ARMAGEDDON??????

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

This poem has been all over my life the last week or so. It was referenced in Paul Krugman's Return of Depression Economics. It was quoted in the film Nixon by Oliver Stone that I watched this past weekend. It was quoted by A.J. in the last episode of The Sopranos. What eternal portent inspired this poet? What vision had he?

Maybe it was the vision of the giant Boeing 747 flying at low altitude over lower Manhattan, conjuring up images of that fall day almost eight years ago. Two F-18 fighters appear to be in pursuit. The craft buzzes the Statue of Liberty. It banks and the sunlight reflects off of the Seal of the President of the United States. Air Force One, buzzing Manhattan, pursued by fighters. OH MY GOD. Then, the comment--"OOPS!"

Or was it the pontiff's visit to L'Aquila three WEEKS after the earthquake that leveled the town. People are still living in tents. The emergency is over says the government. Pope Benedict offered them his prayers and hope for their new lives. I bet the Person for whom he toils on Earth would have at least fed them and offered some shelter, some REAL comfort. Or maybe the Pope and Holy Mother Church have had their investments trashed like the rest of us? Or maybe he's German and this was Italy? (By the way, this writer is half-German and half-Italian so this isn't meant as a racial slur as much as a political one.)

After almost 30 years of being a hawk---Viet-Nam and Iraq--and a firm strident voice for the rule of law, Arlen Specter has left the Republican Party and joined the Democrats. Really doesn't matter if you believe this was due to his principles or his political ambition. It just illustrates how far the G O P is in thrall to the radical right. From continuing to espouse policies that have nearly destroyed our economy to the defense of torture, the Republicans increasingly marginalize themselves, forsaking the very Constitution and multi-party system they claim to hold so dear.

So the Taliban Resurgent march towards Islamabad in Pakistan---and its sixty or so nukes might fall into terrorist hands while we sit mired still in Iraq. Thanks, W, Condi, Cheney, and Rummy. Wanna go surfing---we'll hold you down on the board and see how YOU like the feel of drowning.

Finally there's the swine flu. It is an amalgam of human, poultry, and swine virus, all mutated together into a new "super" bug. Could this be the plague foretold in the Apocalypse, aka, the Book of Revelation? Did W. B. Yeats foresee this week??? Looks like his Beast has stopped slouching and broken into a trot.

Do you wonder why the Pirate Dogs have converted their beloved Nargle into a starship and the Klingon Kats have transformed their favorite perch into a Klingon Bird of Prey? They might be smarter than we humans........