Here is a poem by Cornelius Eady that gets to the guts of the matter.

Chittlin's

According to the chef,
At this small restaurant with its hazy view of the Pyrenees
Dizzy ate nine more of these than I will tonight
It must have reminded him of home, I think,
Whenever he passed through to play the summer jazz festival
In a neighboring town,
And assured him that he wasn't.
And when the dish arrives, hot, pungent,
Its workings disguised in mustard,
Cuisine instead of what's left,

I thought of a friend, who might have said,
When my nose reminds my brain of what I swallow,
Now taste where you come from,
And the sight of the man, waving for another plate,
The insulting stuff turned sweet, digestible: jazz.

– Cornelius Eady

Imagine, for a moment, you're one of the first people to respond to a terrible tragedy. You have emergency medical training. You're there, helping people escape the flames and rubble. And suddenly, the tragedy compounds and the people like you, men and women whose only crime was to run towards a disaster instead of away, die.

You aren't on any of the official rosters of emergency responders, because you worked for a private ambulance company, not the official rescue services. You are a student in a law enforcement environment, but haven't applied to the police department because you're thinking of going to medical school.

The world is running out of money. If money is credit, and credit relies on confidence, there is not enough confidence in the financial system to supply the world with the money it needs. Since the initial credit crisis struck in 2008, credit and money have been withdrawn from the system in such staggering amounts that international trade can no longer grow. The world’s central banks are playing a rear guard action by acting as lender of last resort to banks that no longer trust each other and have stopped lending in the interbank market. As liquidity flows out from the system, the rottenness that has corrupted the foundations of global finance is now exposed for all to see.

Mark Landler | Honolulu | December 31

NYT - President Obama, after objecting to provisions of a military spending bill that would have forced him to try terrorism suspects in military courts and impose strict sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, signed the bill on Saturday.

He said that although he did not support all of it, changes made by Congress after negotiations with the White House had satisfied most of his concerns and given him enough latitude to manage foreign policy in keeping with administration policy.

“The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it,” Mr. Obama said in a statement issued in Hawaii, where he is on vacation. “I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.”

New Year celebrations got under way as Pacific countries begin celebrating the arrival of 2012. In Australia, Sydney staged a spectacular fireworks show with the theme "Time to Dream".

New Year's Eve 2012: Celebrations start
In Pictures

We took the kids down to the national park today. It was as splendid as ever, if seriously drought stressed, more so than I have ever seen. Funny thing about the desert: if you'd never seen it before you probably wouldn't know it was drought stressed, but if, like me, you have, you'd notice the difference.

Regardless, it was a fantastic day. The series today starts here. The full series is here.

Enjoy!

Old Long Syne, by James Watson (1711)

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
on Old long syne.

CHORUS:
On Old long syne my Jo,
in Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
on Old long syne.
My Heart is ravisht with delight,
when thee I think upon;
All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,
and speedily is gone;
The bright resemblance of thy Face,
so fills this, Heart of mine;
That Force nor Fate can me displease,
for Old long syne.

CHORUS
Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,
when from thee I am gone;
will not thy presence yield relief,
to this sad Heart of mine:
Why doth thy presence me defeat,
with excellence divine?
Especially when I reflect
on Old long syne

CHORUS

December 29, 2011.

Another year almost gone. I try to remember the good things, but can’t.

Some speak of destruction by fire; I saw that this year, only the fire was sun, no rain, relentless dry scorching weather, day after day, week upon week, months….

Damn near the whole year.

I am told half a billion trees died in Texas alone.

It started raining about a month ago. Slow, steady, light but soaking rain. With the rain came cold. The moisture will pay dividends down the line, but now, cold and wet suck life from animals forced to endure without hay to fill their guts.

Aquifers, lakes and livestock ponds remain precariously low despite the recent showers. I have no clue what the new year will bring.

I know several of the areas photographed and a lot of people just like those in the photos. Worth running through the gallery.

Photos of a lost America

Happy New Year!

We visited Marfa and the surrounding area today. We are off to Big Bend National Park tomorrow, which will be an all day trip, posting tomorrow is doubtful.

Today's photos, about 50, begin here. The full set can be found here.

Also, for those of you who have asked to see a photo of The Brunette, there is one available on my Facebook page.

Enjoy!

Well, Mitt Romney seems to be the inevitable winner of the caucuses in Iowa.

