Lincoln on the Art of Compromise

Michael Ramirez cartoon (click to enlarge)

"The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded."

--Abraham Lincoln

Another Utopian Fascist

image from Anders Breivik's video

Don't miss Michael Ledeen's insightful and provocative post on the mass slaughter in Norway, The Myths of Oslo:

"Anders Breivik’s demons did not drive him to attack Muslims, although there may have been some among his victims; his targets were his own people, those he called “traitors” for betraying the mythical West to the mythical global forces of Islam and Marxism. Quite a bizarre tapestry: A fight to the death among and within three spent forces which had already died."

Drift

Drifting thoughts passing through
or accumulating, the way petals
from shattered cherry blossoms do,
plentifully bunched, breezily high-flown,
a windfall that heaps and settles
along gutters, softening a kerbstone
edge, carpet rolls of flowers
thick as ashes, white and pink,
more numerous than your hours
alive, or thoughts still left to think.

--Roy Kelly
(2 July 2011, The Spectator)
Bodhidharma, woodblock print by Yoshitoshi, 1887

Noah

Not many movies I look forward to these days, but Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky's latest venture, Noah, based on the Bible myth of the ark, has the potential to be great. He's hired screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator) to work on his original script, and rumors are Christian Bale is being sought to play the lead.

Above and Below

Photo of Greece at night taken by NASA astronaut Douglas Wheelock aboard the International Space Station (click to enlarge). The god's-eye view looks enchanting and serene; little would you know that on the streets below there rages a Night of the Furies:

The Opposite of Courage

Guardian, 6/26: Taliban use girl, 8, as bomb mule in attack on Afghanistan police post
Afghanistan's interior ministry says girl died in blast after insurgents gave her a bag containing explosives.

It's happening in Pakistan as well:

Last week in Dir district in north-western Pakistan, police defused a bomb strapped to a nine-year-old girl who said she had been kidnapped in Peshawar then set off walking towards a checkpost.

"They told me: 'You keep on reciting Qu'ranic verses till you push the button," she said afterwards.