The Purpose of National Security Policy, Declassified

Steven Aftergood's post today on Secrecy News, The Purpose of National Security Policy, Declassified.

“The primary objective of U.S. foreign and security policy is to protect the integrity of our democratic institutions and promote a peaceful global environment in which they can thrive,” President Reagan wrote in National Security Decision Directive 238 on “Basic National Security Strategy,” which was partially declassified in 2005.

INSERT DISC

Woah!  Follow link to Rhizome.  INSERT DISK

Lines composed over three thousand miles from Tinturn Abbey

In Lines Composed Over Three Thousand Miles from Tinturn Abbey, Billy Collins writes:

I was here before, a long time ago,
and now I am here again
is an observation that occurs in poetry
as frequently as rain occurs in life

and much of the rest of the poem is about

But the feeling is always the same.
It was better the first time.
This time is not nearly as good.
I'm not feeling as chipper as I did back then.

Which, I know, is an awfully common feeling.  More common than rain.  But I don't feel it.

Tonight we're seeing Ian and Chad

Spock's father

One year on, 82 years on...

I've been reading Isherwood, and made a note to myself to copy out the section below.  Then, coincidentally, today's the one year anniversary, marked somehow or other, of Occupy Wall Street, and the helicopters were buzzing all about my office window.  So how could I not paste this here?  PP 48 of the New Directions copy of the Berlin Diary half of Isherwood's Berlin Stories:

We all three went to the balcony of Clive’s room.  Sure enough, the street below was full of people.  They were burying Hermann Muller.  Ranks of pale steadfast clerks, government officials, trade union secretaries - the whole drab weary pageant of Prussian Social Democracy - trudged past under their banners towards the silhouetted arches of the Brandenburger Tor, from which the black streamers stirred slowly in an evening breeze.

"Say, who was this guy, anyway?” asked Clive, looking down.  “I guess he must have been a big swell?”  

“God knows,” Sally answered, yawning.  “Look, Clive darling, isn’t it a marvellous sunset?”  

She was quite right.  We had nothing to do with those Germans down there, marching, or with the dead man in the coffin, or with the words on the banners.  In a few days, I thought, we shall have forfeited all kinship with the ninety-nine per cent. of the population of the world, with the men and women who earn their living, who insure their lives, who are anxious about the future of their children.  Perhaps in the Middle Ages people felt like this, when they believed themselves to have sold their souls to the Devil.  It was a curious, exhilarating, not unpleasant sensation: but all the same, I felt slightly scared.  Yes, I said to myself, I’ve done it now.  I am lost.

Shush R Us

Invisible bike helmets

Via Bicycle Design.

If you eat, you're in. Pam Warhurst. TED

Giuseppe Torcivia's heroic pasta con sardi dinner

May I list all the food G made for dinner?  I'm not sure I'm able.  Pickled eggplant, smoked olives, pickled peppers, fresh figs wrapped in ham, bresaola dressed in olive oil and lemon, mystery salami from San Franciso that made me weep, sharp cheese, shrimp pate, fried artichokes, battered &  fried sage leaves, eggplant fritters, spinach and egg pancakes, pistachio rice balls, squid-ink rice balls, bruschetta a la Norma, cuttlefish in dark red wine sauce, cured salmon with scallions and olive oil and lemon, cold tomato soup, pasta con sardi.  For 16.  Served under a tent in a wild storm.  Woof!

Mushroom activity in the crack between kitchen and patio

Gore Vidal

Credit: Jerry Cooke/Time & Life Pictures — Getty Images

I've always been fascinated by Gore Vidal, from Myra Breckenridge through Palimpsest, Burr, the huge collected United States: Essays and his public persona.

Crochety bikies of Saratoga Springs

Omaha, nice!

No, this is not the most representative photo we took on our jaunt last week to Omaha and Lincoln, but it is the only one with a robotic child-controlled spacecraft, so what the heck.  Hey, we liked Omaha a lot!  Jackson Street Booksellers is now on my short list of all time favorite bookstores.  La Buvette!  M's Pub!

Up in the Bensen neighborhood, where we took this pic, we had the oddest experience.  We had lunch at the Omaha doppelganger of one of our favorite Brooklyn local spots.  Lot 2.  Same name.  Just about the same typography.  Same food ethic.  Similar dishes.  One brick interior wall and same color blue paint.  It was pretty bizarre.  No, they don't know about each other.  I took a pic of the Omaha front door and sent it to the folks in Brooklyn.  A search for the wormhole has begun.  Are Lori and I the only people in the world to have eaten at both?  Seems unlikely, but...  Brooklyn web.  Omaha web.

Playdate!

Hard not to love it.

High Wide and Handsome

High Wide & Handsome (Reprise)
L. Wainwright III
Album: Hide Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project

CAPO I
INTRO (2x): D  G  A  G  D

D                              G
High wide and handsome, that's how I like livin'
A                              G               D
High wide and handsome, that's how life should be
                            G
Low skinny and ugly, that's for other people
A                            G       D
High wide and handsome suits me to a tee

CHORUS:
Em                   Bm
Song wine and women, they're my three favorites
G                            Bm
Beer gin and whiskey, that's five six and four
Em                     Bm
Saturday night, I like eatin' and dancin'
  G                             A
I sleep all day Sunday so's I'm ready for more

High wide and handsome, you can't take it with you
High wide and handsome, that's one way to go
Let's live it up, might as well we're all dyin'
High wide and handsome, let's put on a show

INTRO out 

At Country Tabs.

Low Commitment Projects

Macinwi sent me a link to Low-Commitment Projects (specifically to Sandwich Artist) a couple of months ago, and I've just gotten around to clicking through it...

Diving into the wreck

I first read this in, what, 1976 or so?

I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold. ...
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to the scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Rest in peace, Adrienne Rich.

When I was poet laureate of the United States...

I'm destructive, Miami, Florida

steve.lewis@farawayhills.com. thumbtyped