Still in the Seventh Bowge with the Thieves and Reptiles, Dante sees a snake attack the shade who was talking to him...#

``At once I liked the snakes; for one came sneaking
About his throat, and wreathed itself around
As though to say: "I will not have thee speaking;" '' (ll. 4-6)

Another creepy moment of lyrical flow.#

In this seventh bowge are the shades of Thieves and monstrous Lizards. Here the shades are particularly disgusted with their Sins and don't wish Dante to write their stories in fame forever...#

``"That thou," said he, "shouldst catch me in this place
And see me so, torments me worse than leaving
The other life, and doubles my disgrace." '' (ll. 133-135)

As the poets escape from the pursuing demons into the next bowge, Dante says of them...#

``If rage be added to their natural spite
They'll come for us, pursuing on our heel
Like greyhounds on the hare, teeth bared to bite.'' (ll. 16-18)

In the sixth bowge, Dante and Virgil find the Hypocrites, who forever wander the pit walking in Gilded Cloaks lined with lead. The image of these beautiful heavy cloaks is described by Dorothy in the commentary,#

``The image of Hypocrisy, presenting a brilliant show and weighing like lead so as to make spiritual progress impossible, scarcely needs interpretation'' (pg. 217)

This particular image was selected to perfection. A hypocrite builds himself a sinking ship with his lies, destined to drown in it when he is finally and deterministically discovered.#

As the poets leave the last bowge, the ten demons who said they would guide them turn their words and try to attack, and the poets skirt away. One demon, Hellkin, says something clever while searching for the poets...#

``Here Hellkin got completly out of hand
And burst out: "If thou stoop to hit the ditch
I need not gallop after thee by land

I have my wings to soar above the pitch;
We'll leave the crest and hide behind the bank -
Are ten heads best, or one? We'll show thee which!" '' (ll. 112-117)

Dorothy comments on the Demons who have been tricked and quarrel amongst themselves over their lost prey...#

``Though it may present an appearance of solidarity, Satan's kingdom is divided against itself and cannot stand, for it has no true order, and fear its only discipline. Moreover, in the long run, the devil is a fool: trickery preys on trickery and cruelty on cruelty'' (pg. 211)

This is like the old quote, "There's no honor among thieves." And that fine rule from the "Pirate's Code" - "He who falls behind, stays behind"#

In the Fifth Bowge, are liars who made money by trafficking in public offices. Dante exclaims their fraud fraught ways fearsomely by having the head demon say,#

``For more; they're barrators all in that good town -
Except Bonturo, hey? - I've packed it stiff
With fellows *who'd swear black's white for half-a-crown.'' (ll. 40-42)

"In the Fourth Bowge of the Eighth Circle Dante sees the Sorcerers, whose heads are twisted so that they can only look behind them, and who are therefore compelled to walk backwards." (pg. 195)#

Here Dante expresses pity for the cursed Sorcerers and is verbally "thwapped" by Virgil. Dorothy explains the significance of this in the commentary...#

``These two lines, again, have a double significance: the may be rendered: "Who is more wicked than (the sinner) who is (here) tormented by God's judgment?" or "Who is more wicked than one who is tormented by (i.e. passionately protests against) God's judgment (as here exhibited)?" I have no doubt that both meanings are intended. Pity and piety are here mutually exclusive: it is necessary to acquiesce in judgment if one is not to become (by sympathy) partaker in the sin.

The rebuke which Dante here puts into Virgil's mouth may have been suggested by passages in the fourth-century Apocalypse of Paul: "And I wept and said: Woe unto men! woe unto the sinners!... And the angel answered and said unto me: Wherefore weepest though? Art though more merciful than the Lord God which is blessed for ever, who hath established the judgment and left every man of his own will to choose good and evil and to do as pleaseth him?" '' (pg. 199)

I think this is an interesting mindset to be in. "There is no reason to feel bad for those bring torment upon themselves" is what it basically boils down to, and Dante goes out of his way to point this out. It is also interesting that it is taken as a "enabler" of Sin to consider pitying the punishment of God, whose judgment is absolute.#

In the third bowge are the Simoniacs, those who profit from Church offices. Dante speaks to Pope Nicholas III and damns him with brutal words...#

``You deify silver and gold; how are you sundered
In any fashion from the idolater,
Save that he seves one god and you an hundred?'' (ll. 112-114)

Dante doesn't take kindly to the man who feigns an honorable position as a way to manipulate and exploit people. I like the way he points out that those who worship money are very much like idolaters, they create a practice of worship over a pile of the exploits of whoreship.#

A note, in this trench all the Church officials are planted upside down in holes, and there is just one hole for sinning Popes. Dorothy says this..#

``By Floretine law, assassins were executed by being planted head-downwards in a hole, which was then filled up. Dante likens his own attitude to that of the attendant priest, stooping down to hear the wretch's last confession - prolonged, to postpone the fatal moment as long as possible'' (pg. 192)

about Dante calling Pope Nicholas "the treacherous murderer." (l. 50)#

In the Eighth Circle, the Malbowges, Dante is confronted with "ten trenches containing those who committed Malicious Frauds upon mankind in general." #

In the first of these trenches, the inhabitants are constantly run around in a circle by traffic controlling demons with whips. Dante is surprised by the traffic control, as Dorothy explains...#

``The fact that traffic control appears to Dante as a stratling and ingenious novelty probably brings home to us, far more than his theology or his politics, the six hundred years which separate his times from ours. The year 1300 (the year of his vision) had been proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII a Jubilee Year, and Rome was consequently crowded with pilgrims. For the better avoidance of congestion, the authorities (whose organization seems to have been remarkably efficient) adopted a rule of the road on the Bridge of Castello Sant' Angelo, so-called from the castle which stood at one end of it. The "Mount" at the other end was either the Janiculum or Monte Giordano. *It will be noticed that in the First Bowge the rule is "keep to the right", as it is on the Continent to-day.'' (pg. 186)

Never know what you'll learn in this book...#

In the second of these trenches are the Flatters, one relates his destiny to Dante...#

``[...] He beat his pumpkin pate,
And said: "The flatteries I spewed out apace
With tireless tongue have sunk me to this state." '' (ll. 124-126)

The tongue, out of control, will banish it's brandisher to bottom of the bowges.#

Dorothy writes about Malbowges in general...#

``Malbowges is, I think, after a rather special manner, the image of the City in corruption: the progressive disintegration of every social relationship, personal and public. Sexuality, ecclesiastical and civil office, language, ownership, counsel, authority, psychic influence, and material inderdependence - *all the media of the community's exchange are perverted and falsified, till nothing remains but the descent into the final abyss where faith and trust and wholly and for ever extinguished.*'' (pg. 185)

The Inferno is educational because it is the vision of everything wrong with the world, and unlike a dystopia, it is not a slighted or disguised vision. Instead it is an exaggeration, actually no, is more like a distillation. This is Sin in it's purest form and it's side effects are real even to those who are not particularly religious. This is a world where Sin rules in the open and all honor has departed.#

In the 3rd ring of the 7th Circle, the poets wait for a demon to bring them down to the next Circle and Dante talks to the Usurers who are sitting in a huddle on the burning sand. Once Gerryon, the demon, is ready the poets board him and descend into the darkness...#

``Than I felt, finding myself in the void falling
With nothing but air all round, nothing to show,
No light, no sigh but the sigh of the beast appalling'' (ll. 112-114)

I like it when there are these pretty ways of talking about frightening things, like falling through darkness on top of a demon. Weird.#

In the commentary Dorothy has some interesting interpretation of the Usurers..#

``The Usurers. These, as we have seen, are the image of the Violent against Nature and the Art derived from Nature; they sit looking upon the ground, because they have sinned against that and against the labour that should have cultivated its resources. The old commentator Gelli observes brilliantly that the Sodomites and Usurers are calssed together because the first make sterile the natural instincts which result in fertility, while *the second make fertile that which by its nature is sterile* - i.e. they "make money breed". More generally, the Usurers may be taken as types of all economic and mechanical civilizations which *multiply luxuries at the expense of vital necessities* and have no roots in the earth or in humanity.'' (pg. 178)

This is interesting because it says that those who corrupt Nature with the addition of money are detracting from the "vital necessities" of humanity. This is why major clothing brands that make millions each year at the expense of millions of lives and minds are destined for one place.#

Today Carlyle wrote some really interesting stuff about government and how it's like her religion...#

``But the really interesting part to me was that [de Tocqueville] was raised strictly Catholic. Until he was 15 he had never had another teacher outside of the family priest, Abbé Leseur, that was like, on retainer to his family as a tutor and personal confessor and all that. But after Louis XVIII got to the throne, and de Tocqueville's dad was named a prefect, he finally got to go to Lycée and get exposed to some different stuff. And he was pretty much let loose in his father's library, which was chock full of everything current, apparently. And for the first time he was exposed to all of this stuff he'd never thought of before, like Voltaire's satire of the Church and all that, and he went through this huge crisis of faith.

Which, if it's possible, only made me like de Tocqueville more, because just like me, after he'd had that crisis he could never go back from it. And he became a sort of deist. So while he might mention god or providence in his writings, he never talks about Christ or anything. Interesting, huh?

More interesting to me because I've been going through a sort of personal crisis of faith lately. (This is outside my normal, run of the mill, problems with god thing.) I told someone just yesterday, actually, that government is pretty much the closest thing I have to a religion. Like, it seems impossible to me that walls would stand without government, that the world could still turn without it. Which is part of the reason that this California thing bothers me so much...on one hand, it's like the ultimate expression of the American dream and ideals. *Truly -- anyone can run for office. But on the other, it's making a complete mockery of something I believe in strongly. And I can't deal with that.* ''

This MIGHT be satire from Razib -#

``George Bush Sr. is a saint! He signed the American's With Disabilities Act! [...] From elevators, ramps, bigger seats and more comfy restroom stalls, the American's With Disabilities Act has been a great boon for fully functional normals! I would even hazard to guess we used "disabled" services and access points more often than the disabled (differently abled, whatever).''

Via John Palfrey is the new Michael Watkins blog - "World Events on Weekdays" - Today he writes about the need to succeed in Iraq...#

``We are committed now and have to succeed. To fail would be to do terrible damage to the credibility of the United States and hence to our security. If you have not read the text of President Bush's speech to the Amercian Legion yesterday you should (skip the upfront stuff and scroll down to what he has to say about Iraq). We are committed and there is no easy exit here. We either devote the resources (not necessarily more troops) or we let a dangerous gap develop between demands and capacity, and so risk the fragmentation and radicalization of Iraq The festering problems between the Turks and the Kurds in the north are one example of what could go wrong.

[...]

For those of you that think the answer is to hand the whole thing over to the UN, think again. The UN's failures (e.g Somalia) and successes (e.g. East Timor) in terms of nation building have established that security is a prerequisite, and that it can only be established by having a military force, the core of which is provided by one nation, in place. The UN can, however, manage key "nation-building" tasks better than we can. The answer, in my opinion, is to internationalize the military side of the operation under NATO. This, of course, will mean doing a deal with the French and the Germans, which will be painful. ''

Bill Maher comments on Georgey Porgey's speech today...#

``In a speech today, President Bush vowed "no retreat" from Iraq. A bold statement, considering there's not a single political figure from either party suggesting retreat is even an option. *The rest of his speech, if you care to click the link, is devoted to his usual topic: scaring the bejesus out of the American people.* Yes, we know Al Queda wants to harm us, do you have to bring it up every time you get near a microphone? ''

Mr. Green Hat writes about his opinion of Animal Liberation...#

``Though I don't believe in a universal moral code, his argument resonates with me because I would like my personal morals to be consistent. His book lists many half-assed rationalizations employed by a long list of distinguished philosophers and religious thinkers to support their dietary preference. In fact, smart people used similar rationalizations to support slavery, the Holocaust, and sexism. As Ben Franklin said, "So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." [para. 65]

I sometimes wonder what I would have done if I were a citizen of Nazi Germany. Would I have ignored cries for help from Jewish neighbors? Would I have participated in their murder? I do not wish to be a party to any suffering, and animals clearly suffer in factory farms. Therefore, I will strive to become a vegetarian.''

I smile every time I see a convert.

Jen Chung - `` Not that we're surprised, but Jessica Simpson is stupid. ''#

Peter Lindberg writes about the nuances in his daughter's speech...#

``Of course the context is very important for understanding what she says, as words such as ba, pa, da, etc., are used for so many different things. But when the context is of no help, you realize that despite her language being so rudimentary, it has a stunning level of detail.''

Pecksniff writes, "Why I like Howard Dean better than other Donk candidates"...#

``He's an unapologetic, out in the open, socialist.

He's above board in rejecting the founding principles of the United States; no sneaking about like the others.

He's as dull witted about the use of military power as are all liberals, but makes no effort to hide, or apoligize for, this deficancy.

He makes no effort to disguise his economic plan. "I'm smarter than you are about spending your money, so give it to me." ''

From The Giant Ant - ``Taylor likes to point out that "99% of programming is resisting the temptation to be a dumbass." Indeed. ''#

Don Park on the original naming of "Korea"...#

``Lately, the movement to restore the country name to Corea from Korea has been gaining momentum in both North and South Korea. At first, Corea seemed odd to me, but I am starting to like it because Corea feels more refined than Korea and the letter K reminds me of K-mart. If things go well, I'll be a Corean-American in the near future. Go Corea!

Does this post remind you of that Monty Python sketch about a guy who couldn't pronounce the letter C? It does to me. *Monty Python is like herpes. Once exposed, you are stuck with it for life.*''

Don Park has a neat idea about Subsidizing WiFi access points...#

``It makes no sense to require Wi-Fi users and stores to deal with the hassle of paying for access or keeping track of users. Building a membership-based Wi-Fi Network seems too problematic without the leverage of subsidized AP hardware and the absolute control it brings. Urgh. I better stop here before I get to T-shirts and jingles.''

Razib would be the best teacher... studying anthropology, gene expression, and cultural diversity by comparing and contrasting pictures of beautiful women. Keira. Oh my.#

Tony Pierce is a funny..#

``our hands were on her lap and she drove and i pointed and said so does this mean i cant touch the niceness.

and i looked at the nice place with my fake xray vision and she laughed a hearty laugh cuz i smiled and i was sorta sad but happy but really tired from my job that gives me heartburn and bald patches

and she said yeah no touching there''

Via Brent Simmons is Liam Page writing about "RSS Lurking", seeing the revisions authors go through...#

``It's fascinating to see the decision-making process that the author, or editor, goes through. This could be a fantastic learning tool — you can virtually (no pun intended) see into the writer's mind as they choose one phrase over another, a new word here, a clarification there. And if nothing else, it makes for an innocent voyeuristic thrill.''

Matthew Dennis knows the true purpose of "bad" weather...#

``We had a nutty, end of the world storm this evening. Kiddie pools and giant rocking chairs were sent tumbling asunder. I kind of love this stuff. The whole man vs. nature, don't kid yourself about who's your daddy kind of weather.''

Dave Shea rites about XHTML...#

``XHTML is a clean slate: it's HTML, but it's XML. It's the best of both worlds, but it's halfway between. HTML has a long and ugly history of visual hacks, proprietary extensions, and general abuse. The browsers that support it are lax, overly tolerant, and encourage sloppy coding. XML, on the other hand, is defined by a tight set of rules; it is structurally complex, rigidly demanding, and doesn't offer any presentation cues whatsoever. It is completely reliant on external styling, and in this case that styling happens to be CSS.''

Moxie has an amazing picture on her blog.#

Via Jerome Doolittle is Maureen Dowd's column the New York Times about political lies...#

`` Echoing remarks by other officials implying that it's better to have one big moment of truth and fight our enemies on their turf rather than ours, Mr. Bush said, "Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York or St. Louis or Los Angeles."

So that's the latest rationale for going into Iraq? We wanted an Armageddon with our enemies, so we decided to conquer an Arab country and drive the Muslim fanatics so crazy with their jihad mentality that they'd flip out and storm in, and then we'd kill them all?

Terrorism is not, as the president seems to suggest, a finite thing.''

Michael Feldman links an article about the administrator (dean?) of BU...#

``For the past 33 years Boston University has been led by the controversial take-no-prisoners meritocracy John Silber. After busting up an incipient faculty union by firing dozens of professors, the one time Silber enjoyed the support of a majority of the faculty was when he ran for governor, and then only because we realized it was the only way we could conceivably get rid of the guy. Unfortunately, he self-destructed in vitriol and lost.

*Somehow, like an ancient third-world icon hovering over a captive population who know no other leader, he's still there.* However, lately there are signs his grip may be weakening. Last month Silber officially anointed a successor, former NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin. Today Goldin is in hot water even before ascending to the throne - because of his last job.''

Just a Gwai Lo says something that is oh so true...#

``oh hey, I saw a girl I went to high school with at a wedding.
and didn't talk to her. I was intimidated by her then and still am. weird how high school never ends.''

John Robb descends into the rabbit hole whole heartily...#

``What if there was a weblog publishing system and web server on a chip? It gets even more interesting if it is combined with low cost geopositioning, low power wireless connectivity, and "controller functionality." Embedded weblogs solve the problem of how to add interactive intelligence to a physical object. If the cost of a system like this was inexpensive enough, you could effectively put a weblog on everything of interest in the physical world. The weblog would record the history of the device: location, controller setting changes, etc. The weblog navigation system on the left or right would provide access to controller settings. Let you imagination go wild thinking about where they might be embedded.''

Jason Kottke on semantics and the succumbing to the syntax of standards...#

``Coding web documents in valid XHTML doesn't make them semantically useful nor does coding semantically correct documents mean the documents are standards-compliant; they are two distinct things but a powerful combination. As web designers, we need to be aware of what we're getting with standards compliancy and semantically rich documents and that one does not necessarily lead to the other. More importantly, we need evangelize effectively to clients and budding XHTML coders & web designers, telling them *precisely* what's so great about making sites standards-compliant and semantically useful and therefore worth spending money to redesign a site or time to learn valid XHTML/CSS.''

Via MetaFilter is a Washington Monthly index of the lies Presidents tell.#

Michael Feldman finds the best pictures.#

Daniel Drezner has advice for people who are going to conference for the first time...#

``5) Lower your expectations. If you're thinking that most of the papers you will hear presented will be of the same caliber as those you've read in class, you're in for big letdown.

Most of the papers presented at a conference of this scale are either works in progress or first-drafts. Most of the people presenting these papers are early in their careers. Some of the papers will be really interesting; most of them won't. If you attend two panels that contain at least two interesting papers in each panel, you've had a good conference. ''

That is what I call cool!#

Via Ken Layne is iTunes iSbogus a part of Downhill Battle - The title is "iTunes Music Store. Facelift for a corrupt industry"#

``People are paying for songs on the iTunes Music Store because they think it's a good way to support musicians. But by giving musicians just a few cents from each sale, iTunes destroys a huge opportunity. Instead of creating a system that gets virtually all of fans' money directly to artists-- finally possible with the internet-- iTunes takes a big step backwards. Apple calls iTunes "revolutionary" but really they're just letting record companies force the same exploitive and unfair business model onto a new medium.''

Moxie went to the Jeepers Creepers 2 premier...#

``The best parts of the movie came from the audience.

Ostensibly, someone's mother reacted to seeing her bloodied child on the big screen with a loud, "oh my gawd, that's my son!" The biggest laugh came from a man sitting somnewhere in front of us. As an African American man was targeted by the Creeper he shouted, "Why does it always have to be the brother?!"

As is always true at these premiers, seeing Hollywood's elite drunk at the after party is the most entertaining part of all. But this isn't a gossip column. At least not today.''

Tony Pierce has class. Only class. All class. He's at the top of the class. Except when it comes to talking about tha ass...#

``some of the fellas started talking about blog babes and kristin from madpony came up and they asked me if i knew her and i said that we exchange emails from time to time but because she has a boyfriend i try not to distract her with my manliness. and they said that they approved of that behavoir. then went on about how hot she is and how much they liked her writing. she wont believe that we were talking about her in a smokey old bar in chinatown but we were and we were saying very nice things and not being gross and thats another reason i like my friends. all class. except of course, me.''

Via Slashdot is something truely fantastic#

Daniel Drezner comments on Josh Marshall's assessment of the current presidential race...#

Josh writes, ``None of the current candidates has passed the audition for the job. Lieberman's campaign is generally believed to be moribund (and I like the guy). Edwards has gone absolutely nowhere. Gephardt has bet everything on getting the support of organized labor. But if he gets it, it'll basically be a mercy ... well, I don't want to be off-color. But, you know what I mean. Kerry is basically the establishment front-runner at the moment. But it's an extremely anemic frontrunnerdom. He's basically the front-runner by default because all the other potential frontrunners who haven't caught fire are doing even worse than he is.

What this all tells me is that there is a vacuum with a lot of political forces pushing to fill it. And yet none of the current candidates has been capable of becoming the vehicle for those forces. I know these are some convoluted metaphors. But I trust my meaning is relatively clear. ''

Peter Lindberg writes about how blogging is a habit, a reflex, something you do all the time and just need to write down the results of...#

``And then something strange happens: People sometimes wonder how I can possibly have time to write as much as I do, but the thing is, that when my blog is on a roll, it requires less effort. When I lose the tempo, it's a struggle, but otherwise I blog all the time, whether consciously or not; writing is almost automatic—I just type whatever comes out of my brain.
I'm convinced that this is something that anyone can trigger.
Now I'm reminded of something Malte wrote about Aikido practice: to master the bokken (wooden-sword), performing one concentrated cut a day would be enough. That's one cut, not two, not zero. To me, this is about staying in focus.
Blogging is not typing, it's what you do all the time.
So: make sure you remember your thoughts and ideas, explore them before writing them down (I like mind maps), and make sure you keep it going (post a lot, never throw away posts—crap posts are manure).''

Edward Tufte has an article in Wired...#

``Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that promised to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: It induced stupidity, turned everyone into bores, wasted time, and degraded the quality and credibility of communication. These side effects would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.

Yet slideware -computer programs for presentations -is everywhere: in corporate America, in government bureaucracies, even in our schools. Several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint are churning out trillions of slides each year. Slideware may help speakers outline their talks, but convenience for the speaker can be punishing to both content and audience. The standard PowerPoint presentation elevates format over content, betraying an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.

[...]

Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides -a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. *Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something.*''

State Media DOT NET#