To the Hunters
May we be blunt?
You try to impress, with what you have hunted
But the whole thing reeks of personalities, stunted
Branched like antlers from the banks
The same folks will choose to send in the tanks
Thru the snow, they follow the deer tracks
The next that you know, it is war in Iraq
Clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs,
Nothing but little boys, with something to prove
They taunt as "sissies", vegetarians who disapprove
They dehumanize enemies, call them "camel snot"
With a magic bullet, they bring an end to Camelot
The rough men always win, with the secret plot
So it seems, for a while. You know that time
will erase those sadistic smiles.
Grinning in camera pictures,
capturing the Kodak moment with photography
Displaying their trophies like snuff pornography
Of their own heroism, they give constant reminders
How brave they were, to stick their heads into meat-grinders
Deep instincts, as meaningless as a war
between red and black ants
Why do they feel so special?
10 year-old girls with guns
could take down Marine sergeants
The toughness is an illusion of psychology
The testosterone is outdone by technology
The pretense becomes rather difficult to maintain-
Six hundred thousand of the toughest men
could incinerate in an instant, like a paper doll chain
The men with taste for venison
Will eat their own children
and murder Alfred Lord Tennyson
==========================================
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/moseley5.html
After a while, Tennyson (it's the done thing to veil
characters, counties, and towns in hunting literature)
asked whether I was not, 'in the words of Radio Four
presenters [our State-owned news station] pandering
to the upper-middle classes in their desire
to constantly improve their children?'
I told Tennyson that he should be proud of
his education and of his parents for being
so responsible. He seemed rather refreshed
by the conversation we were having,
and on we walked in search of Hern,
our huntsman, and the fading echoes
of the hounds' music somewhere over
the horizon and another hedge-line.
Returning home though, I checked the news and discovered
that the government has new plans for our universities.
Guess what? The State controls most of our
higher educational institutions.
At the higher levels of academia and of human thought,
we find the big fat plodding Jabba the Hutt of the State
(Needless to say, but the same education 'specialists'
are also vehemently deprecating of any teachers
or pupils who hunt.)
But we mustn't assume Cambridge only produces socialists:
both Tennyson and Houseman, my fellow hunt-followers
are Cambridge chaps. And it has its own beagle pack.
In the face of escalating interference, is it any wonder
that many people I speak to on the hunting fields and off
- poor and rich - are seriously considering migrating
from this enfettered isle? A neighbour has left for
Spain. Another couple are seriously considering France
==========================================
11. hunting trivia - Learn English bytes
- British Council
...of the chase,/ We hunt them for the
beauty of their skins. Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
People never lie so much as after a hunt,
during a war or...
www.learnenglish.org.uk/trivia/hunting_trivia_arch...
Found on Ask Jeeves]
===========================================
http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/dfw.htm
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON'S POETRY
Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.
Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,
And trumpets blown for wars;
And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs;
And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries;
And forms that pass'd at windows and on roofs
Of marble palaces;
Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;
Lances in ambush set;
All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought
Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep
Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd, and brought
Into the gulfs of sleep.
I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,
One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd;
A queen, with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:
'I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd
All moods. 'Tis long since I have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made
'The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humour ebb and flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood:
That makes my only woe.
'Nay-yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony?
'The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime
On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God:
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod.
I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever!-lying robed and crown'd,
Worthy a Roman spouse.'
The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,
Far-heard beneath the moon.
'The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine.'
My God, my land, my father-these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.
'And I went mourning, "No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers"-emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,
'Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
Beneath the battled tower.
With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.
Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France*
=========================================
* philosophical footnote:
I started scanning down this poem, which I had
not read before, cutting-and-pasting sections as
I went, confident that it would help me to make my
point, somehow, but then I wasn't so sure. What the
hell is Tennyson talking about, anyway? Something about
wars, something about Caesar, saying something about a queen,
something about Israel and Hebrews, something
about France, something about death and weird dreams.
The whole thing sounds crazy to me.
Maybe that *is* what he is trying to say. Life is
a weird dream, something to do with Israel and
France and gay people.
Let us run with the spirit of the Hunt,
like Tennyson in tennis shoes.
==========================================
40. Gay Descendant of Lord Alfred Tennyson Killed
British police are investigating the murder of Hallam Tennyson,
the great-grandson of classic British poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson.
Tennyson, an openly gay peace activist, was stabbed to deat...
gaylife.about.com/b/a/230276.htm [Found on About]
------------------------------------------------------------------
1. The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Deer Hunter (1978) is storywriter/producer/director
Michael Cimino's epic ... I mean, is that some
faggot soundin' bulls--t or is that some faggot. ...
www.filmsite.org/deer.html
[Found on Google, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search]
Affronted and recklessly waving his small hand-gun,
the sniveling Stanley insults Michael (who has his
rifle poised on his knee), denigrating his masculinity
and inferring that he is homosexual:
I fixed you up a million times. I fixed him up
a million times. I don't know how many times
I must have fixed him up with girls.
And nothing ever happens. Zero...Nobody ever knows
what the f--k you're talkin' about. Huh?
