Jeremiah Duboff
Here we are in crunch time and it occurred to me: Why hasn’t the first principle of medical care itself – ”First, do no harm“ – not been the rallying cry of conservative, common sense opposition to federal takeover of health care? Not just rallying cry, but conservatives’ rhetorical cudgel-of-choice to wield against proponents of this massive (395,096-word) and massively unpopular piece of socialistic legislation.
The question has been posed as an echo, not a sound. Last December one piece at NR asked the question, armed with facts but otherwise almost absent-mindedly. A couple of weeks ago The Economist posed the question, but in terms of doing no harm to the environment! Lest we forget, Ronald Reagan set the standard for conversational, statesmanly, detailed criticism of national health care programs with an LP record opposing Medicare
Miserere
Se Mercé fosse amica a’ miei disiri*
This fallen night the ancient girl
My hot agitated digits furled, and
These hands enjoined; they hailed her world.
Ave!
Yet flagrant grief incensed me. Hence
I groped her gracious confidence–
Fessing high crimes that spurn defense.
Ave! Ave!
Silent condemnation thundered.
What whispered treaties were, were sundered
Into stupefied and wilding wonder.
O! O, ave!
Now blasted asters arch the night,
Loos’ning true, and failing, dismal light.
. . . . Banish those allurements of the heights!
Ave, ave! O! Ave! Ave!
*: If Mercy were a friend to my desires – by Guido Cavalcanti (c. 1255 – 1300), an early innovator of the love sonnet and friend and contemporary of Dante.
by Jeremiah Duboff, who blogs as Jeremayakovka. read more…
Oedipus Song
Oedipus: The cresting road to Thebes I strode.
Two wounded feet my primal load.
My true father’s touch — a goad
This shepherd boy repulsed, there know’d.
Chorus of Angels: Unbound!
Oed.: The Sphinx’s tale once by me shorn,
The state ingratiated. My horn
The matrilineal sheath suborned.
Three future eclipsed stars were born.
Chor.: Unchecked! read more…
