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.
In addition to law and language generally, this blog explores philosophy, translation, poetry (including my own poetry and translations), legal education reform, genealogy, rhetoric, politics, and other things that interest me from time to time. I consider all my poems and translations flawed works in progress, tweak them unpredictably, and consider the latest-posted versions the latest "final" forms. I'd enjoy others' thoughts on anything posted. © Harold Anthony Lloyd 2024
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
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.
Labels:
Child Labor,
Corruption,
Discrimination,
Ethics,
Gender,
HB 2,
Interpretation,
Intolerance,
Law,
LGBT,
Meaning,
Minimum Wage,
North Carolina,
Pat McCrory,
Poltical Corruption,
Republican Party,
Workers Rights
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
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).
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Ekphrasis & Prose: Sonnet Translations of Poe & Hawthorne
Shadow After Poe
We noticed there was pestilence about.
We played instead of passive victim an
Aggressive agent capable of plan
And execution. In, we locked it out,
A simple action, really, which we sealed
With weighty velvet curtains drawn across
An iron door bolted tight. “Our gain, Hell’s loss!”
We toasted with good bourbon and were steeled.
“God helps who helps himself,” we boasted till
We saw a shadow by a comrade still
And cold throughout the reverie. It hid
As quick within the heavy draperies. Did
Drink fool? No. Oh, no fancy has composed
Such vast lost voices in a single ghost.
Aggressive agent capable of plan
And execution. In, we locked it out,
A simple action, really, which we sealed
With weighty velvet curtains drawn across
An iron door bolted tight. “Our gain, Hell’s loss!”
We toasted with good bourbon and were steeled.
“God helps who helps himself,” we boasted till
We saw a shadow by a comrade still
And cold throughout the reverie. It hid
As quick within the heavy draperies. Did
Drink fool? No. Oh, no fancy has composed
Such vast lost voices in a single ghost.
I've also wondered the same about individual passages in longer works. Here, for example, is a bit of Hawthorne's The House of The Seven Gables set to sonnet form:
Labels:
Communication,
Edgar Alan Poe,
Ekphrasis,
Framing,
Interpretation,
Language,
Meaning,
Metaphor,
Narrative,
Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Poetry,
Semiotics,
Sign,
Sonnet,
Translation,
Words
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Originalism and the Fall of Icarus
Well, here we go
again. With Neil Gorsuch as the current Supreme Court nominee, once more we
hear praises of “originalism” as a judicial interpretive philosophy. As Gorsuch
puts it, judges should “apply the law as it is, focusing
backward, not forward, and looking to text, structure, and history to decide
what a reasonable reader at the time of the events in question would have
understood the law to be . . . .” Since law generally looks forward
to govern future and not past behavior, and since context drives meaning in
much more complex ways than Gorsuch’s words suggest, I’m amazed that people take
this backward-looking and overly-simplistic philosophy seriously. I’ve written at length about the problems
with such an approach but now also wonder if an old painting might
more quickly dispatch such error.
Labels:
Art,
Auden,
Bruegel,
Category,
Context,
Ekphrasis,
Ethics,
Framing,
Gorsuch,
Icarus,
Icon,
Interpretation,
Language,
Law,
Meaning,
Originalism,
Scalia,
Semiotics,
Symbol,
Textualism
Saturday, January 7, 2017
Two Performance Review Mantras (“Mercy and Truth Are Met Together; Righteousness & Peace Have Kissed”)
I. Mantra For Myself
I smile if I have shown a light.
I smile if I if I have aimed at right.
I smile if I have done my best.
Imperfect, I’ve no other test.
II. Mantra For Others
I smile if they have shown a light.
I smile if they have aimed at right.
I smile if they have done their best.
Imperfect, they’ve no other test.
Labels:
Bible,
Buddha,
Christ,
Duty,
Emotion,
Ethics,
Forgiveness,
Golden Rule,
Grace,
Humility,
Imperfection,
Jesus,
Judgment,
Light,
Mantra,
Mercy,
Performance Review,
Poetry,
Truth,
William Blake
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