Sometimes it's hard to grasp the present-day relevance of the speeches and writings of historical figures; the temptation is often to say, "How does something written and said in 1967 apply to me in 2003?" Well, check this out: a reprint of a Martin Luther King speech, with selected phrases converted into hyperlinks to present-day news reports, making the relevance very -- and, in most cases, sadly -- clear.

The Seafarer: A poem in Anglo-Saxon.

MÆG ic be me sylfum soðgied wrecan
siþas secgan hu ic geswincdagum
earfoðwile oft þrowade
bitre breostceare gebidan hæbbe
gecunnad in ceole cearselda fela
atol yþa gewealc

þær mec oft bigeat
nearo nihtwaco æt nacan stefnan
þonne he be clifan cnossað

calde geþrungen
wæron fet mine forste gebunden
caldum clommum þær þa ceare seofedun
hate ymb heortan hungor innan slat
merewerges mod

þæt se mon ne wat
þe him on foldan fægrost limpeð
hu ic earmcearig iscealdne sæ
winter wunade wræccan lastum
winemægum bidroren

bihongen hrimgicelum hægl scurum fleag
þær ic ne gehyrde butan hlimman sæ
iscaldne wæg hwilum ylfete song
dyde ic me to gomene ganetes hleoþor
ond huilpan sweg fore hleahtor wera
mæw singende fore medodrince
stormas þær stanclifu beotan þær him stearn oncwæð
isigfeþera ful oft þæt earn bigeal
urigfeþra

nænig hleomæga
feasceaftig ferð frefran meahte

forþon him gelyfeð lyt se þe ah lifes wyn
gebiden in burgum bealosiþa hwon
wlonc and wingal hu ic werig oft
in brimlade bidan sceolde

nap nihtscua norþan sniwde
hrim hrusan bond hægl feol on eorþan
corna caldast

forþon cnyssað nu
heortan geþohtas þæt ic hean streamas
sealtyþa gelac sylf cunnige
monað modes lust mæla gehwylce
ferð to feran þæt ic feor heonan
elþeodigra eard gesece

forþon nis þæs modwlonc mon over eorþan
ne his gifena þæs god ne in geoguþe to þæs hwæt
ne in his dædum to þæs deor ne him his dryhten to þæs hold
þæt he a his sæfore sorge næbbe
to hwon hine dryhten gedon wille

ne biþ him to hearpan hyge ne to hringþege
ne to wife wyn ne to worulde hyht
ne ymbe owiht elles nefne ymb yða gewealc
ac a hafað longunge se þe on lagu fundað

bearwas blostmum nimað byrig fægriað
wongas wlitigað woruld onetteð
ealle þa gemoniað modes fusne
sefan to siþe þam þe swa þenceð
on flodwegas feor gewitan

swylce geac monað geomran reorde
singeð sumeres weard sorge beodeð
bitter in breosthord

þæt se beorn ne wat
sefteadig secg hwaet þa sume dreogað
þe þa wræclastas widost lecgað

forþon nu min hyge hweorfeð ofer hreþerlocan
min modsefa mid mereflode
ofer hwæles eþel hweorfeð wide
eorþan sceatas cymeð eft to me
gifre and grædig

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

Gielleð anfloga
hweteð on wæl weg hreþer unwearnum
ofer holma gelagu

forþon me hatran sind
dryhtnes dreamas þonne þis deade lif
læne on londe ic gelyfe no
þæt him eorðwelan ece stondað

simle þreora sum þinga gehwylce
ær his tiddæge to tweon weorþeð
adl oþþe yldo oþþe ecghete
fægum fromweardum feorh oðþringeð

forþon þæt is eorla gewham æftercweþendra
lof lifgendra lastworda betst
þæt he gewyrce ær he on weg scyle
fremman on foldan wið feonda niþ
deorum dædum deofle togeanes
þæt hine ælda bearn æfter hergen
ond his lof siþþan lifge mid englum
awa to ealdre ecan lifes blæd
dream mid dugeþum

