Sunday, August 14, 2011

The Ages of American Law

The Ages of American Law

"Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society....
The better the society, the less law there will be.
In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb....
The worse the society, the more law there will be.
In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed."

Grant Gilmore
The Ages of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 110-111.

In Search of the Primitive

The Rule of Law versus the Order of Custom

In Search of the Primitive

"... We live in a law-ridden society;
law has cannibalized the institutions which it presumably reinforces or with which it interacts....
[W]e are encouraged to assume that legal behavior is the measure of moral behavior....
Efforts to legislate conscience by an external political power are the antithesis of custom:
customary behavior comprises precisely those aspects of social behavior which are traditional,
moral and religious--
in short,
conventional and nonlegal.
Put another way, custom is social morality,
the relation between custom and law is basically one of contradiction, not continuity.
"Thus, law is symptomatic of the emergence of the state. ...
Custom--
spontaneous, traditional, personal, commonly known, corporate, relatively unchanging--
is the modality of primitive society;
law is the instrument of civilization,
of political society sanctioned by organized force,
presumably above society at large and buttressing a new set of social interests.
Law and custom both involve the regulation of behavior
but their characters are entirely distinct...."

Diamond, Stanley,
in
"The Rule of Law versus the Order of Custom,"
in
In Search of the Primitive [Transaction Publishers, 1981];
also in Bonsignore, et al., Before The Law, Fifth editon [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994]

Friday, August 12, 2011

"Protected by Saturn, Planet of Silence, I am the soldier of destruction and rebirth. I am Sailor Saturn." - Sailor Saturn

The Alan Parsons Project Eye in the Sky

I can read your mind looking at you




Inspired by
Alan Parsons Project
for
a student of Protean thought

Eye in the Sky

Eye In The Sky

Eric Woolfson Alan Parsons
with Alan Parsons Project
sung by Eric Woolfson

Don't think sorry's easily said
Don't try turning tables instead
You've taken lots of chances before
But I ain't gonna give any more
Don't ask me
That's how it goes
Cause part of me knows what you're thinkin'

Don't say words you're gonna regret
Don't let the fire rush to your head
I've heard the accusation before
And I ain't gonna take any more
Believe me
The sun in your Eyes
Made some of the lies worth believing

chorus
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you, I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools, I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more to know that
I can read your mind looking at you
I can read your mind looking at you
I can read your mind looking at you
I can read your mind

Don't leave false illusions behind
Don't cry, I ain't changing my mind
So find another fool like before
Cause I ain't gonna live anymore believing
Some of the lies while
all of the signs are deceiving

chorus

instrumental

chorus

Eye In The Sky released 1982 by Arista

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Poppy Popo- Backstory

March 31, 2006
Notes from the Pentagon
Unrestricted warfare
Poppy season
Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, the new top U.S. officer in Afghanistan,
offered this picture of the heroin trade there:
 
"You have a confluence in Helmand of criminals and Taliban and poor farmers, and the poor farmers raise poppy because the Helmand River gives them a water source, the soil is good, and the climate is very good for growing poppy. And so they can produce a rather large amount of poppy with a very small investment of time and labor in their fields.
"That poppy then is produced by primarily narco-trafficking organizations that move it out of Helmand and into other parts of the country and then out of the country. And with the funding that they get, they then can provide money to primarily Taliban, not so much al Qaeda, in Helmand. They can provide funds to the Taliban to recruit fighters, to train fighters, to buy weapons and arms. And in many cases, some of the farmers are threatened by the Taliban to either continue to grow the poppy to generate the funds or face death."
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are Pentagon reporters.
Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
 
 

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

With a new breed of men sent down from heaven

Virgil - The Eclogues
Eclogue IV
For thee, O boy,
First shall the earth, untilled, pour freely forth
Her childish gifts, the gadding ivy-spray
With foxglove and Egyptian bean-flower mixed,
And laughing-eyed acanthus. Of themselves,
Untended, will the she-goats then bring home
Their udders swollen with milk, while flocks afield
Shall of the monstrous lion have no fear.
Thy very cradle shall pour forth for thee
Caressing flowers. The serpent too shall die,
Die shall the treacherous poison-plant, and far
And wide Assyrian spices spring. But soon
As thou hast skill to read of heroes' fame,
And of thy father's deeds, and inly learn
What virtue is, the plain by slow degrees
With waving corn-crops shall to golden grow,
From the wild briar shall hang the blushing grape,
And stubborn oaks sweat honey-dew. Nathless
Yet shall there lurk within of ancient wrong
Some traces, bidding tempt the deep with ships,
Gird towns with walls, with furrows cleave the earth.
Therewith a second Tiphys shall there be,
Her hero-freight a second Argo bear;
New wars too shall arise, and once again
Some great Achilles to some Troy be sent.
Then, when the mellowing years have made thee man,
No more shall mariner sail, nor pine-tree bark
Ply traffic on the sea, but every land
Shall all things bear alike: the glebe no more
Shall feel the harrow's grip, nor vine the hook;
The sturdy ploughman shall loose yoke from steer,
Nor wool with varying colours learn to lie;
But in the meadows shall the ram himself,
Now with soft flush of purple, now with tint
Of yellow saffron, teach his fleece to shine.
While clothed in natural scarlet graze the lambs.
"Such still, such ages weave ye, as ye run,"
Sang to their spindles the consenting Fates
By Destiny's unalterable decree.
Assume thy greatness, for the time draws nigh,
Dear child of gods, great progeny of Jove!
See how it totters- the world's orbed might,
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vault profound,
All, see, enraptured of the coming time!
Ah! might such length of days to me be given,
And breath suffice me to rehearse thy deeds,
Nor Thracian Orpheus should out-sing me then,
Nor Linus, though his mother this, and that
His sire should aid- Orpheus Calliope,
And Linus fair Apollo. Nay, though Pan,
With Arcady for judge, my claim contest,
With Arcady for judge great Pan himself
Should own him foiled, and from the field retire.
Begin to greet thy mother with a smile,
O baby-boy! ten months of weariness
For thee she bore: O baby-boy, begin!
For him, on whom his parents have not smiled,
Gods deem not worthy of their board or bed.

 
37 B.C.E

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Kepler, His Mysterium Cosmographicum, The Kube



"Now the Virgin returns,
the reign of Saturn returns,
now a new generation descends from heaven on high.
Only do thou, pure Lucina, smile on the birth If the child,
under whom the iron brood shall first cease,
and a golden race spring up throughout the world!"
The return of the Golden Age upon the rule of Saturn
-Virgil in his famous Fourth Eclogue


Inspired by the work of-
Ivar Nielsen Natural Philosopher
Baltic Island of Bornholm, Denmark