Alan Jacobs

portraitoftheartistasayoungman:

I have spent only three days here so far,
and have been gut-sick the entire time,
but I’ve managed to write three poems
I think I can live with, poems about living
and the other option. I hope I can live
with them. Besieged by adversities, I give
Praise to Somebody for sweet verse’s
irresistible remedies, and so much more.
What more can an invalid ask for?
A fourth poem, you ask? Well, here it is.
At least let’s praise art’s ancient deities.
While Euripides staged tragedies in Athens,
raging reminders of our sad entanglements,
these Pan-foot gods were making merry,
cavorting in their floral dances, alive forever,
plagueless in the wide fields of Arcady.

[Books and Culture]

[gallery] drawingarchitecture:

Michelangelo LaTona, A Monument in Two Dimensions, 2015, Graphite, Ink, Paper, Mylar, Collage, Spray Paint, 18"x12"

The law requires that patients be referred for psychological examination if the doctor suspects they have depression or mental illness. But some doctors see suicide as a solution to suffering and depression as rational given patients’ circumstances. Last year only three of the 105 patients who died under the law were referred for a psychological exam.

A 2008 study published in the British Medical Journal examined 58 Oregonians who sought information on assisted suicide. Of them, 26% met the criteria for depressive disorder, and 22% for anxiety disorder. Three of the depressed individuals received and ingested the lethal drugs, dying within two months of being interviewed. The study’s authors concluded that Oregon’s law “may not adequately protect all mentally ill patients.”

Also concerning are the regular notices I receive indicating that many important services and drugs for my patients—even some pain medications—will not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. Yet physician-assisted suicide is covered by the state and our collective tax dollars. Supporters claim physician-assisted suicide gives patients choice, but what sort of a choice is it when life is expensive but death is free?

[gallery] Abu-Bakarr Mansaray, A Nuclear Mosquito From Hell (2004)

• In addition to measuring your ability to pay, as in the United States, the scores serve as a measure of political compliance. Among the things that will hurt a citizen’s score are posting political opinions without prior permission, or posting information that the regime does not like, such as about the Tienanmen Square massacre that the government carried out to hold on to power, or the Shanghai stock market collapse.

• It will hurt your score not only if you do these things, but if any of your friends do them. Imagine the social pressure against disobedience or dissent that this will create.

• Anybody can check anyone else’s score online. Among other things, this lets people find out which of their friends may be hurting their scores.

[gallery] This is worth buying if only for Garnette Cadogan’s moving, mournful, and yet hopeful essay on walking while black, especially in New York, “Black and Blue.” Full disclosure: I say this as a friend of Garnette’s who has moreover done some walking in New York with him. But trust me: that essay alone is worth the price of admission. And then as a bonus you get stories by David Mitchell, Alexander Hemon, Haruki Murakami — people like that.

Apparently, ISIS needs to do more than torture women and children and behead members of religious minorities in order to be considered newsworthy.

Blessed Are the Green of Heart

Walking is a way of connecting, of feeling our feet on the ground, a very ordinary and surprisingly spiritual thing. Author Kathleen Norris writes of its power in her small book The Quotidian Mysteries. Making the case that God is best known to us in simple, daily activities, she shares that walking is a kind of ‘poetic meter’ that 'originates in the bodily rhythm of arms and legs in motion’ and 'reflects the basic rhythms of creation.’ Another word for that rhythm, the rhythm of body, poetry, and creation, is prayer.

Ramsey’s solution? “Fellow Christians who are serious about their faith” should “think about getting a handgun permit.” He included a link to a state government Web site instructing residents on how they can acquire such a permit.

“The recent spike in mass shootings across the nation is truly troubling,” wrote Ramsey, the speaker of the Tennessee Senate. “Whether the perpetrators are motivated by aggressive secularism, jihadist extremism or racial supremacy, their targets remain the same: Christians and defenders of the West.”

He continued: “While this is not the time for widespread panic, it is a time to prepare.” Then, he added: “Our enemies are armed. We must do likewise.”