On the Day I Die

Wolfe's Lodge ^ | Deborah Marie Pulaski

[Luis Gonzalez]

"You may have lived places less free, but if you're an American you are not free."

Where then could you live more free?

[Victoria Delsoul]

Toxemia, most of your posts on this thread are personal attacks and blatant lies about people you don't know. I ask myself why would a self-respecting person resort to lying about others to win an argument? Then it occurred to me: you're not a self-respecting person.

Your conception of freedom is totally different from the freedom my grandparents were killed fighting for and whose memory I respect. I don't need lectures on freedom and tyranny from the likes of you. Your posts have no substance only insults. You have no interest in a discussion, but in attacking others.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Illegitimus non Carborundum!

"Don't let the bastards grind you down!" hehehe.

[Twodees]

Ahaha.... ;-)

[Sir Gawain]

The author of this letter chose to limit her subject to physical freedoms. You saw this in your first reading and the truth of it struck you to post it here.

Your mind-reading ability is less than astonishing. Actually, the title grabbed my attention, I scanned the article and thought it was ok, and decided to post it.

I'll have to go back and check, but I don't recall saying the author talked about anything other than physical freedom. My point is that you must free your soul before you fight for physical freedoms. The author proves this assertion. She is unable to see beyond her grief. She has lost the will to fight.

I got exhausted about the Second Amendment fight a while back, and Eagle Eye gave me a few verbal slaps and said "Get back in the game. This isn't helping the fight." Sometimes even the best fighter gets disheartened. What makes them the best fighter is the fact that they get back up and continue fighting.

[Twodees]

Whatever, child. Your tactics are more transparent than you think. BTW, I was a man long before you were born, and I'll still be a man when you grow out of your self-impressed silliness.

[JD86]

Bump

[Twodees]

I care for all people, sirG, even when they are misguided and intent on harming others. I even care for the fools in government who may one day decide it would be allright to kill some of us to make a point. That's just the way I am. It doesn't stop me from speaking my mind.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks darling. I like you better that way.

[Victoria Delsoul]

BTW, I was a man long before you were born,...

You don't get it, do you? I told you NO! And the answer is still NO!

[William Wallace]

To use Thoreau's "Ulysses" as somehow pertaining to this womans article is false.

Thoreau didn't write Ulysses. sirgawain was referring to one of his favorite poems by Tennyson. The poem IS the antithesis of this woman. Ulysses refuses to give up despite age and infirmity. And, unlike the whiny woman in the article, he trusts his dutiful son to take care of things after Ulysses is dead:

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

Quite a contrast from the woman in the article.

[Sir Gawain]

Can't leave off the best part:

44       There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
45   There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
46   Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--
47   That ever with a frolic welcome took
48   The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
49   Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
50   Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
51   Death closes all: but something ere the end,
52   Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
53   Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
54   The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
55   The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
56   Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
57   'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
58   Push off, and sitting well in order smite
59   The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
60     To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
61   Of all the western stars, until I die.
62   It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
63   It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
64   And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
65   Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
66   We are not now that strength which in old days
67   Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
68   One equal temper of heroic hearts,
69   Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
70   To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

[Twodees]

Thanks for the unsolicited amateur psychoanalysis, habs, but I'm fine, really. Saying, "it's an American thing, you wouldn't understand" is just a little jibe which I direct to people who seem to be wandering toward defense of monsters in government. Your response was the first inkling I had that you're a Canadian. I usually direct that jibe at my fellow Americans who are acting like toadies for politicians.

It was comical to me to see you respond with PC buzzwords such as "xenophobic" and "jingoist". I am indeed an odd bird. Thanks for noticing. If you're going to be flaming dead citizens who can't defend themselves or coming to the aid of those who do that sort of thing, grow a thicker skin.

[JD86]

ping

[William Wallace]

Magnificent! Thanks.

[Eagle Eye]

LOL! Yes, I certainly agree.

[SusanUSA]

sirgawain:
Your mind-reading ability is less than astonishing. Actually, the title grabbed my attention, I scanned the article and thought it was ok, and decided to post it.

I'm sorry, it appears I was giving you too much credit. I withdraw my earlier comment. But curiosity begs I ask, "Did you ever get around to actually reading it?" On second thought, nevermind.

She has lost the will to fight
What makes them the best fighter is the fact that they get back up and continue fighting.

Do be merciful and forgive her. She was dying. She is dead.
And in this letter she hopes her grandchildren will be "stubborn and free thinking", i.e. willing to fight for their beliefs.

William Wallace
I thank you sincerely for the correction. I drew a blank, I will even admit that for a moment my mind thought, "James Joyce?" .
It is a beautiful piece of fiction. I can see why it is one of sirgawain's favorites. You both may be interested in THIS.

An excerpt:

Victorians tended to read this poem pretty straightforwardly, as an avowal of faith in the necessity of striving ever onward. They were supported by Tennyson's own statement that this poem "gave my feeling about Hallam's death perhaps more simply than anything in In Memoriam," his great elegaic lament. But modern critics have found "Ulysses" anything but simple. Perhaps more than any other single poem, how you read it depends upon your theoretical assumptions about the nature of poetry. Here follow a few of the critical appraisals. Make up your own questions.

1. Even though Tennyson said "Ulysses" gave his feeling about Hallam's death and "the need for going forward, and braving the struggle of life," this account of the poem's meaning is inconsistent with the desolate melancholy music of the words themselves.

2. Tennyson is espousing a jovial agnosticism totally opposed to the faith endorsed in In Memoriam. Thus the poem is a dramatic representation of a man who has faith neither in the gods nor in the necessity of preserving order in his kingdom and his own life.

3. The whole thing is a monologue interieur, and there is no quest. It is merely the utterance of a super-annuated hero indulging himself in the fantasy that his beloved mariners are still alive. It is a kind of dream, a means of escape momentarily from the uncongenial environment of Ithaca.

It is enlightening, depending on your view. Personally I say:
Darn those people who on the basis of one written work think they can dissect the writer's soul!!

For anyone that cares to read them, I still stand by my replies.