dagas sind gewitene
ealle onmedlan eorþan rices
nearon nu cyningas ne caseras
ne goldgiefan swylce iu wæron
þonne hi mæst mid him mærþa gefremedon
ond on dryhlicestum dome lifdon

gedroren is þeos duguð eal dreamas sind gewitene
wuniað þa wacran ond þas woruld healdaþ
brucað þurh bisgo blæd is gehnæged
eorþan indryhto ealdað ond searað
swa nu monna gehwylc geond middangeard
yldo him on fareð onsyn blacað
gomelfeax gnornað wat his iuwine
æþelinga bearn eorþan forgiefene

ne mæg him þonne se flæschoma þonne him þæt feorg losað
ne swete forswelgan ne sar gefelan
ne hond onhreran ne mid hyge þencan
þeah þe græf wille golde stregan
broþor his geborenum byrgan be deadum
maþmum mislicum þæt hine mid nille

ne mæg þære sawle þe biþ synna ful
gold to geoce for godes egsan
þonne he hit ær hydeð þenden he her leofað
micel biþ se meotudes egsa forþon hi seo molde oncyrreð
se gestaþelade stiþe grundas
eorþan sceatas ond uprodor

dol biþ se þe him his dryhten ne ondrædeþ
cymeð him se deað unþinged
eadig bið se þe eaþmod leofaþ
cymeð him seo ar of heofonum

meotod him þæt mod gestaþelað forþon he in his meahte gelyfeð

stieran mon sceal strongum mode
ond þæt on staþelum healdan
ond gewis werum wisum clæne
scyle monna gehwylc mid gemete healdan
wiþ leofne ond wið laþne bealo
þeah þe he hine wille fyres fulne
oþþe on bæle forbærnedne
his geworhtne wine wyrd biþ swiþre
meotud meahtigra þonne ænges monnes gehygd

uton we hycgan hwær we ham agen
ond þonne geþencan hu we þider cumen
ond we þonne eac tilien þæt we to moten
in þa ecan eadignesse
þær is lif gelong in lufan dryhtnes
hyht in heofonum

þæs sy þam halgan þonc
þæt he usic geweorþade wuldres ealdor
ece dryhten in ealle tid

Amen

:: This endlessly fascinating poem, which I think I understand less each time I read it, has been translated many times by many authors and scholars. A selection of translations, some in verse and some in prose, can be found here, with a hypertext edition of the poem, along with a Canadian scholar's Masters thesis on the poem, here.

*Crickets* Hello?

Oliver's right, this story shouldn't die...

Veterans decry Rumsfeld's draft comments

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- A Vietnam War veterans' group is taking exception to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's comments this week on the possibility of a new draft.

"Secretary Rumsfeld said troops from Vietnam War conscription 'added no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services ... '" Bobby Muller, president of Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation said in a statement issued Friday. "As Vietnam veterans who served with conscripted soldiers, we find Secretary Rumsfeld's egregious slur a grave insult to the memory, sacrifice and valor of those who lost their lives, and, further, dismissive of the hundreds and thousands of lives, both in the U.S. and in Vietnam, who were devastatingly shattered by the Vietnam War."

Rumsfeld, while commenting on a bill introduced to initiate the draft, said it was unnecessary.

"We're not going to re-implement a draft," he said Tuesday. "There is no need for it at all."

He spoke of the fact that many of those who were drafted were trained, served for a short time and then left the service.

Rumsfeld first referred to the many exemptions issued to certain men in the draft and then said, "what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

This has hardly been reported in the media. Thoughts?

I've read Lord of the Rings in its entirety four times, and I've done a lot of dipping into it for favorite and key passages, so I figured I knew the story pretty well, even though it's been three years since my last full re-read. Well, after reading this synopsis of the books, it's clear that my memory isn't as good as it once was. Bummer.

(Oh, and I know that it's always fun for political pundits on all sides of the spectrum to find allegorical parallels for their worldviews in whatever happens to be the major pop-culture phenomenon of the day, but come on.)

