Parsing Babble in North Carolina's HB-2 and Calling Out the Need for Immediate Repeal

Read here my parsing of ambiguous bathroom provisions in North Carolina's HB-2 and the immediate need to repeal the flawed statute in light of further imminent threatened boycotts of the state.

Rethinking The Elect

                            The Elect

Take that long-suffering slave:  if she instead

Were master, could descent dissent and shed

Vile arrogance slaves shirk and in its stead

Renounce the life that life inherited?

Take that starved, broken pauper:  if instead

Of life so harsh he often would be dead

He had a fuller purse, was fuller fed

Would he have known to offer paupers bread?

Take that queer soul who's “different”:  if instead

He'd turned out “normal” would he think a dead

Queer's better than a live one, too, and spread

Intolerance majorities have bred?

Is this not Grace?  Spared from such tests as these,

Has God not favored his minorities?

In a time of Trump when I fear many devalue diversity and many more do not see the frequent grace in minority, struggle, and lack of material wealth, I highlight this poem from Charms and Knots.  I also highlight the poem for a time when many no longer appreciate the endless powers of formalist verse.  Apart from the inherent power of sonnet form, twelve same-rhymed lines followed by two fresh rhymes actually participate in the grace and rarity of difference (indexical expression of the point to use Peirce's terminology).

Wittgenstein's Sonnet: No Pictures See Themselves (Addition to "The Apology Box")

    Wittgenstein’s Sonnet

When I was young, words worked a different way.

We hung them round like pictures on a wall

To replicate real objects.  Words used ink

Instead of photographic plates and dyes.

In replication either method worked

So long as illustration captured truth

By rendering objects as they really are.

What more to say?  It all seemed obvious

Until I pictured pictures without us.

No pictures see themselves, their objects, or
A world that is unfiltered by a mind.

Words and their objects are no different.  Thus,

Duck-rabbits now play games within the mind
Where certainty's more difficult to find.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Ishmael's Sonnet: Built As "Normal" Boys (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Ishmael’s Sonnet

                        

They called me Ishmael.  I was a first

Who wrestled with the "bastard" name though I
Was built as "normal" boys.  With Mother, I

Was cast into the desert.  Struggling first,

 

I'd often hide myself.  I'd lie about

My essence in some feint of normalcy

That let me pass.  As I was outwardly

A normal boy, I need not always out

Myself.  And yet the loss of me within

Such phantom lives did further damage. In

Such feints I slandered parents, slandered, too,

The Lord whose kingdom lay within me, too.

I therefore washed my mouth.  "I am" replaced
The "stain" of "bastard" washing had erased.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Three Religious Warriors: Richard I, Saladin, & Charles Martel (Additions to "The Apology Box")

              Richard I’s Sonnet

Christ is my only standard. As he drove

The money changers from the temple who

Profaned it, I in imitation strove

To save God's temples from blasphemers, too.

If smaller groups of money changers must

Be driven out, much more so should we drive

Out hordes of unbelievers.  I was just

Therefore in how I chose to reign and live.

Although great men have critics and I'm not

Immune, I'm confident the worst they’ve said

Of me is I craved men and therefore led

Men East.  If true, such charge condemns me not.

In judging right and wrong, Christ is the test.

I've read his words.  The topic's not addressed.

               Saladin's Round

            (By a Kurdish hero)

There is no God but God and he is Lord

Of every atom of creation.  He

Is thus by his own essence rightfully

The Lord of old Jerusalem and all

Her Asian territories rather than

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome.

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome

Abstractly drinking blood and eating flesh

With wine and broken bread in temples there

Has brokered more than mere abstractions here.

This broker's swords have broken men and spilled

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land.

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land

Required response and we have given aid.

We’ve had to use swords doing that though we

Preferred the use of reason.  Though we’ve won

Upon the field, our greater victory comes

Through favoring mercy over death instead.

Through favoring mercy over death instead

Of other attitudes, we’ve followed God

And done his work.  Though evil trembles at

Such simple logic, we find rest in it--

God favors mercy and believers know

There is no God but God and he is Lord.

                Charles Martel’s Sonnet

Though God is three in one, it’s blasphemy

To tolerate an earthly trinity

Of Christian, Jew, and Muslim. There can be

Just one true faith since Christianity

Alone is scriptural.  Of course God knew

Martel means “hammer” and called me to do

The labor.  Although just a bastard to

That beast Plectude, great battle plans I drew

For plated men and beasts.  At Poitiers,

Design met field.  There my troops held at bay

The foreign hordes our armor drove away

From Christendom forever.  Lord, I pray

For Heavenly inclusion having fought

For God and Christendom as scriptures taught.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Two Greeks Whose Bones Are Lost in Egypt Now (Additions to the Apology Box)

              Alexander The Great's Sonnet

Sweet novelty of death!  You’ve heard my prayer,

O gods!  There’s more adventure!  I am not

Condemned to idleness.  In brief despair

My reason was confounded. I forgot

The underworld that can be molded by

My sword and genius, too.  Profounder war

Will justify me further.  O gods, I

Shall meld from parts a better whole.  Once more,

I’ll combine East and West and redefine

The normal taste in men--my own won’t be

Scorned but admired.  Good standards will be mine

And I the norm.  Have confidence in me,

Commission me, O Gods.  I’ll serve you well.

I’ll take my sword to every inch of hell!

                    Cleopatra VII's Sonnet

O gods, you should receive at least as large

A welcome as mere Romans had from me.

The Styx of course should waft me on a barge

To you with purple plumèd finery

At least as grand as that displayed before

Mere men.  You’ve no less right to girls perfumed

As sweetest flowers (or to soft skin that’s more

Inviting than a couch or to queens groomed

More perfectly than sculptures to be found

In shrines.)  You’ve no less right to unwrap each

Fold of some gentle garments that surround

A pleasure that lies well within your reach.

Gods, take me now so no fools ever can

Pretend that gods are favored less than man.


© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Razing Babel: Two Sonnets For Too Xenophobic Times

In these Xenophobic times, we should recognize that Razing Babel was a blessing not a curse.   The punishment of imprisonment within a single, narrow tongue proves much, much worse than the inconvenience of dealing with others who don’t speak our native language.  Here’s why:

My Thoughts in the Washington Post on HB 2

“This is really a devious bill that harms workers under the guise of regulating bathrooms,” said Harold Lloyd, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Law. See the full article here in the Washington Post.  Katie Zezima did an excellent and thorough job with this piece.

McCrory’s House Bill 2: A Brief Outline of Its Five “Parts”

When non-lawyers hear Pat McCrory’s claim that North Carolina’s House Bill 2 is just common sense while at the same time they hear the Department of Justice attacking part of it as illegal, I can understand how easy it is for such non-lawyers just to take the word of the political party they prefer. They probably aren’t sure where to look for the Bill and even if they lack this doubt they understandably might imagine the Bill has much too much legalese for them to tackle.

For remainder of blog, click here.

McCrory's Munchausen by Proxy

Pat McCrory has been dissembling on his Facebook page tonight:

The Old Testament & Same-Sex Separation Anxiety

The Old Testament contains powerful examples of deep affection between those of the same sex.  David tells Jonathan: “very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” (2 Samuel 1:26).  Ruth tells Naomi: “whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” (Ruth 1:16).  As the halves of each pair would enter Heaven at different times, I wondered how they might address the separation and the fear that one or both might not be admitted.  Of course, these sonnets are my words, not theirs.  As such, and being a Wildcat, I couldn’t avoid language suggesting joinder of #DavidsonCollege and light.  Alenda Lux Ubi Orta Libertas!