Walking with L. up to the pond then up the path where I went over my handlebars (aged 8) & so on past the local cemetery. A lorry is parked near the fence & two gardeners working at the lawns and verges. The cab door is open & loud Soul music can be heard reverberating off the gravestones. They're obviously either unaware of (or indifferent to) their surroundings. I joke with L. about playing The Grateful Dead & try to remember the exact phrase from Hamlet Act V.. It's the kind of thing that in years gone by would have fueled irate letters to the parish council. Now dog walkers walk on by. & who knows? Maybe the dead enjoy the music seeping through the soil.
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Two solutions to the Greek Debt Crisis proposed by belgianwaffle:
I.
That every billionaire & multi-millionaire submits to a 10 per cent emergency tax on the premise that no one can amass such vast wealth without committing some kind of illegal or injurious practice either intentionally or unintentionally. The money is then put in circulation to refloat the world economy. In return, the ugly rich will receive not financial but 'moral' interest - a warm glow of satisfaction from contributing to the Greater Good. (A reworking of Ruskin's concepts of 'illth' and 'wealth').
II.
That Greece calls in its long term (2,000 years plus) cultural debts: i.e. upon every literary, philosophic & artistic work that the world has used, enjoyed, purloined, destroyed. Everything, in short, that has contributed to the much vaunted world 'civilization'. & to go one step further, why not impose a linguistic levy: all Greek words which are employed in other languages on a daily basis either directly or etymologically derived - 'democracy' for starters - are subject to a nominal 'fee' (let's say 99 cents for the Eurozone following the iTunes download principle). That should mount up ...
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And this from Robert Duncan:
Since the dark, bitter, impassioned days of the First World War, even the words themselves - "beauty", "lad", or "boy" - have become uneasy words, smacking of the idealistic or the sentimental before what we call the Real, the pervading triumph of mercantile utilitarianism. The "architecture" of the utilitarian city is inspired by the display aesthetic of packaging and advertising art to put over shoddy goods, where a wealth of glass or cellophane, aluminum, copper, or gold paper facing takes over the city, presented in a poverty of imagination, housing the same old shoddy operations of whiskey, cigarette, or paper companies, and back of sell, the demand for profit and increase, the exploitation of mind and spirit to keep the rackets going, the economy of wage-slavery and armed forces; over all, the threat of impending collapse or disastrous war. We, too, in a hostile environment, taking out faith and home in our exile, live in creative crisis. (The H.D. Book, p.182-3)
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Post finished, he set the keyboard to one side. Next job (appropriately) off to the local dump.
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