Karamazov

Been a bit since I've heard from you guys about where you are. Regardless, I finished the most famous part of the book, "The Grand Inquisitor" (even available on its own) yesterday. And you all? If you haven't been there yet, here's a topic to discuss later (or now if you have). Is any of Ivan's character based on the Grand Inquisitor that was Torquemada listed as the most evil man ever on this site (posted by Jaq back in Oct) ? Other thoughts on the Grand Inquisitor?

Do you need Singlefile? Do you want Singlefile? Do I need Singlefile?

Singlefile is an easy-to-use web-based service that helps you organize the books you own, the books you are reading, the books you've read and the books you want to read.

SF writer William Gibson is many things: he's one of the foremost pioneers of the cyberpunk subgenre; he's the writer of one of the finest opening sentences of a novel ever (Neuromancer: "The sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel"); and now he's a blogger.

A survey of world values

[The University of Michigan] has been sending out hundreds of questions for the past 25 years (it now covers 78 countries with 85% of the world's population). Its distinctive feature is the way it organises the replies. It arranges them in two broad categories. The first it calls traditional values; the second, values of self-expression.

The survey defines “traditional values” as those of religion, family and country. Traditionalists say religion is important in their lives. They have a strong sense of national pride, think children should be taught to obey and that the first duty of a child is to make his or her parents proud. They say abortion, euthanasia, divorce and suicide are never justifiable. At the other end of this spectrum are “secular-rational” values: they emphasise the opposite qualities.

The other category looks at “quality of life” attributes. At one end of this spectrum are the values people hold when the struggle for survival is uppermost: they say that economic and physical security are more important than self-expression. People who cannot take food or safety for granted tend to dislike foreigners, homosexuals and people with AIDS. They are wary of any form of political activity, even signing a petition. And they think men make better political leaders than women. “Self-expression” values are the opposite.

While this Economist article remarks that the postion of the United States is "strange" (i.e. traditional + self-expression), it's interesting (to me atleast) to note that its nearest neighbours are Australia and Canada. Of other English speaking countries, Britain and New Zealand seem to be more similar to Western Europeans.

So now a question for you, Dear Reader. Where do you (personally) fit on the World Value-O-Meter?

Steven Den Beste has written one of the grimmest posts I've read, anywhere, pertaining to this weekend's round of suicide bombings in Tel Aviv. Particularly scary is his last sentence, which has had me thinking ever since I read it. What are we to make of a culture that has embraced death to such a degree as the Palestinians have?

Remember the parody of Fellowship of the Ring that I posted a couple of months ago? And you know how right now, The Two Towers is in general release? Can you see where I'm going with this? (This one's not as funny, but it's still amusing....)

Bob Cringely says at the end of his 2003 predictions that, to him, the rise of weblogs in inexplicable. Why are weblogs so great?

Dammit, I almost forgot!

Happy Birthday, Sean!

Happy New Year!

And for your perusal, I give you a list of the top 100 Sci-Fi books of all time, from Phobos Entertainment. Not being a big SF fan, I've only read seven of these books (yeah, yeah, heresy and all that) and none of the top 25, so my argumentative skills will be of little use here. But I'm willing to bet that all of the rest of you have read many more than I.

Also a list of the top 50 SF films (I've seen a scant 9. Is Rocky Horror really considered a SF film?)

(original top books link via Brilliant Corners)

This is a mosaic image of the center of our galaxy, with the great black hole at the center lying within the white spot at the middle. The center of our galaxy is one of the top ten space mysteries that are still unresolved.

Meanwhile, the year 2003 is likely to be notable in space exploration for China's first foray into manned spaceflight and for the launch of several Martian probes, including this new roving vehicle.

Not much happening here these days, huh? I know that I have fallen quite a bit behind on Brothers K, but I do plan to reattack it once the New Year has come and gone.

I really don't want to know what the advertising tagline for this is going to be.

