Poetry Friday

I was going to write a longer post on Du Fu and the China of the Tang Dynasty, but, alas I could not get the mojo going. I am off to school. We will leave that to another day, and instead post a poem and some great links.

Here is one of his most famous, Ballad of the Ancient Cypress, a poem recited by then poet laureate Robert Pinsky on the occasion of President Clinton's visit to China:

Before Kongming's shrine stands an ancient cypress,
Its branches are like green bronze, its roots just like stone.
The frosted bark, slippery with rain, is forty spans around,
Its blackness blends into the sky two thousand feet above.
Master and servant have each already reached their time's end,
The tree, however, still remains, receiving men's devotion.
Clouds come and bring the air of Wuxia gorge's vastness,
The moon comes out, along with the cold of snowy mountain whiteness.

I think back to the winding road, east of Brocade Pavilion,
Where the military master and his lord of old share a hidden temple.
Towering that trunk, those branches, on the ancient plain,
Hidden paintings, red and black, doors and windows empty.
Spreading wide, coiling down, though it holds the earth,
In the dim and distant heights are many violent winds.
That which gives it its support must be heaven's strength,
The reason for its uprightness, the creator's skill.

If a great hall should teeter, wanting rafters and beams,
Ten thousand oxen would turn their heads towards its mountain's weight.
Its potential unrevealed, the world's already amazed,
Nothing would stop it being felled, but what man could handle it?
Its bitter heart cannot avoid the entry of the ants,
Its fragrant leaves have always given shelter to the phoenix.
Ambitious scholars, reclusive hermits- neither needs to sigh;
Always it's the greatest timber that's hardest to put to use.

Here is a link to the poem in Chinese, in transliteration, and in another English translation.
Here is another poem.
And here is an interesting essay on some nuts and bolts of Chinese poetry.

Enjoy!

Is this really a surprise?

For years we've known that alcohol is neuro-toxic. Now a big, systematic review of the research literature suggests that pot smoking is not nearly as dangerous to brain development as drinking. Whatever one thinks of marijuana, the physical evidence of the dangers of youth drinking is clear: significant structural and cognitive effects are noted in subjects who consume as little as 20 drinks per month, "especially if 4-5 drinks are consumed on a single occasion", for a period of 1 to 2 years.

A kid who has 4-5 drinks on most Saturday nights is damaging his brain in perhaps lasting ways.

Wednesday Morning Contrarian

Here are few quick items that pick up on themes from the past few weeks:

Prison Reform is moving front and center. Senator Jim Webb is moving a comprehensive plan forward:

Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.

"After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff," Webb told the Huffington Post. "I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it."

Nat Hentoff, whose years of writing in the Village Voice brought Jazz and the First Ammendment firmly into my orbit, is not happy with our new president. He dings Obama pretty good:

The "education president" remained silent when his congressional Democrats essentially killed the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) in the city where he now lives and works.

Of the 1,700 students, starting in kindergarten, in this private-school voucher program, 90 percent are black and 9 percent are Hispanic.

Worth reading, definitely. Especially for Obama-fans. I read this in the Intelligencer yesterday, but the link is to the Cato Institute, the main think-tank for Libertarianism. Vouchers have interesting implications for TAS. I support them, but I don't think they would help us all that much.

Give Big Pharma a little love.

From the American Enterprise Institute, a little balance for this blog, and a little pushback to the Lancet:

...we find a piece summarizing what is now known about the genetic, molecular, and environmental drivers of rheumatoid arthritis and how this knowledge is translating into numerous beneficial therapies and revolutionizing clinical practice. It features a series of innovative drugs, introduced in the past decade, that have changed the face of this disease from one of inescapable disability to one with effective preventive and treatment strategies.

We should remember that modern life is might more dependent on modern drugs than any other single thing.