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A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: "we live" but "we survive",
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.
Horses are creatures who worship the earth as they gallop on feet of ivory.
Constrained by the wonder of dying and birth, the horses still run, they are free.
My body is merely the shell of my soul but the flesh must be given its due.
Like a pony that carries its rider back home, like an old friend that's tried and been true.
I had a vision of eagles and horses high on a ridge in a race with the wind.
Going higher and higher and faster and faster, on eagles and horses, I'm flying again.
Eagles inhabit the heavenly heights, they know neither limit nor bound.
They're the guardian angels of darkness and light, they see all and hear every sound.
My spirit will never be broken or caught for the soul is a free-flying thing.
Like an eagle that needs neither comfort nor thought to rise up on glorious wings.
I had a vision of eagles and horses high on a ridge in a race with the wind.
My body is merely the shell of my soul, but the flesh must be given its due.
Like a pony that carries its master back home, like an old friend that's tried and been true.
My spirit will never be broken or caught for the soul is a free-flying thing.
Like an eagle that needs neither comfort nor thought to rise up on glorious wings.
I had a vision of eagles and horses high on a ridge in a race with the wind.
http://louisville.edu/~kprayb01/WCQuote.html#A6
RELIGION and POLITICS
(NOTE: Fields' view of Christianity is best revealed in his devastating critique of the Bible, which comprises the whole of chapter five of Carlotta Monti's book W.C. Fields & Me.)
"To me, these biblical stories are just so many fish stories, and I'm not specifically referring to Jonah and the whale. I need indisputable proof of anything I'm asked to believe."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2116137.htm
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss climate change and the relationship between the two countries.
Mr Rudd is in Bali as part of Australia's delegation at the UN climate change conference.
He is under pressure to back an interim greenhouse gas reduction target of up to 40 per cent for developed countries and he has come under fire from green groups for resisting the moves.
After the meeting, Mr Rudd said he would set binding emissions targets after he received the results of Government-commissioned research, which is due to be finalised in July next year.
"I understand a lot of things are still being negotiated," he said.
"The first starting point, of course, is that we respect and accept the work of the scientists."
In contrast, Mr Yudhoyono says Indonesia accepts the greenhouse gas reduction target of up to 40 per cent by 2020.
Originally Posted by 2020hindsight
Cardinal Pell says in the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate the gods but today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
This is Linda Eder singing the hauntingly beautiful "I Never Knew His Name" from the musical by her husband, Frank Wildhorn, called "The Civil War".
Linda Eder - I Never Knew His Name
I never knew his nam
As he called to me
Pleading with his eyes
Suddenly so wise
Trying not to cry
Now he's gone and I
Never knew his name
I've seen his kind before
Rising to his fall
God, he was so young
Like a song half sung
Interrupted by
Someone just as shy,
Who never knew his name
The true cost of honor is suddenly too clear
It measures too full and dear
He always looks the same
Dressed in blue or gray
All the life he'll miss
Girls he'll never kiss
Things he'll never try
Unaware that I
Never knew his name
I never knew his name
Guess it's just as well
So I do my part
Hiding from my heart
Whispering goodbye
Thanking God that I
Never knew his name
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