'This is this.' What the hell is that supposed
to mean? 'This is this.' I mean, is that some
faggot soundin' bulls--t or is that some faggot...
There's times I swear I think you're a f--kin'
faggot...Last week, he could have had that new
red-headed waitress...He could have had it knocked.
And look what he did. Look what he f--kin' did. Nothin'.
A chorus of chanting, monastic voices plays
on the soundtrack as orange-jacketed Michael
ascends into the revered mountains -
readied for his religious, holy rite of hunting.
On a rocky ridge, The Deerhunter spots his quarry -
a towering buck with a full head of antlers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4555380.stm
Poet's great-grandson is murdered
The great-grandson of Victorian Poet Laureate Alfred Lord
Tennyson has been found stabbed to death in his flat. Police
were called to the home of Hallam Tennyson in Crouch End, north
London on Wednesday, where they found the 85-year-old collapsed
in his bed.
Results of a post-mortem examination revealed the cause of death
was stab wounds to the neck.
Mr Tennyson, who was gay, was found by a former partner who
lived in the same house.
'Brutal attack'
Detectives say they want to find out about retired BBC executive
Mr Tennyson's last movements. They are expected to interview his
former boyfriends.
Detective Chief Inspector Tony Nash said: "This was a brutal
attack on an elderly and vulnerable man.
He is not thought to have been the victim of a robber as nothing
was stolen from his flat.
Mr Tennyson, who was married for 20 years and had two children,
wrote a biography, A Haunted Mind, in 1984
---------------------------------------------------------
http://poeticportal.net/RSTU_poets/Tennyson.html
Words from Queen Victoria upon hearing of his death:
"A fine morning-I heard that dear
old Lord Tennyson had breathed his last,
a great national loss. He was a great poet,
and his ideas were ever grand, noble, elevating.
He was very loyal and always very kind and
sympathizing to me, quite remarkably so.
What beautiful lines he wrote to me for
my darling Albert, and for my children
and Eddy. He died with his hand on his Shakespeare,
and the moon shining full into the window,
and over him. A worthy end to such
a remarkable man."
-----------------------------------------------------------
5. The JFK Assassination Context -- The Suspects
Did President Kennedy Plan on Splintering the CIA?"
E. Howard Hunt and Frank
... any president who took office at
the abrupt and violent end of Camelot. ...
mcadams.posc.mu.edu/context5.htm
[Found on Google, Yahoo! Search]
-----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/idyl-grl.htm
THE HOLY GRAIL, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
From Camelot, there, and not long after, died.
For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound
As of a silver horn from o'er the hills
Blown, and I thought, "It is not Arthur's use
To hunt by moonlight;" and the slender sound
As from a distance beyond distance grew
Coming upon me--O never harp nor horn,
Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand,
Was like that music as it came; and then
Streamed through my cell a cold and silver beam,
And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,
Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive,
Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed
With rosy colours leaping on the wall;
And then the music faded, and the Grail
Past, and the beam decayed, and from the walls
The rosy quiverings died into the night.
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://poeticportal.net/poets.htm
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabering the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
=====================================
57. Nuclear Terrorism - Book Reviews - Newsweek
As Graham Allison tells the story, the government
took the warning so seriously that it sent
bomb hunters from its supersecret
Nuclear Emergency Support Teams into New ...
www.nuclearterror.org/newsweek.html
[Found on MSN Search]
=====================================
"People never lie so much as after a hunt,
during a war or before an election."
- Otto von Bismarck
-------------------------------------------------------------
Poet's Postscript
It is not that I do not understand the hunter's
ethic or the hunter's aesthetic. I know of the
allure.
I have Republican brother with a Christian-conservative
wife. Nice people, but living in world where the only
available source of information is their own propaganda.
Thinking themselves to be the best people, to such
a degree that they cannot see the most obvious things
that are wrong with their approach.
My nephews bragged proudly about killing their
first deer, hunting with their maternal grandfather.
I bite my tongue, and say politely, "That is nice".
They also brag about volunteering to work for
the Bush campaign, and brag about getting 11-12
broken bones apiece, in schools sports. One brags
about getting a cracked vertebra, like this is proof
of manliness.
It all goes hand-in-hand.
What can you say? "You young fool, you are
flirting with paralysis, for a meaningless kids-game
that contributes nothing of real value to this world,
just because you get a rush out of feeling that
you are superior to some other bunch of obnoxious
kids that share the same, misguided priorities."
I am reminded of something that I read recently,
about some Indian children who were not adapting
well, and the author saying that this was because they
were natural hunters who were forced to live in
an agrarian culture.
I hear them. I would not blame anyone for their
instincts. However, "instinct" does not equate
to "good thing". It does not validate the worth
of a feeling, just because it seems to be
an instinctive one. We think too much of
Nature's "wisdom". Sometimes, our own instincts
can be our worst enemies.
Squeamishness is a good thing to suppress, if it
is hindering survival. That is not the situation that
we have, these days. We do not face of problem
of needing to hunt for food, spear the fish.
We have a problem of the fish being depleted
from the oceans. Instincts and habits are at
direct odds with needs.
