There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.
They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though […]

The Charge Of The Light Brigade
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854
Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a […]

The lazy are slaughtered
the world grows industrious  
The ugly are slaughtered
the world grows beautiful
The foolish are slaughtered
the world grows wise
The sick are slaughtered
the world grows healthy
The sad are slaughtered
the world grows merry
The old are slaughtered
the world grows young
The enemies are slaughtered
the world grows friendly
The wicked are slaughtered
the world grows good

 
Brothers and sisters,
In an effort to broaden his appeal in the Middle East,
President Bush has decided to start working in music
videos. In his latest work, he co-stars with Kuwaiti
singer Shams, who is quite the little Jezebel.
Entitled Ahlan! Ezzayak, (Hi, How are you?), the video
was produced in Cairo, and is popular throughout the
Arab world.
Link to the […]

 
Babies haven’t any hair;
   Old men’s heads are just as bare;–
Between the cradle and the grave
   Lies a haircut and a shave.
 
–Samuel Hoffenstein

Take up the White Man’s burden—
    Send forth the best ye breed—
Go, bind your sons to exile
    To serve your captives’ need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
    On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
    Half devil and half child.
Take up the White Man’s burden—
    In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
    And check the show of pride;
By open speech […]

 
“My Jesu swet I go to mete
His body is my soles delete.
Always I rise from the glomby earth
When Jesu sucketh me with his swet mouth.”
 
–attributed to St. Dorothea of Montau, ca. 1390
Dorethea was an ascetic, flagellant, ecstatic visionary, immured alive in the walls of the Marienwerder Cathedral, Danzig (nee Gdansk).