Of poetry and power

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

We don’t hear much about poetry and power these days. Here is a 15-minute recording of John F. Kennedy, in the final days of his life, addressing Amherst College and speaking not only of Robert Frost but of the larger issue of politics, power and poetry.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/80308LXB5kOPFEJqkw5hlA.aspx

To cite the accompanying blurb:

Audio recording of President John F. Kennedy’s address during a ceremony at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. In his speech President Kennedy explains the importance of public service from educated citizens, and describes the role of an artist in society, noting Frost’s contributions to American arts, culture, and ideology. The President discusses the nature of strength and power, famously stating, “When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”

John F. Kennedy’s Address to the Irish Parliament

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

One thing leading to another, I was referred to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum site (http://www.jfklibrary.org/) which among other things contains transcripts and some recordings of various of his speeches. This one, delivered in that last splendid summer of his life, when so many things came to culmination, is a good example of John F. Kennedy as an orator. Not one of his masterpieces; not a particularly great occasion, and you can see the professional speechwriter’s touch throughout — but if you are old enough to remember, it does bring it back. To hear rather than read the speech, go to http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/lPAi7jx2s0i7kePPdJnUXA.aspx

Continue reading John F. Kennedy’s Address to the Irish Parliament

Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future

This TED talk  is the ultimate answer to the people who think the past is dismal, the present is dismal, and the  future is  hopeless.

Peter Diamandis runs the X Prize Foundation, which gives rich cash awards to  inventors and engineers. The X Prize’s first $10 million went to a space-themed challenge. Diamandas’ goal now is to extend the prize into health care, social policy, education and many other fields that could use a dose of competitive innovation.

Now that you know who he is, listen to his irrefutable analysis of what’s going on around us.

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_abundance_is_our_future.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2012-03-02&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

 

Enigma

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

 

Iapetus-Color-High-Res-s

For some time now, I have had this photograph as wallpaper on my computer, just so I wouldn’t forget. Looking at it, what would you say it is? If you didn’t know that it was a planet or satellite, would it really look like one? Look — really look — at that shape. Look at the weirdly symmetrical pockmarks. Does any of that look natural? Or does it look artificial? Does it not, in fact, look like an artificially constructed or extensively modified world?

I found this on Richard Hoagland’s Enterprise Mission website, part of his fascinating several-part series on the mysteries of Iapetus, one of the moons of Saturn.

Say it isn’t artificial. Then what makes it look like that??? It looks, for all the world, like something Buckminster Fuller would have constructed if he had had the technology available.

 

S.C. Exhibit highlights Hemingway prose

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Original article at http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/dec/18/exhibit-highlights-hemingway-prose/

Exhibit highlights Hemingway prose

BY BRIAN HICKS

bhicks@postandcourier.com

Sunday, December 18, 2011

In the spring of 1935, Ernest Hemingway was lamenting the placement of his home on a list of Key West tourist attractions.

His regular Esquire magazine column was devoted to his tongue-in-cheek protest that he had no desire to compete with the Turtle Crawls (No. 3 on the map), the open-air aquarium (No. 9) or the Sponge Lofts (No. 13).

“Yet there your correspondent is at number 18 between Johnson’s Tropical Grove (number 17) and the Lighthouse and Aviaries (number 19),” Hemingway wrote. “This is all very flattering to the easily bloated ego of your correspondent but very hard on production.”

The idea of Hemingway actually writing must have seemed a curious concept to readers of the day.

Continue reading S.C. Exhibit highlights Hemingway prose

Graham Hancock – It is written in stone

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

My friend Larry Giannou sent me this link to Graham Hancock’s presentation given to the 2012 Tipping Point Prophets Conference with the comment, “Thought you might enjoy this” — He was so right!

I had the pleasure of listening to Hancock, Robert Bauval, Colin Wilson, John Anthony West, Rand Flem-Ath and others in 1995, at a conference called Return to the Source. And I have for years been an interested and indeed impatient observer of the process of trying to get what has been called Forbidden Archaeology into the mainstream.

Watch this one and a half hour presentation and two things will likely happen. 1) You’ll be fascinated, and 2) you’ll start looking for more on the subject, which these days (courtesy of the Internet) is easier than ever to find.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4k8pdJ2so4&feature=player_embedded#at=199

Tapping into the net — revisited

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Reader Dave Stephens posted a long reply to my “Tapping Into the Cosmic Internet” entry, and  asked questions that were sufficiently interesting that I asked, and got, his permission to post them here as a separate post, since not everybody reads the comments people send.

I started to reply, then realized that I didn’t know what to say. Of course, the obvious answer was to let the guys speak for themselves, so that’s what I will do, with my initial comments inserted within brackets [like this], and theirs at the end.

Continue reading Tapping into the net — revisited