Fearless in war might have been a great
thing in the Trojan War, or War of 1812.
It does not work, in an age where weapons
of mass destruction are becoming a commodity.
It is that other kind of Indian value that we
really need to survive- respecting nature, balance
with nature.
The mentality of hunters will be at odds
with doing that, even if they try to blather
and propagandize that they respect animals
or nature.
We are in urgent need of the arts of diplomacy
and compromise, which will make the hunters
hiss and boo, you notice, at the very mention
They will consider such talk to be "weak".
They will flaunt their hatred.
They are not dealing with rationality.
They will lead to massive death, not become
the undisputed rulers of the world, as they
fantasize.
Everything that they say and do has at its core
a lack of empathy for other living things.
They protest gun control, because
they view life from the perspective of the man
firing the gun, not the perspective of one
of God's creature being hit by the gun,
for whom they could not care. They will
demonize their victims, to justify their abuse
of them.
Seneca said something about that. It is part
of the game. Of course, you have to hate
and smear those whom you wrong. Otherwise,
you would have to realize that you have been a
bastard, are being a bastard, and are proudly
determined to continue being a bastard.
They do not care about 30,000 civilian deaths
in Iraq. They do not care about the grievances
of deeply abused minorities. They do not care
about the environment, or conserving.
They confuse toughness with meanness.
They think that this is helping them to
survive, when it is what is killing them.
The days when you can have a great
war, with bodies all over the fields,
but at least with someone coming out on top,
and enjoying victory, are gone. If the war
is a real one, and not a pretend-war
like Iraq, then everyone loses. Getting
into it is either death-wish or religious
delusion.
I would not try to argue an issue of
pure value. I do not believe that it means
anything to say that the hunter ethic/aesthetic
is "right" or "wrong". It is just a matter
of how individuals feel about it. You just
stand up and be counted for how you feel.
It is not a feeling backed by any
higher standard, religious deity, or logical
principle.
What I would argue is the rational end
of it. People who hunt think that they
are more manly and more righteousness
than those who don't. That is absurd.
All men are blood-filled balloons in a
world full of hatpins. I've watched hunter-type
personalities, roughneck types,
grow old and get sick, far too young,
from their own lives of irresponsibility.
They went from being young
and muscular to bloated, blotched, sickly,
so repulsive to look at, that you would not want
to be in same room.
It is mostly irony to think that such people
ever had the delusion that they knew how
to "take care of themselves". You don't even
need to do anything to them, to have a battle
or fight, at all- they just fall apart, on their
own, in very short order. Where is the
protection, the defense in having the gun?
I imagine a country, too, waking up to
find itself bloated, blotched, sick, weak-
its bravado no longer convincing. It does not
have to be that way.
There is no such thing as "toughness" in this world.
If there is, it is men in lab coats who are tough,
not men in battle fatigues.
There is a 4000 year-old game, called "Go"
that has sometimes been studied as a discipline
for military strategists.
It is a sportsman-like game, many rules to
constitute politeness and respect between
adversaries. If one side is known to be
weaker than the other, it is customary to give
handicaps of varying degrees, until it is
approximately even.
That is another point about hunting. Where is
the sport? How is it "tough" to use a far superior
weapon against a defenseless animal? A fair
fight would be where the man has 50% chance
of killing the deer, and the deer has a 50% chance
of killing the man/
Could you imagine the United States making a
challenge to Iraq, or Al Quaeda: To keep from having
larger conflict, we will settle it by sending in 100 of
of our toughest Marines. You will send in 100 of
your toughest fighters. They will have equal
weapons. If we win, you agree to the peaceful
occupation of Iraq. If you win, we agree to the
peacefully accede to your occupation of the United
States.
This way, we spare all the expense, all the
destruction, all the civilian deaths.
Wouldn't our religious leaders be convinced that
God would favor the side whose beliefs most
closely agreed with God's will? If God favors
an outcome, why fear a fully even fight?
Not on your life. It is laughable even to think of
a truly even, fair fight. It is really more akin to
a 190 pound, 28 year-old man having a fight with
a 10 year-old girl, and feeling very tough and
proud of himself for knocking her teeth out,
laughing all the way as he does so.
Bravery or cowardice? A show of strength, or weakness?
Vice-President Cheney's ridiculous fiasco demonstrates
the Law of Unintended Consequences. As I said,
even a 10 year-old girl with a gun can blow
away the toughest of Marine sergeants.
All is illusion. All is vanity. Picking a fight
with a 10 year-old just might be the death of
you, when you assume too much.
Toughness isn't just an attribute of wealthy
Republican males. Ten year-old girls can
also be very tough. I never cease to be amazed
at the fearlessness of 10 year-old girls.
A war in Iraq can go as badly astray as
a hunting trip, only the something much more
serious than some buckshot in the behind of
a partner. Same mentality behind it.
Potentially similar outcome.
I would not be one to say never to fight. The point
is to have it guided by rationality, not by
little-boy, chip-on-shoulder, hate-laced, something-to-prove,
delusions of immortality, or by pretended altruism
that masks greedy self-interest.
Tom Keske
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