Unless Ron Paul beats him.

Or Newt Gingrich picks up more momentum.

Even Rick Santorum's message is spreading.

Martin Hickman, James Cusick | London | December 29

The Independent - News International will use legal fund to prevent further revelations

Rupert Murdoch's News International is thought to have prepared a legal fund of £100m to settle civil litigation actions brought by victims of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal ahead of a High Court showdown in the new year. (Images: Hubert Burda Media - World Economic Forum)

News International is understood to have earmarked the money to settle several high-profile cases, with some claimants likely to receive well above £1m, according to sources close to the situation. The litigation surrender fund is five times the £20m Wapping set aside in April when it ended five years of denial and admitted hacking had been rife at its best-selling paper. Since then the number of hacking cases has jumped from around 20 to about 55.

I had a great day with The Brunette and her kids. We spent the day in the Fort Davis Mountains. We'll do a Star Party at the McDonald Observatory tomorrow night.

There are close to 100 photos. The full set can be found here and the beginning photo starts here.

Enjoy!

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

As we head into 2012, many of us will be resolving to lose those few extra pounds, save more money, or spend a few more hours with our families and friends. But there are also some resolutions we can make to make our lives a little greener. Each of us, especially in the United States, can make a commitment to reducing our environmental impacts.

The United Nations has designated 2012 as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All. Broadening access to sustainable energy is essential to solving many of the world’s challenges, including food production, security, and poverty.

So Senator Ben Nelson (nominal D from Nebraska) has decided to retire from the Senate, not seeking re-election in 2012.

Good riddance.

Look, I can live with Blue Dog Democrats, people who would under any other circumstance rightly be labeled "Republican" but for party affiliation. The Blue Dog breed is necessary in order to keep a hand in the poker game that is electoral politics in the heartland, and besides, a little dissent is a good thing. It keeps ideas refreshed by challenging their underpinnings regularly.

The Brunette and I are taking the kids to West Texas this morning.

There have been lots of bear sightings in the Big Bend country this year, hopefully we'll get to see one!

Michelangelo wrote an extended sonnet kvetching about what a pain it was to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Yep. Who wouldn't in his position? In his case, he fired off the verse to his friend Giovanni. Seriously. If you don't believe me, ask former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, who wrote in Slate about the artist's pissed-off poem.

When the Author Was Painting the Vault of the Sistine Chapel

I've already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison).
My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's
pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!

My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's
all knotted from folding over itself.
I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.

Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts
are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.

My painting is dead.
Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

Michelangelo, written in 1509 to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia, translated from the Italian by Gail Mazur

I'm off to Arkansas with The Brunette today. Happy Holidays!

. . . that Israel has a large interest in seeing these countries do not develop democratic institutions. I seriously doubt that the Israelis were as ignorant of this illicit trade in anti-democratic internet technology as the article claims.

. . . appearance I said there was a dearth of creative thinking in the American foreign policy establishment. This is an excellent exhibit of said dearth. And here is an excellent deconstruction of it.

There is a great deal wrong with this story over at Politifact. But I want to highlight the first three grafs:

At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news.

"I listen to Rush and read NewsMax," he said. "And to make sure I'm getting a balanced view, I watch Fox."

My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click

I don't know a single "liberal" blogger whose only sources of news are those cited above. I for one read the following on a regular basis: Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times. I check the Arts and Letter's Daily, which highlights stories from both sides of the spectrum and a great deal of academic work, too, and I read the New York Review of Books from cover to cover every day. I frequently read The Atlantic, and too top it all off I listening to NPR in the mornings and many of NPR's podcasts during the day. As a matter of fact when was the last time I even linked to one of those three mentioned above?

So let's do a little experiment: go out and ask your liberal friends if the sum total of the new diet is HuffPo, Kos and Maddow?

And then ask any conservative you know what they go to for news. I can guarantee you it isn't the liberals who have a one-sided news diet.

So this from EFF, which begins, "Consider providing someone outside the country with the following information", got me to thinking, "who do I even know in another country":

For Bloggers at Risk: Creating a Contingency Plan

I was thinking at first that you would want someone you have at least spoken to face to face. But really that could be a huge challenge for many people. So now I'm thinking, well, how about a blog for bloggers to arrange such contacts.

Of course I finally got to, "wait a minute, how many Agonists are in another country right now?"