Meet Ivan Franko

Source: http://www.franko.lviv.ua/ifranko/franko_eng.html

The Ukraine has been in the news lately, but not necessarily for the best of reasons. It might be time to take a look behind the wall of political barbarity; to cross the politically pointed barbed wire of local and international perceptions and interpretations and focus on aspects of Ukrainian culture that we are unfamiliar with. In an earlier post, I wrote about the famous Ukrainian poet Taras Schevchenko. Now it is time to become acquainted with Ivan Franko (1856-1916). Below is his poem
"Semper Tiro." Enjoy!



                             SEMPER TIRO

Man's life is brief, but what art infinite
It takes to live it as creative task!
At first it seems as though 'twere but to flit
In magic dreams, in fantasies to bask.
But soon it grows to bounds unknown before,
Demands thy hopes, begins thy soul to ask,
Takes all thy powers, and still cries out for more.

Then, with the fruitage of thy mind and heart,
Thou standest as before some deity.
To honor her thou dost thy blood impart,
Thy nervous force, thy brain's capacity,
As to a goddess that must be adored,
And feelest like a slave, no longer free,
While in thy heart thou say'st: "I will be lord!"

Believe it not! Deceptive is the Muse.
The goddess will suck out thine "I" to use
It as a vessel for her sportive play;
She'll drain thy soul and then cast it away.
Heed not the strains thou hearest from her lyre:
"As master, thou upon men's hearts shalt play,
And millions move with thy poetic fire."

Believe it not! If thou indeed must sing,
If poesy within thee is supreme,
Serve thou the goddess without wavering,
But to rule over her thou must not dream.
Let thy song at the feast of life ring free
And unconstrained. Know thou but this one thing:
The poet always must a learner be. 

To learn more about Ivan Franko visit this website:  http://www.franko.lviv.ua/ifranko/life_of_ivan_franko.htm

A New Jerzy Pontification

In today's The New York Times I read an article titled "A Plea to Deny Gunmen Their Quest for Infamy." It touched on the efforts by families of mass shootings (New Town, Columbine, Arapahoe, etc.) to prevent the mention of the killers' identities to deny them the "recognition" they sought. Their efforts are timely-we need to deny the spread of the killers' cyberfame and notoriety via the media. It is inevitable that one killer will look on the shooting spree of another and extract "inspiration" from the rampage. You can never reason with killers; all we can do, since they take the cowardly way out by committing suicide, is deny them more media attention.

I am reminded of a memorable passage from a short story written by Jerzy Kosinski (from his book Steps). He wrote, "Almost all of us on the jury were able to discuss and imagine how he had committed the crime and what had impelled him to it. To clarify certain aspects of his case, some of the jurors acted out the role of the accused in an attempt to make the rest of us understand his motives. After the trial, however, I realized that there was very little speculation in the jury room about the victim of the murder. Many of us could easily visualize ourselves in the act of killing, but few of us could project ourselves into the act of being killed in any manner. We did our best to understand the murder: the murderer was a part of our lives; not so the victim."

Kosinksi wrote those hauntingly prescient words in 1968. Why, then, has it taken us so long to "get it?" Claire Davis is in our collective short-term memory for the moment, but for how much longer? We need to ensure that the memories of the victims, who they were, what they did, etc. are not buried beneath the avalanche of attention that is directed toward the perpetrator of a school shooting, etc.

Once Upon A Time Alan Dershowitz Wrote a Book......

Alan Dershowitz has a new book out titled Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law. I perused it not to find any tidbit of useful information or memorable anecdotes. Instead, I looked for mention of Dershowitz's academic nemesis, Norman Finkelstein. Anyone familiar with Dershowitz's legal work, teaching at Harvard University, or his public performances will remember the classic exchange between Dershowitz and Finkelstein on Democracy Now! in which Finkelstein meticulously pointed out factual inaccuracies in Dershowitz's 2003 book "The Case for Israel."

To capture the essence of the dispute and understand the dislike these men  have for each other, check out the excellent DVD American Radical: Trials of Norman Finkelstein. It is memorable, if nothing else because Dershowitz, well known for his oratorical skills, has a few "Well, I., uh......." moments.

However, in the end, Dershowitz "won." He contacted DePaul University, Finkelstein's place of employment, and made a strong case to deny him tenure if not outright fire him. Sadly, the university listened.

It saddens me that something like this happens (much too frequently) in the world of academia. Finkelstein still makes a living, but it is a shame that more people are denied access to his intellect and powers of perception.

