The blog and contents of the entire greeklish.org site represent the personal views of the site's authors. The views expressed on these pages are the views of the authors alone and are not the views of our employers or of any organizations with which we are affiliated.
Copyrighted quotes and images obtained from third party web sites are used under the terms of Fair Use. Some materials used by greeklish.org are in the public domain.
Family photos are intended for viewing on this web site and should not be reproduced or used elsewhere without the permission of the owners and operators of greeklish.org.
I wrote an earlier draft of this short piece a couple of years ago for someone else’s blog. This conversation really happened and the memory of it makes me smile to this day.
One might accurately say I've always been something of an "enthusiast" when it comes to bugs and spiders. If I see something flying or crawling by, I might easily put any current business on hold to see what kind of excitement and intrigue the insect world has to offer. Such was the case one evening as I was enjoying some time in the back yard with our girls. I can't remember what exactly we were doing but at some point I became distracted by the site of a large group of anthills.
As I crouched down to inspect the teeming insect metropolis, our younger daughter (who was four years old at the time) walked over and joined me for a look. For a minute or so, we watched in silence as the ants scurried here and there. Eventually, my daughter asked in her soft, inquisitive kid voice: “Daddy, are those good ants?”
I was at something of a loss for a few seconds but after thinking on it, I eventually replied, "Well, they’re not Disney ants." Yeah...That was simply the best I could do at that particular moment. As luck would have it, she was relatively happy with my answer.
One of the few really bright spots in a long and difficult week back at the beginning of this month was my opportunity to spend a little down time reading The Trial of Lucullus, a short work byBertolt Brecht. The version that I read was from Volume Five of the Brecht: Collected Plays series (Vintage Books, 1972). After an extended period of searching for a good collection English translations of Brecht's works, I just happened on this volume at the huge Planned Parenthood book sale in November. Pure serendipity. According to the editor's notes for this particular volume, the Vintage Books version of the The Trial of Lucullus is a hybrid of the original 1939 radio play and the opera libretto version of 1951.
Like all of the other works I've read by Brecht thus far, The Trial of Lucullus is masterful. It is both thought-provoking and introspective, bearing the unmistakable mark of true artistic genius. Then again, I suspect all of Brecht's works could be described with similar language and sentiment.
As I read The Trial of Lucullus, I was struck time and again by the incredible similarities of the Roman General Lucullus and our soon-to-be ex-President George W. Bush. The mainstream press in America is starting to get a little sentimental towards our outgoing American Caesar, collectively musing that "W." might be coming around to realize the errors of his administration through the benefit of hindsight. But the truth of the matter is, the unabashed bravado with which Bush has led the U.S. through an eight-year campaign of rack and ruin is just cleverly tucked away under a thin veil of humility:
"The thing that's important for me is to get home and look in that mirror and say, 'I did not compromise my principles,'" he said. "And I didn't. I made tough calls. And some presidencies have got a lot of tough decisions to make."
Of course, this statement was made after five years of an unjust war which has seen the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including workers and activists, women and children, individuals...and entire families. And most of them were slaughtered after Bush's May 1, 2003 address in which he declared an end to major combat operations with the words, "(T)he tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free." If George W. Bush can look in the mirror after all this and still feel as though he has not compromised his principles then I respectfully submit that his mirror is not made of reflecting glass but of thick, opaque stone.
Brought before "The Court of the Dead," Brecht's Lucullus was compelled to defend his life and work before an incorruptible jury:
The stakes were high for the much-celebrated general. Had he proved worthy, Lucullus would spend a glorious afterlife in the Elysian fields. If he did not gain the favor of the jury, he would be condemned to the eternal "nothingness" of Hades. Unable to summon his peers and cohorts as character witnesses, Lucullus argued that his legacy as a benevolent tyrant — a liberator through conquest, one might say — was the powerful and convincing evidence he needed to gain entry into Elysium:
THE JUDGE Unfortunate man! The names of the great Arouse no fear among us below. Here They can no longer threaten. Their utterances Pass for lies. Their deeds Are not recorded. And their glory Is to us like smoke, a sign That a fire has raged. Shade, your bearing indicates That enterprises of some scope Are associated with your name. Those enterprises Are not known here.
LUCULLUS Then I request That the frieze for my tomb be brought On which my triumphal procession is shown.
The jury was unimpressed.
How differently would George W. Bush assert his place in history if given the same opportunity as Lucullus? I think it is reasonable to assume that history will soon judge the Bush presidency with the same measure of scorn that the Jury of the Dead heaped upon Lucullus. Of course, Bertolt Brecht is no longer among us and, as such, he can't help us with a contemporary adaptation of The Trial of Lucullus. But if I get some free time one of these days, I might take a crack at writing one. Recommended Reading George W. Bush on V.I. Lenin greeklish.org 04 Nov 2007 Questions From a Worker Who Reads by Bertolt Brecht, 1935 marxists.org The Conquest of the Unhappy Consciousness: Repressive Desublimation from One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse, 1964 (contains a short exposition on Brecht’s “V effect.”)
My pal "Double or Nothin'" recently sent me a great picture of a cicada just moments after molting. It's really a close look of the first few seconds in the new life of this cicada. Really neat, huh? It's definitely not the kind of thing you see every day. I think I have seen a live cicada in its original "skin" only twice in my lifetime. By coincidence, I spotted a cicada-killer wasp in our front yard the other day, which is also a rare sight. I am not sure if cicada-killers sting humans, but I sure don't want to find out for myself because they look pretty intimidating.
My friend was going to send this photo to the amateur brain-surgeons at WHIO-TV, but I begged for the opportunity to post it here instead. She said that she thought I would appreciate it more than anyone else she knows. Right on, right on. Thanks, Griff!
If
it’s any consolation at all to you spider-hating folks, soon it will be
cold and all the spiders (and all the pictures of them) will eventually
be in short supply. But for now, I have a new picture. This
evening, I went back to check on our baby mantis (who is in about the
same spot as the other day) and I came upon a rather impressive
sight: I found a huge reddish-brown spider snacking on a
yellowjacket. There was a light breeze and it was difficult to
get a good close-up picture, but I tried my best...
click on the picture to view a larger image
I returned a few minutes later to catch this beast for the Spider
House, but she had dragged her dinner away to a safe spot behind a
drainpipe. But I’ll check back soon.
Now
here’s something you don’t see every day...In fact, I don’t think I
have ever seen one of these! I found what appears to be a baby
praying mantis on the west side of our house this morning:
This one was only about an inch and a half long. My brother
and I used to catch adult mantises when we were kids, but even
full-grown ones are difficult to come by. I have never seen one
quite this
small. And this one was really alert, turning his/her head in all
sorts of directions to keep an eye on me while I snapped a few closeup
pictures.
It’s been an interesting week for bugs around our house. The
other day, I saw a real live cicada killer wasp in our front
yard. These things are far too fast and elusive for me to
try and photograph, though. There’s also a big black and red spider on
our back porch that I will try to catch so that I can add him to
the Spider House.
Brought before "The Court of the Dead," Brecht's Lucullus was compelled to defend his life and work before an incorruptible jury:
