MAY THE GODS OF WAR HELP DESTROY OUR ENEMY!

A USA Today/Gallop poll released early this afternoon shows that 51% of Americans support the president's decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. I am one of those Americans and I am not ashamed to say so.

I trust our president to make the right choice given the options presented to him. If I didn't trust him I wouldn't have voted for him. He never said even once that when elected he would end the Afghanistan conflict. On the contrary he stressed its strategic importance and promised to resolve the issue with the best interests of the American people at heart. So, the decision is made and the relentless whining needs to end. It is time to support our troops and their mission. The whining can begin again if we are not out of that dark hell by the deadline so don't lose all hope of exercising the right to whine.

It is not enough to say that you support the troops but not the mission. Our young men and women need their country to believe in what they are doing. They need to know that what they do has meaning, and it does! So stop saying you support the troops but not the mission.

In the meantime pray [in your own way] for the safety of the brave men and women serving in our armed forces and the armed forces of our allies. Let them know that our thoughts are with the families of those serving in combat. They give so much of themselves in support of those who fight in this vital and necessary war waged to protect the interests of the United States and the rest of the world.

I am confident that the mission will be accomplished in an honorable and just manner as can only be expected from free and democratic nations.

We are America. The fool of a Bush is gone and there is a new sheriff in town. So, even though you don't always agree, let us support him in the job he is sworn to do. He is, after all, our sheriff.

Oh! One final thought before I go:

Death to the al Qaeda murderers and those who support them! God bless America and may every Allied bullet travel straight and true into the black hearts of our enemies!

Cross posted at MadMikesAmerica

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This ought to send potentially well-adjusted young lesbians screaming for the closet

Rosie O'Donnell reached out to Meredith Baxter to offer support after the "Family Ties" actress came out as a lesbian earlier this week.

On Wednesday, Baxter told the "Today" show's Matt Lauer that she's a lesbian. The thrice-divorced mother of five has been dating partner Nancy Locke for the past four years, she said.

Added O'Donnell..."Good for her, man."

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Believe

What?



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Self-evident!

Me?



I'm most like Alice.


I am welcoming and open-minded, and I like to have fun.



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Our Bartender and Goya

I see that the bartender appears to be a fan of Goya. And of his "black art."

I hope this hasn't occurred because the bartender has walked the plank behind the bar sober all these years and, remaining sober, observing the behavior of all his patrons, drunk, has lost his faith in the human race?

Watching the carryings on of drunks can have that natural reaction. I hate being sober around drunks myself. Though I was once accused of hypocrisy for feeling this way. True, drunk I accept these high jinks. Sober, I can't stand being around anyone like myself drunk. I see no contradiction.

Goya, the Bartender will agree, was a very great artist, a genius who broke many modern boundaries. His world was bleak and his vision of the world was also bleak. Though I understand he never actually saw the Napoleonic horrors he often depicts (I use the present tense because he still lives) in his paintings and engravings. But he caught them most truly, in a manner even those of us who have never actually seen war can believe in and comprehend.

So the old man painted these horrors on the walls of his house. Correct me if I'm wrong but the house went to one of his sons when he died. And the wall paintings remained there unnoticed and unprotected for another twenty or thirty years. For Goya was more or less forgotten until rediscovered long after his death.

The drawing above, by my father, is of Spanish aristocrats. I find the satire amusing.

Picasso, like many nineteenth and early twentieth century painters, greatly admired Velazquez. Though it was Velazquez's painterly aspects and general approach they admired, not so much the so-called "literary" aspects of his art: those being accurate representations of the nobility he served. Some say Impressionism first appeared in Velazquez. Well, painterly flourishes may appear in other artists. At least I've seen some. But Velazquez appears to be the painter other painters studied in that regard. Picasso was not unaware of Velazquez's talents.

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Săbărelu

-
Sit my friends and listen
Put your glasses down
Sit my friends and listen
To the voices of the drowned
—The Pogues, "The Wake of the Medusa"



Săbărelu

I call it a soft, green garland, The Arges, big as it is, Hasn’t the charm of the Săbărel. The tiny Săbărel, hey … Love thrives on its abundance. Oh, Didina, Didina, oh. The Săbărel, with its sweetness, Flows all winter and doesn’t freeze. Oh, Didina, Didina, oh. Green leaf, marjoram, hey; I cam up from the valley onto the hill, And I look out on the Sabar, hey. I saw the Sabar girls bleaching. Bleaching cloth, hey, oh, Didina, Didina, oh. You can see their feet, hey. Their feet as white as swans, hey. Oh, Didina, Didina, oh. The Săbărel, with its sweetness, Flows all winter and doesn’t freeze. Oh, Didina, Didina, hey.

But around Epiphany It flows as cold as a floe of ice, You draw it up onto the green bank And drink sweet water, oh, so sweet. Oh, Didina, Didina, oh. But around Epiphany It flows as cold as a floe of ice. You draw it up onto the green bank And drink sweet water, oh, so sweet. Nana, nana, ah, my darling. May God bring the rain pouring down So that the Neajlov will rise, May God bring the rain pouring down. So that Neajlov will rise And sweep the bridge out of the valley. And sweep the bridge out of the valley. Nana, nana, ah, my darling. Leaving only poles, Leaving only sundered poles, And drown all the Neajlov men.

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Kronos

Various interpretations of the paintings have been offered: the conflict between youth and old age, time as the devourer of all things, and also, more specifically, in Goya’s version, an allegory of the situation in Spain.

What do you think?


Very eloquinty put. Picasso, sir? Why, it is believed that he may have painted some 58 recreations of Las Meninas.

What I was wondering is what the gentleman from Wales makes of it? Cronos, sir.


I like the way the gentleman thinks. Still, look at the expression on the titan’s face. Many of the figures of the Black Paintings share the same expressive facial characteristics: staring eyes, revealing the whites at the top and the pupils below (indication of terror or extreme intensity---like the eye-rolling of a wild horse [link]), as well as open or eating mouths.

Rose-Marie and Reiner Hagen have it that "open mouths were---and are still---considered taboo, both in society and, for a long time, in art...probably because the lips and mouth mark the start of the digestive tract---a part of the human body that remains anonymous...a part that we share with animals. To look down the throat is to remember that our intellectual existence, which we consider our real one, is dependent upon organs and instinctual drives that we cannot control and at whose mercy we lie."

I have heard it said that the painting may have originally portrayed the titan with a partially erect penis. But, if ever present, that alleged missing "part," was lost due to the deterioration of the mural over time or during the transfer to canvas; in the picture today the area around the titan’s groin is indistinct. They say it may have been overpainted deliberately before the picture was put on public display.

Hm … And what have we here? Would that be a Rubens or a Goya?



What do you think, sir? Much ado about nothing, if you ask me. I mean, it’s only sex, isn’t it? But, it might of course depend on what the definition of is is.


Indeed... Human nature, sir.

Look at the engravings.

Look at the portraits.

Goya was by no mean a caricaturist. A caricaturist is someone who laughs at other people’s expense, but Goya gibes as much at himself as he does at others. Nobody is spared: the coquettes and their suitors (the duchess of Alba and Goya), the monks and their flocks, the aristocrats and their servants. His paintings may be hard and brutal but there is there, at the same time, an immense and overflowing sorrow for mankind, a sorrow that embraces victims and torturers alike, in its compassion, and which extends beyond just simply the human condition. Let's just call it the condition---for this is The Wulfshead and it wouldn't do to sound too human-centric in our understanding.



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So what team does this mean I'm on?

According to this, the Twilight character I'm most like is Bella. Apparently, I'm an emotional and passionate person who isn't afraid to take risks.
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