All this went through my mind as I flipped through the pages of Dershowitz's new book. I immediately went to the index to see if there was any mention of Norman Finkelstein. Sure enough, there was. The index read "Norman Finkelstein...............................p. 18."  I immediately turned to page 18 to look for the mention of Finkelstein. I was curious to see what Dershowitz had to say. I read the whole page and found no mention of Finkelstein. Some things never change! It makes you wonder about the existence of the other items listed in the index, doesn't it?

Baseball's Shame

Baseball claims that it has made some tough decisions over the last six weeks in an effort to restore integrity to the sport. By "tough decisions" Bud Selig and company direct our attention to the suspensions handed out to Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and a number of baseball players who used performance enhancing drugs. Fancy talk, but all this really is is a distraction. Think of it as smoke and mirrors.

Major League Baseball claims it is cleaning up the game and trying to remove the black mark/tarnish on it by suspending cheaters. However, the reall tarnish on the game remains: Buck O'Neill still has not been admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is an insult and a travesty far more damaging that the abuse of drugs by some players. Until Buck O'Neill is given his rightful place in Cooperstown, baseball will always have a black mark on it and no number of player suspensions will change that.

Wake up, Bud Selig.

Complacent Complaining

Complaining is so ingrained into our 21st-century mindset that oftentimes we are not even aware when we are griping about something. It has become so quotidian, which is so ironic. Don't we usually relegate complaining to things/people that are different or who see things differently than we do?

Do men complain more than women?  Perhaps not, but we certainly complain for different reasons. Alina Tugend writes in "Complaining is Hard to Avoid, but Try to Do It With a Purpose," that women, "...are more likely to complain rather than request an action. Men, on the other hand, tend to complain more to bolster their egos."

There is a new website devoted to encouraging  us to complain less every day. Check it out. It is http://www.AComplaintFreeWorld.org.

When Racism Masquerades as Being "Brusque"

I was at the gym last doing my workout when suddenly I found myself in a position where I had to say something to an agitator. I had begun my workout when a woman from South Africa began to loudly broadcast her disdain for white males. "White people are stupid," she yelled. This was followed by,"White men don't do anything; they never earn anything; everything is given to them. They feel entitled to everything." No one is disputing that, sadly, racism still afflicts our society and the 'good ol' boys' network is firmly entrenched in our social fabric. However, this woman crossed a line. She was spewing bile that I found despicable and completely inappropriate. There are many white males and females out there who are immensely talented, but have no work or have had their homes foreclosed. Obviously, this didn't matter to the agitator who was busily issuing a blanket generalization of an entire race. What surprised me was that no one in the gym said anything to her. So I decided to say something. I said, "That's racist." Her husband said to me, "What was that?" I reiterated, "That's racist." I told her she could not condemn all people with her blanket diatribe. She came up to me and said "As a white man you have benefited from this sense of entitlement." I told her I was Hispanic. She walked away and I said, "You have a chip on your shoulder." She replied, "I have never noticed." I then told her, "That's because you don't look."

Later, she tried to provoke me by saying that she is "hegemonic" (I am not sure she knows what the word means, because there was no context for her to use it in the gym). I replied, "And I am a Libra." She was surprised and didn't know what to say. I moved on to continue my workout.

While I had my back turned I heard someone say, "She is brusque." Have we been so conditioned in this era of political correctness to not recognize a racist discourse when we hear one? "Brusque" and "racist" are two different words, yet perhaps in acquiescing to an inherent sense of collective guilt in the post-civil rights era, we are allowing some very hateful statements to propagate.

I am no conservative nativist, but this woman should have used better judgement. Because of her political views, she was asked to leave South Africa. She found a home in the US and a college graciously offered her a position for many years. It would be nice if she were a bit more respectful to her fellow citizens, especially following the revelations that the Boston Marathon bombers were Chechens who emigrated to the US. At least she could keep quite while we try to have a workout in the gym.

The Use of Gung Ho

It is funny how over time the meaning of a word or phrase can change. We are all familiar with "gung ho" which we use to mean overly zealous or enthusiastic.

As I was reading The Language of World War II by A. Marjorie Taylor I learned that its origin is Chinese and that it means "work together." It was also a nickname for Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson.

Another word is "Grumlin." It was coined as  "a name given to 'saboteurs of the spirit' on the home front," by Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House.

"The Grumlin," Rayburn declared, "does the same job of sabotage on the home front that the Gremlin (q.v.) does to the airplanes of our pilots fighting the Axis."

The bombings of Monday reveal that we may have to retrieve this word from the literary graveyard.