Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
Socialism is Anti-Choice and Anti-Life
June 13, 2022
Supreme Court issues 6-3 ruling on Carson v. Makin
June 21, 2022
On Sweeping Change And The Importance of Trains
June 15, 2022
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on New York Times Reports that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump, is detailing what she witnessed during the Capitol attack at the Jan. 6 hearing, including the former president trying to steer his limo to the CapitolSo time to yell about hillary i guess.
on Roe v Wade Overturned: Read the Dobbs Decision For YourselfThat is a way more interesting read then one normally finds on reddit. And I have to admit I hadn't read Alito…
on I’ve Had My Fill: Of Limited Faith or Interest in Contemporary PoliticsI think the biggest thing people misunderstand is that ideology is not something some people don't have, inste…
on Roe v Wade Overturned: Read the Dobbs Decision For YourselfWait, you realize that no one said Roe was struck down on the basis of incorrect facts, right?
on I’ve Had My Fill: Of Limited Faith or Interest in Contemporary PoliticsWhen I was in Singapore last December my thirteen-year old Australian nephew asked me if Americans were going… on New York Times Reports that Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Donald Trump, is detailing what she witnessed during the Capitol attack at the Jan. 6 hearing, including the former president trying to steer his limo to the CapitolShe has destroyed her career in the political arena to save the nation. That's courage.
on Roe v Wade Overturned: Read the Dobbs Decision For YourselfThe situation was not 'Your grandfather did something so you are assumed guilty', the situation was 'These jur…
on I’ve Had My Fill: Of Limited Faith or Interest in Contemporary PoliticsYou know what? I'll throw something up in the sidebar for you.
Continuing education: The Lamb and The Tyger really need to be read together in the same sitting, The Clod and The Pebble shows how deeply Milton was internalized by Blake, and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell will leave you gasping.Report
And it’s perfect for Monty Python.
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It’s a man’s life in the modern army.Report
In the summer of 2000, the Metropolitan Museum did a wonderful exhibit of Blake’s drawings and designs.
“Dark Satanic Mills” probably refers to the Albion Flour Mills, one of the first Industrial factories in England and the world. Probably the harbringer of the Industrial revolution. Blake was a pastoralist utopian at heart and he would have distrusted the sheet nature of the mill and what it was able to do. Since the poem is allegedly about Jesus visiting England, he wonders how such a holy place could be so close to such an evil thing. How did England descend from pastoral and green glory to something dank, dark, industrial and soul-crushing. This is not a poem as an ode to progress or markets.
If you did research, the Chariots of Fire refer to how Elijah entered heaven in the Old Testament. The narrator of the poem is being asked to be taken to Heaven or he is asking for a Chariot of Fire to help him destroy the Dark Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution.
I interpret the poem as an ode and urging to return to a rural and simple life.Report
That’s pretty much my interpretation. I don’t really see the “war,” but then I didn’t watch the embedded videos.Report
I always liked the Billy Bragg version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEqFMFFsQo&feature=kpReport
But did Blake have a vision that he’d inspire a couple orchestral psychedelic jazz albums in the 60’s, which would go on to be sampled like mad in 90’s hip-hop & electronic music?
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Or a series of SF books? Or a novel about a serial killer?Report
Heh, I thought Red Dragon too (Hannibal tonight! This season has been AMAZING!)
And if he inspired those SF books, then indirectly we’ll just go ahead and credit him with this song too (that’s Ginger Baker on drums):
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ITYM “Ginger Blaker”.Report
Oh, and Blake also shows up in Orson Scott Card’s Alvin Maker series, as a traveling storyteller nicknamed “Talespinner”. The first three or four books are quite good, though it appears to be yet another series Card has no intention of finishing.Report
That’s how absolutely insanely talented Blake was. His work will turn you upside down. If you’re a theist, you’ll have insights into God. If you’re an atheist, you’ll flash some moments of doubt.
I honestly have no idea why he isn’t more famous than he is. “He’s plenty famous”, I can hear someone say. “Not enough. Not to the point where he deserves.”Report
“Piper” is a song of “Bosco”. The lyrics are extracted from two William Blake’s poems (“Introduction” and “The Shepherd” from his book “Songs of Innocence and experience”). The audio is from one of the concerts they did in a tour around Ibiza. The video is made with footage from that tour.
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Sweet! Thank you!Report
here the video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2MTaKsR7FUReport
Also, there’s the Kinks’ 20th Century Man:
This is the twentieth century,
But too much aggravation
It’s the age of insanity,
What has become of the green pleasant fields of Jerusalem?Report
There’s a movement to make Jerusalem the National Anthem of England. Now, I mean, you can say that that is the equivalent of saying “there’s a movement to make ‘We Will Rock You’ the National Anthem of the USA” which is to say that just because the sentence is true doesn’t mean that it’s interesting but we’re not talking about a group of crazies out in the middle of nowhere.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9400486/David-Cameron-backs-Jerusalem-as-English-national-anthem.html
There’s a group of crazies out in the middle of London.Report
There was a vote for Australian national anthem in 1977, and Waltzing Matilda came in second with 28%. That would have been . ǝɯosǝʍɐ ǝɔɐdsReport