Site Ed. Note: Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,/ Nor the furious winter’s rages;/ Thou thy worldly task hast done,/ Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;/ Golden lads and girls all must,/ As chimney-sweepers, come to dust./ Fear no more the frown o’ the great,/ Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke:/ Care no more to clothe and eat;/ To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must/ All follow this, and come to dust./ Fear no more the lightning-flash,/ Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;/ Fear not slander, censure rash;/ Thou hast finish’d joy and moan:/ All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust./ No exorciser harm thee!/ Nor no witchcraft charm thee!/ Ghost unlaid forbear thee!/ Nothing ill come near thee!/ Quiet consummation have;/ And renowned be thy grave!—Cymbeline

Incidentally, the first entry we tried to edit, before old Stoney's, finding ourselves immediately stricken, was "Dover Beach", seeking to point out, with obvious hyperbole in play, obvious to anyone able to think anyway, that the "interpretation" of the poem offered was the worst bit of poetic interpretation ever witnessed. Then at the bottom, below some other references to and parodies of the poem, offered previously by others and deemed quite acceptable for some odd reason by Der Hexer, we sought to add a reference, no doubt the boot-kicker which got us expelled for a day or two from "adult education". Oh, never so happy we were, though, "Der Hexer", to be expelled by such an Aryan as yourself, and over our rightful exercise of expression of free opinion. May we have another, then, mein commandant?

That's the most absurd inditement re poetry ever writ; read it. Then start the first grade, ye grave-robbin' scoliaster. There wasn't anything in the least prophetic going on a'tall; the Austro-Prussian War was on in full force already, ducky.

White cliffs of Dover?…

Those statements were no joke, just a way of suggesting a mode of thought, after relaxing one's mind naturally enough to think it, one which Der Hexer obviously will not allow in Naziville, as we have been noticing there generally long before we offered our 2 cents plain.

By contrast, Der Hexer, of the factory-think, let us make the very bland statements following the one-off "interpretation". O, thank you, O Wise One, O. We must strip our language of all stimulation to poetic muse, accord it with the blandness and neutrality which is always the first step on the road to turning democracies back to totalitarian states, accept a one-track interpretation of a poem subject to as many interpretations, layer on layer, as there are readers of it. All aboard, now. The trains for camp are loading fastly.

It is, last we heard, called learning and teaching others a little younger, maybe, a little about how to think, not what to think, Der Hexer, rather than encouraging mindless regurgitation of useless "facts", half of which or more in your little volume of doe-impacted information are plainly false, by application of logical inference from generally accepted understanding, if not from direct dispute by credible academic sources not allowed to be included within your little carefully controlled "free" think-tank, wr-ink, often footnoted repeatedly by single sources.

Make no mistake, Ast X is alive and well, and daily growing its bacteria cultures by dissemination around the world at Wikipedia. Mindlessness is its watchword, the echoes of the graves of Hamburg's past. If anyone complains in the least, label them "vandals" and slam the door. It is a typical enough corporate response, becoming ever more eradicative of basic freedom, ultimately invasive of our ability to think and speak without the chill of the Uberlord to check our tongues and pencils. Yet, this one, Wikipedia, for some reason, enjoys tax-free status, which, in turn, entitles us as citizens supporting it to naysay its very existence should we wish. You will change your policy, Wikipedia, to allow all comers within your doors who make peaceful statements, whether framed as opinion and question to other opinions allowed in the door, or credibly documented fact, or you will be driven out of existence--or, as you ought anyway, be required to pay your fair way. As a publicly supported entity, however, you are subject to the Constitution of the United States and you will damn well adhere to it.

Anyway, speaking of such as that, here’s a little story we saw of encouraging justice for someone standing up to the Big Lie. What is most disturbing about it, however, is that Dr. Woo ever settled for such an outrageous sum in the first place for a simple practical joke. Ye raise your pigs, you takes your chances with the Joker, after all. Ah well, whether 16 or 60, we are sure she was a beautiful Boar's Head, apple or no.

Oh yeah, by the way, here's a little more on birds: without our knowing it at the time when we added it in January, 2003, it is parked on the date, curiously, on which Ms. Rigby passed, as noted on the headstone in Woolton cemetery.

And that falcon we saw, July 16, 2007, alight on the slab-stone ground nearby where we live? Well, it did land on stones which subsequently last weekend we ventured over to see, never having seen them before, never having walked among them before, though passing within twenty yards of them for years past on occasion, as we perambulated by them on the way home. There was a group of slab-stones, flat on the ground, viewable only by walking to them, among which the precise one where the bird landed is a bit hard in hindsight to determine except sketchily. But its talons touched down among these etchings on those stones, we kid not: three Stones; two Selfs, General and Exie, and Johnson & Johnson, Claus and Gunhilde. We hope their spirits and loved ones forgive us referencing their names. It is for but the purpose that the grey stranger wanted us to note them for some higher conveyance, apparently, or else we would not.

And, on August 27, 2001, after we walked in the late afternoon drizzling rain around Lyndon Johnson's birthplace on his birthday, we went over to the LBJ Ranch on the Perdernales. Having spent the better part of the earlier part of the day at three libraries on the campus at Austin, by the time we got there, the museum was closed. And so we rode along the road astride the ranch, got out a couple of times among the raindrops, with our ruby-lensed binoculars in play, to examine the landscape on the far side of the river.

