What is Poverty?

Scattering of Authority

My old discussion about the Empire Superstructure has come back to me during a presentation about heterarchy. Yes, it is what it sounds like. I am now quite enamored of the idea. What was not discussed during the lecture is how the nature of power shifts. Some actors have a monopoly on power or advice during only a few given points. These times of power can change by the day. I wonder if we can therefore conceive of the international system as being a half-ordered, constantly-shifting system of governance. We'd better hope so, because there are things that we need each other for.

At the end of the lecture on hetarchy, I wrote in my notebook that hetarchy was, quite simply, a quantum theory of non-power-endpoint (shifting) international organization with a focus on the absolute necessity of superordination. Let's be honest: There is probably someone or something that can do Job X better than I or my organization can. Perhaps we would be well off to apply the model to the micro scale, too, like in cities and stuff. Or families.

Or friends.

Sleeping In

The plan: Wake up at 3 a.m. MST. Get showered and finish packing the few things left outside my bags. Eat the rest of my bread, a banana, and some ricecakes. Spend 20 minutes worrying about what I'm leaving behind. Head out to the bus stop and catch the 15 - Billings at 4:28. Head to Billings and hop the AT to DIA at 5:23. Disembark and head to Airtran's counter, pick up my ticket, fly to Atlanta for a 4-hour layover, then continue on to Reagan International to land at 6 p.m. and hop the Metro to DC-NW.

The reality: Wake up at 3:54 a.m. MST. Scramble madly to get cleaned. Forgo the bread. Crumble the ricecakes and stuff them down the throat with banana. Scramble more madly. Pack everything in a rush and spend 3 minutes worrying about what I'm leaving behind. Catch the 4:28 bus. Catch the 5:23 bus. Try to retrieve my e-ticket. Nothing works. Just about to ask for help when I realize that I'm trying to check in at USAirways. Stomp down to Airtran and pick up my boarding pass and my transfer...to Dulles International. That's right, I bought a ticket to the wrong airport. Land in Atlanta, ask to fly standby and hop on the next one out, thus saving myself the layover in the tornado-prone capital of our peach-state and putting me on the Mall at 3:45 p.m., with enough time to visit the Hirshhorn Museum, grab some Indian food (way-overpriced), and still make it to Dupont Circle with many minutes to spare.

And so it is.

Emelius Browne's College of Witchcraft pt. 2

Seriously, the accordion work in that song is great. Call it a squeezebox, call it a concertina or a flutina, but the thing has got a real sound to it, doesn't it?

YEAH! ACCORDION!

Emelius Browne's College of Witchcraft

I was meandering my way through London a few years ago and had the great fortune of visiting a place that had up until then only existed in my head and on VHS. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the 1971 Disney musical based on Mary Norton's book, had been an oft-viewed part of my childhood. It had just the right mix of fantasy (in the form of animated suits of armor) and historical something-or-other (in the form of a foiled Nazi invasion of England). I really dug watching it.

The characters in the film find themselves on London's Portobello Road, searching for magical books. I'm not sure why that's italicized; it just seemed right. Portobello Road is a huge antique market, with all kinds of cool stuff to be had. While there, I bought my mom some cool old-as-hell spinning bobbins. The Portobello Road of Bedknobs and Broomsticks was a far more fantastic place than the English flea market that I encountered, but it was rewarding nonetheless. Fabulous stuff, really.




I leave you with the text of the song and dance number:

"Portobello Road" - Robert and Richard Sherman

Portobello road, Portobello road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road.
You'll find what you want in the Portobello road.

Rare alabaster? Genuine plaster!
A filigreed samovar owned by the czars.
A pen used by Shelley? A new Boticelli?
The snipper that clipped old King Edward's cigars?

"Made in Hong Kong? Two bob a dozen, would you say?"

Waterford Crystals? Napoleon's pistols?
Society heirlooms with genuine gems!
Rembrandts! El Greco's! Toulouse-Letrec'os!
Painted last week on the banks of the Thames!

Portobello road, Portobello road!
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Anything and everything a chap can unload
Is sold off the barrow in Portobello road.
You'll meet all your chums in the Portobello road

There's pure inspiration in every creation.
No cheap imitations, not here in me store.
With garments as such as was owned by a Duchess.
Just once at some royal occasion of yore.

In Portobello Road, Portobello Road
The fancies and fineries of ages are showed.
A lady will always feel dressed a la mode
In frillies she finds in the Portobello road.

"Burke's Peerage;" "The Bride Book;" "The Fishmonger's Guidebook;"
A Victorian novel, "The Unwanted Son;"
"The History of Potting", "The Yearbook of Yachting,"
The leather bound "Life of Attila the Hun."

Portobello Road, Portobello Road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Artifacts to glorify our regal abode
Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello Road
You'll find what you want in the Portobello Road

Tokens and treasures, yesterday's pleasures
Cheap imitations of heirlooms of old
Dented and tarnished, scarred and unvarnished
In old Portobello they're bought and they're sold

Portobello Road, Portobello Road
Street where the riches of ages are stowed
Artifacts to glorify our regal abode
Are hidden in the flotsam in Portobello road.
You'll find what you want in the Portobello Road

Ανάργυροι

The title of this post is Ανάργυροι. In Roman letters, it's anargyroi. We are presented with the root of arg, which near as I can make sense of, relates to silver. The an on the front of it denotes a negative, or withoutness. The bit at the end, oi, means that we're talking about a group of something that relates directly to the silver-root.

Anargyroi - Those without silver

It's an old title for Saints Cosmas and Damian, who refused payment for their work in healthcare. They brought healing and solace and asked for nothing in return. How nice. Good piece from Matthew 10:8.

Δωρεάν ελάβετε, δωρεάν δότε - Freely ye have received; freely give.



Here's a cheerful picture of Cosmas and Damian
getting beheaded for espousing socialist health
policy.

Iblis

I really do prefer to use the name "Lucifer" when referring to the Prince of Darkness. It has such a sinuous ring to it:

LOOS-IH-FUR

For being the "epicenter of evil," the name itself means "light-bringer." The name Lucy is directly related. In the original Greek, it's heosphoros, or herperus, or Ἓσπερος, which translates to "dawn-bearer." Can we then assume that Lucifer is so named because he brings light, and why would that be a bad thing? The obvious correlation is with Prometheus, who brought the "gift" of fire, and thusly, civilization, to ancient man. Did bringing light, i.e. civilization, technology, modernism, etc. to the world cheapen it? This is a question best left to others.

I prefer to view Lucifer not so much as the "bad guy," but as something more approaching the following story, retold with great care by the late, awesome Joseph Campbell:

One of the most amazing images of love that I know is Persian – a mystical Persian representation as Satan as the most loyal lover of God. You will have heard the old legend of how, when God created the angels, he commanded them to pay worship to no one but himself; but then, creating man, he commanded them to bow in reverence to this most noble of his works, and Lucifer refused – because, we are told, of his pride. However, according to this Muslim reading of his case, it was rather because he loved and adored God so deeply and intensely that he could not bring himself to bow before anything else, and because he refused to bow down to something that was of less superiority than him. (Since he was made of fire, and man from clay.) And it was for that that he was flung into Hell, condemned to exist there forever, apart from his love.

What a sad tale. I can see Lucifer's attorney (of course, lawyers) pleading his case, "His only crime was that he loved too much!" Whatever the case, it's all complicated by the cultural baggage that certain names carry. I could never get away with naming my child Lucifer (light-bringer), or even Damian (old saint of free medical care).

The name of Lucifer is sullied because of its association with ineffable evil, Damian with an evil little kid in those Omen movies.