chew stuff. Sniff crotches. Eat. Sleep. Repeat until dinnertime. Wake up excited to do it all over again.

There's really no such thing as puppy angst.

Sam Speaks

My old friend Sam Teigen is a brilliant writer, poet, and freewheeling raconteur living in New York City. His writing is always a pleasure, but I found his latest post to be absolutely brilliant.

Readd Sam's full post at917 Press:

He writes:

"...So if a philosophy of individualism has left us exposed, what's the alternative? The alternative is philosphy of mutual need... of social security, universal health care, real international coalitions for conflicts that don't involve oil. We need each other to deal successfully with personal and natural disaster. We can't fear free riders and moral hazzard from providing our communities with real aid, and real protection.

As much as we're going to hear about the swelling of contributions, what New Orleans needed to avoid catastrophe was government aid, the aid the Bush administration has been ignoring since 2001 at least. This goes for our health care, this goes for our social security, and this has to do with homeland security. Charity cannot fully do what government can, and in this case, ought to have done.

This means Democrats have a greater responsibility to expose the Orwellian joke of GOP politics... terrorism is not about Iraq, it is not about about the patriot act; individual health accounts will not save health care, private accounts will not save social security. Voters needs to get real and get skeptical of what they're told. I'm not voting for GOP individualism, I'm voting for liberal communities, and acknowledge that the smartest thing we can do to prevent disaster is spread risk: the tool for that is government. we have every right to expect that from our government and they failed.

Condi To The Rescue!

Fear not, New Orleans! Condoleeza Rice will save you!...Once she straps on a thousand-dollar pair of pumps, that is.

This from Gawker:

"According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You are a true American, and we’ll go shoe shopping with you anytime."


Source:

Condi Rice: The very definition of dressed-to-kill.

Looterama in New Orleans

If we can just keep the focus on black people stealing stuff, maybe people will forget this:

...Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA [Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project] dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.


Read It: