IMOTA # 11 Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was born on this date in West hills, New York, in 1819, 204 years ago. For me an Indigenous Man Of The Anglosphere is someone who has achieved greatness in their use of the English language. Few can touch Walt Whitman for that.

Wikipedia states: “Art historian Mary Berenson says, “You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass ….. He has expressed that civilization, ‘up to date,’ as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him.” “

Here are some of Whitman’s own words which I believe justify Berenson’s assessment.

“These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me.”

“Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable: I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

“My words itch at your ears till you understand them”

“Resist much, obey little.”

“All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

“I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, It alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder.”

“This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, and the stars.”

“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”

“And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.”

Geoff Fox, 31 May, 2023, Down Under

Previous men named as IMOTA are:

  1. John Wycliffe
  2. Douglas MacArthur
  3. George Pell
  4. R.S. Thomas
  5. Donald Trump
  6. John Barrymore
  7. William Shatner
  8. Thomas Jefferson
  9. Count Basie
  10. Clint Eastwood

IMOTA # 10 Clint Eastwood

Hollywood great Clint Eastwood, who was born this date in 1930, is a softly speaking icon of modern Western masculinity.

For his wonderful words, I name him an Indigenous Man Of The Anglosphere (IMOTA):

“I’m just a kid – I’ve got a lot of stuff to do yet.”

“Let’s not go and ruin it by thinking too much.”

“If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.”

“They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.”

“We boil at different degrees.”

“Man becomes his most creative during war.”

“There’s a rebel lying deep in my soul.”

“Men must know their limitations.”

“I keep working because I learn something new all the time.”

“My whole life has been one big improvisation.”

God Bless Clint Eastwood

Geoff Fox, 31 May, 2023, Down Under

Previous men named as IMOTA are:

  1. John Wycliffe
  2. Douglas MacArthur
  3. George Pell
  4. R.S. Thomas
  5. Donald Trump
  6. John Barrymore
  7. William Shatner
  8. Thomas Jefferson
  9. Count Basie

Mary Pickford #2 – A Silent Era Movie Star And Lifelong Philanthroprist

America’s Sweetheart from the silent movie era, Mary Pickford died, aged 87, on this day, 44 years ago, in 1979.

“If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, there is always
another chance for you.” she is renowned to have said, “And supposing you have tried and failed again and again, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

On set, Pickford’s habit was to hang a bucket and ask everyone working to put some money for other film workers who were not getting work. She also organized the Motion Picture Relief Fund.

In these facts, I see a beautiful commitment to charity and good old-fashioned self-reliance. Coming from a beautiful woman, that is a powerful combination.

God Bless America.

Geoff Fox, 29th May, 2023, Down Under

Women For Freedom #37 Kylie Minogue

I love Walt Whitman’s phrase “democracy ma femme”.

On the basis of her statement “With one man, there was a freedom and liberation. That was with Michael Hutchence, my partner in life.” I feel I can call Australia’s somewhat democratic Pop Princess Kylie Minogue a Woman for Freedom.

Her freedom presents to us in these words of hers as a freedom balanced by commitment to true love.

Who agrees?

This piece of Word Art is an original photo authored by Sport the library with words added by Geoff Fox and published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence by Geoff Fox.

Geoff Fox, May 28, 2023, Down Under

The crescent moon Word Art at the top is a photo by sosodave from Australia with words added by Geoff Fox and is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence.

Australian Police Taser 95 Year Old Woman Using A Walking Frame. She Dies. UPDATE: Her Assailant Not Yet Charged With MURDER Or MANSLAUGHTER.

I live in Australia. To get precise information about the death of a 95 year old woman who appears to be the victim of either murder or manslaughter by police here, I have to go to CNN.

Here is the key info I have gained from a recent CNN report, WHICH I CONSIDER GIVES THE BEST SUMMARY WHICH I HAVE SEEN SO FAR OF PERTINENT FACTS :

“Last week, NSW Police Force Assistant Commissioner Peter Cotter told reporters that police were called to Nowland’s care home in the town of Cooma, New South Wales, around 4:15 a.m. to reports of a resident with a knife.

“At the time she was tasered, she was approaching police. It is fair to say at a slow pace. She had a walking frame. But she had a knife,” Cotter told reporters on Friday.

Video of the incident was captured by two police body cameras but the footage hasn’t been publicly released.

NSW police guidelines say that tasers should only used on elderly or disabled people in “exceptional circumstances.”

Family friend Andrew Thaler said before the incident Nowland was frail and unable to stand unaided. She weighed just 43 kilograms (95 pounds) and was 5-foot-2 (1.58 meters) tall and was suffering dementia.”

Disclosure about myself:

I turned 66 years old last Tuesday.

Last year I was physically assaulted three times by police on the streets of Melbourne. On the third occasion I was both physically and sexually assaulted. (groped – see image above.)

Police who attacked me are putting me on trial.

This is a horrible country to be old in, if police decide they have the right to ignore your rights and attack you.

Just getting a fair hearing is almost impossible.

And why does CNN say what needs to be said better than the Australian media?

Geoff Fox, 26th May, 2023, Australia

Great Americans # 9 Singer Songwriter Steve Young

Steve Young is one of my alltime favorite singer songwriters.

I predict that, long term, this glorious artist will be more famous than his namesake, the great ’49ers quarterback, whom nfl.com ranks as the 15th greatest quarterback of all time. Others put the football playing Steve Young in the top ten of quarterbacks.

At the moment the footballer is much more famous than the singer, whose birthday is coming up on the 12th of July.

Who wants to help me bridge the current gap in fame between these two men?

For those who know little about the singer, please listen to “My Oklahoma” written by Young’s wife, Terrye Newkirk, aka Cheryl Young.

The lyrics are gloriously free American words about being as one with the place you live in:

“Stars out in the morning
And the still rustle of corn
What a good place to be born

Clouds over the prairie
Till the wind blows them away
At the still start of the day

Hey, my Oklahoma
Are you still awaiting for me
With your gold plain waving free”

In “The Ballad Of William Sycamore” Young makes a song out of a Steven Vincent Benét poem in which the spirit of a man, hit hard by the loss of his sons in American wars at the Alamo and under Custer, finds redemption in reuniting with the land:

"Now I lie in the heart of the fat, black soil, Like the seed of the prairie-thistle; It has washed my bones with honey and oil And picked them clean as a whistle.

And my youth returns, like the rains of Spring, And my sons, like the wild-geese flying; And I lie and hear the meadow-lark sing And have much content in my dying.

Go play with the towns you have built of blocks, The towns where you would have bound me! I sleep in my earth like a tired fox, And my buffalo have found me."

In “Vison of A Child” , a song written for his son, Jubal, Young again finds union between the imagination and the natural world in lyrics like:

“Little Jubal boy
The woods and fields are dark
Except for the light of the moon and stars
So go on ahead
Through the portals of your dreams
Go on escape these earthly bars
And you can sail the silver streams
As you travel through your dreams
As you travel through the night”

A glorious voice.

For me, a great American.

Steve Young.

The singer.

Geoff Fox, 25th May, 2023, Down Under

Australian Federal Police Officer Charged With Trafficking Metamphetamines, High Level Corruption, Theft And Money Laundering And Then RELEASED ON BAIL

An Australian Federal Police (AFP) Officer, who lives in a suburb about 5 kilometers or so from my place, has been charged with trafficking methamphetamines, high level corruption, theft and money laundering.

The magistrate who has released him on bail did so in part because he has “no criminal history.” (the link to this Melbourne Herald-Sun article is behind a paywall)

The officer deserves the presumption of innocence but the range of criminal charges in a country where wrong doing police officers are rarely held to account seems to make a compelling case for protecting the public from what he might do when set free.

This is happening on my side of town. Approximately half a dozen kilometres from my place

It makes this over-policed neighbourhood feel even less safe to me knowing that he is free.

Who agrees?

Geoff Fox,

Australian Police Taser 95 Year Old Woman Using A Walking Frame. She Dies.

Attacking the vulnerable and elderly and trashing human rights is what police in Australia do best. I have personally witnessed or been the victim of half a dozen police assaults on the innocent in Melbourne.

A 95 year old woman tasered by police in aged care in New South Wales has died from the injuries which included a fractured skull.

The New South Wales police officer faces three charges of assault. Recklessly causing grievous bodily harm. Assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Common assault. Will these charges be upgraded to murder?

In Victoria, police put their victims on trial.

It happened to Cardinal George Pell. He conducted a mass. That was proven beyond reasonable doubt. “Operation Tethering” lead to his conviction and wrongful imprisonment for 404 days.

A police officers fingers go inside my underpants after they pulled me out of prayer at a church.

They are putting me on trial.

This nation is no longer a civilised country.

Geoff Fox, 26th May, 2023, Down Under

The Fabric Of Society #1 Freedom

I am a libertarian.

To me, freedom looks like the essential glue or fabric for society.

(An alternative view would be to say that the dichotomy of Freedom well balanced with Discipline (FbD) is what holds us together.)

But today, on my birthday, I speculate that my poet’s etymological analysis of the word “freedom” can give us both freedom and discipline in one. To do this I first suggest that the roots of the word “freedom” can lead us to call it the home or homes where we can feel free.

This might not actually be what happened in the evolution of language.

But I think it is is worth embracing because I believe it represents what we need.

It’s my birthday.

I am a poet.

So I am taking liberties with in offering this explanation of “freedom”, which literalists might dislike but others might enjoy.

For me, the word “freedom” combines the adjective “free” with the Latin word “domus” or home to mean a home where someone can feel free.

This works for me as the FbD I mentioned above.

Freedom balanced with discipline.

Homes are, or were, most commonly (like the homes I grew up in, first in Canberra, then in Melbourne) heterosexual places where parents raised kids. So there had to be rules.

One online etymological source says that the word “freedom” comes from the Old English “free” and “doom” meaning “regulation” or “statute”. Meaning, I presume, “no regulations”, “no statutes” or what some might call “anarchy”.

I prefer my flight of fancy in going back to the Latin which I studied in my youth for ten years. Maybe “domus” is where “doom” came from.

So, now, on my birthday, I feel I can say:

“Freedom is the home(s) where we feel free.”

A personal definition.

Humane.

Non-authoritarian.

Who agrees?

Geoff Fox, 23rd May, 2023, Down Under

PS I thank the United States Of America for how much help I can get online in artistically pursuing this idea and other libertarian ideas from so many of America’s wonderful freedom lovers like Tulsi Gabbard.

The above piece of word art is a photograph of Tulsi authored by Tulsi with words added by me. This resulting piece of word art is published by me under a GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.