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The Middle Way

~ A journey between extremes

The Middle Way

Monthly Archives: October 2020

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity

30 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Art, Change, Emotional Intelligence, Environment, Fear, Hate, Human, Indivisible, Music, Poetry, Politics, Putin, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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It seems that I tend to post this once in a while, and there’s usually good reason each time. Aside from the fact that this is one of my all-time favorite poems, for me it also calls up a reality check. I’m not alone in that fact, either. And, I have always loved the version that Joni Mitchell arranged, so today I am posting that with the text of the poem. Read deep.

We humans have enough of a history that shows how clearly we are capable of existential damage to each other, as well as our environment. I don’t believe there is anything particularly prophetic in this poem/song, but there are some huge reminders.


The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats

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: somewhere in sands of the desert
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
Reel 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?

Melanistics For Trump

24 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Change, Coronavirus, Corruption, Environment, Fear, First Amendment, Indivisible, Moscow Mitch, Patriotism, Politics, Race, Revolution, Terrorism, Trump-Hole

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Today I saw two fairly typical rural New Hampshirey kind of guys (white males, beards and baseball caps, obligatory work boots, and a variety of apparel from famed designers such as Mossie Oake and Coco Flanell) slogging hip deep through the roadside tick-grass dragging a massive sign that proclaimed: “Asians for Trump”. These guys were in the process of hammering it into the ground directly between myself and a bunch of very beautiful fall leaves. I absolutely hate political signs.

I suspect if I had actually pulled over and pointed out to these guys just how dense their political irony was, it would be as welcome from me as breaking the news about where fortune cookies actually come from.

The problem is that publicly voicing any sort of political speech these days is just as likely to get you shot, as get you are to get run over by a muscle car or big-ass truck with giant tires and a Punisher sticker on the back window. All while sustaining a barrage of colorful potty words, and various observations about your appearance and pedigree.

I am afraid that no matter who wins this presidential election, there will be violent reactions across the country, leading to far more deaths than there should ever be in a country with free and fair elections. And if you’re wondering just how many deaths should happen as a result of free and fair elections, the answer is zero.

News in 2020

02 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Brain Droppings, Dandelion Break, Fear, News, Revolution, Trump-Hole

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“They’ve gone to plaid…”

oof.

02 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by themiddlewaythrough in Mental Health, Politics, Revolution, Trump-Hole

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Regarding the presidential debate the other night: If you look at it through the lens of some desperate person living under some horribly oppressive regime that is looking desperately to America as a beacon of freedom, and who is wondering if that still exists… I think this was a scary moment in history.

And that’s just coming from a guy in New Hampshire.

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