In the chapter on Smerdyakov, Dostoevsky likens this character to a painting called "The Contemplator" by Ivan Kramsky (according to my translation). From Dostoevsky's description of this painting, I've found that it is "Meditator" by Ivan Kramskoi, and it can be viewed here. (I'd have posted it here directly, but it's a pretty big image.)

Appropo of Nothing....

I recently downloaded Mozilla and this site looks horrible. John Hardy, is this what you've been using all along and that's why it looks so dark and nasty to you? The comments look fine. I'll figure out what the story is tomorrow.

Via Newsweek: Trent Lott and the GOP's racial troubles.

It was just a quick stop, at a store on a campaign trip through the Northeast more than a dozen years ago. Trent Lott, then a Mississippi congressman about to make his move for the Senate, was visiting a state for a Republican candidate. When Lott walked in, he asked: “Why aren’t there any black people here?” a source who has spent time with him in unguarded moments tells NEWSWEEK. Nervously, someone explained that this was not the most diverse of regions. “Not even behind the counter?” Lott said. Warming to his punch line, Lott added: “We’d be happy to send you up some if you need any”—and then chuckled.

Is anyone else bothered by the current Republican meme of "I'm shocked ! Shocked! to find that gambling is going on here!"?

One of the most interesting things about 'Brothers K' to me is D's expressed intention to write a subsequent book about Alyosha which this book only prepares us for. Here's what I found on Google:

[Dostoyevsky] planned to write a sequel to 'The Brothers Karamazov' in which, twenty years later, his hero Alyosha would leave his monastery cell and become a revolutionary and die for his idealism. He "would have searched for the truth and in his quest would naturally have become a revolutionary," Dostoyevsky said. See Grossmann, p. 587 Joyce Carol Oates in note #8 in an article on 'The Dispossessed'

It is said that Alyosha was to have become involved with revolutionists and to have committed a political crime, - it will be recalled that during Dostoevsky's last years the terrorists were increasingly active and, indeed, his own death antedated by one month the assassination of the czar. The possibilities of such a novel as this projected sequel fairly dazzle the imagination. But there is no need to speak of might-have-beens. The work as it stands is sufficient to engage profoundly the mind and the emotions of the reader, and to leave him shaken by a sense of the large potentialities of the soul. Avrahm Yarmolinsky on the site Jaq recommended (end of the article)

In a russian book on Dostoevsky(printed circa 1960), which I have at home, it states that notes made by Dosty on the ideas that the sequel would include were kept by his wife after Fyodor's death. It was mentioned that the book was to take place in 30 years after the events of the first book and concentrate on the life of the now middle aged Alyosha. He was to change dramatically in those years after a long love with Lise, which was to be full of pain and unhappiness. Alyosha was to leave the church and fully re-enter the society. from this thread which mentions the title as being 'Life of a Great Sinner'

I believe the work you are thinking of is 'Life of a Great Sinner', in it's entirety it was planned to emcompass Alyosha's leaving the monastary, his later debauchery, and finally his conversion back to faith. I believe I read about this in Joseph Frank's brilliant biography...

In 1868, Leo Tolstoy had finished his epic novel, War and Peace. Readers and critics loved the book. Dostoevsky, inspired and perhaps also envious, began to consider writing an epic of his own. He wanted to write a grand book, even longer than Tolstoy's, that would give him room to express his philosophies regarding the spiritual dilemmas of the modern Russian man. This epic - first titled Atheism and later The Great Sinner - was to be "the story of a Russian skeptic who, after many years of moving back and forth among all sorts of theologies and popular sects, in the end finds the Russian Orthodox religion and the Russian soul" (quoted from Grossman's biography). The Great Sinner was originally designed to contain five volumes, connected by one hero. The five books would eventually be distilled down to one: Brothers Karamazov. again, from the Dartmouth site. (This article goes on to chronicle how D's plan's changed, inspired by an ideological murder, from which he wrote 'Demons'.

I am very sorry that we didn't get the chance to read what might have come.