Make of it what you will.

Magic? We have no idea. But you won't find that in the Wikipedia, deary.

It's Now, on Two Matters of Importance, or Never

For the good burghers of this county and city, two pressing matters of registration demand immediate attention. They will not wait.

One, and perhaps the more vital one, since nothing can be corrected about it under ten years, is the census. Reaching of 100,000 population in the city is going to be a closer squeak than had been surmised. At least 5,499 more persons must be counted to make up the deficiency disclosed by Saturday's figure.

Furthermore, residents of the county outside the city should assure themselves that they have been included in the census-taking, for the 1940 population in Mecklenburg is secondary in importance only to that of the city.

The other unfinished business in registration has to do with the Library election. Records of the last election show that 3,096 registered voters were counted against the 5-cent tax proposal. Which means, in all probability, that the registration this time must exceed 7,000 if the Library is not to remain closed, likely for good, for want of the people's approval of a 4-cent tax.

To take part in this election, voters must register specially, without regard to whether or not their names already appear on the election books. Two more weeks remain, and they will have passed before you know it.

The Girls No Longer Feel The Need To Hide Their Ages

One of the curious things which the census takers have turned up is that women no longer generally hesitate to tell their age. In the first census, so the story runs, a female, angered by what she considered an indecently intimate question, heaved a pewter pitcher at the head of an unfortunate enumerator.

After that the bureau discreetly decided that its agents need not push the point too much. This time, however, the census-takers find that, apart from a few sour old maids and ancient widows, the femmes answer blithely enough and what is more--apparently tell the truth.

This is a serious matter, of course, since it upsets a convention quite as solidly established as that ostriches meet danger by hiding their heads in the sand, that alligators weep for their victims, or that horse-hairs turn into snakes when placed in water.

Hence we are minded, rashly, perhaps, to undertake an explanation. In brief, it is that the girls no longer need to keep their years secret or to lie about it. Formerly, the only career open to them was marriage. More than that, men generally married young with the result that they demanded young women.

Our grandfathers worshipped at the shrine of "sweet sixteen," and a woman at twenty was heading for the old maid list fast; and even our fathers preferred them under twenty, regarded an unmarried woman of 30 as simply a pathetically comic creature.

But no longer. The girls have as many careers open to them now as the men. Moreover, under present economic circumstances few eligible men are ready for marriage until their late twenties or even their thirties. Plenty of them wait until their forties or later. In consequence of that, the cult of the young girl has--not died out perhaps, but certainly weakened to the point that it no longer seriously interferes with the marriage prospects of any reasonably presentable woman who decides she wants to get married.

We Have A Head Start For The Murder Crown In 1940

How Charlotte actually stood in the murder sweepstakes for the first three months of 1940 we don't positively know. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has not yet favored us with its quarterly bulletin, upon which we mainly depend for comparative data.

But we'll cheerfully bet you a dollar or two cents that the old town is still living up to its established record, as one of the two or three most murderous spots on earth. Indeed, there seems to be an excellent prospect that this year she'll again do what she has done several times before and emerge as the champion murder spot of the earth and probably of the starry universe.

Score for the first quarter was ten victims, all Negroes, eight men, two women. One of them did not die until April, but the crime was committed in March, and so properly belongs to be listed in the first quarter. This is double the score for the same quarter last year, when for some reason there was the curious lull in January and February. The year started out better this time, with four being bumped off in the first month.

If the present rate continues, the score for the year will be 40, or five more than the total score for 1939, when, though we decisioned our old rival, Atlanta, two newcomers--Nashville and Miami--appeared to contest our title to the crown. A gain of one-seventh ought to do the trick of clinching it this time unless Nashville and Miami are prepared for the most extensive exertions. Let them look to their laurels.

Mussolini Is Not Likely To Get This Save By Force

It is likely that Mussolini is simply sending up trial balloons for the present, but the reports from Rome that he wants the "permanent neuturalization" of Suez and Gibraltar, the stripping of both these key points of all fortifications and offenses, still probably represent the minimum of what he hopes to get in return for his promise (entirely worthless) to stay out of the war as an ally of Nazi Germany.

But it is not probable that he will get it. It is never possible, to be sure, to know what the English Government which "appeased" England into such a bad position that she had to fight the present war, will do. And the Allies are certainly on a spot at the moment, have their hands full in Norway and don't care for any new enemies or battlefronts.

Nevertheless, it is quite plain that giving Mussolini what he wants would be tantamount to destruction of the British and French empires, in any case. "Neutralizing" Gibraltar and Suez simply means putting them into condition for Mussolini to seize them and fortify them all over again. And with these key points in his hands, the English and French possessions and protectorates in Africa and Near Asia would quickly fall to him, as with the Southern Balkans and Turkey.

Nor is there anything in the tone of the British press to suggest that the British Government would so much as consider any such scheme. Mr. Garvin, London Times editor and long a mouthpiece of the Chamberlain clique, struck the keynote yesterday when he said that for Britain it must be double or nothing.

Moreover if the Allies are on a spot, it still remains true that Mussolini is far from holding all the cards. Italy must have coal to fight a war of any length, and Germany cannot supply her. Italian industry is concentrated in easy reach of Allied bombers, and the Alpine passes are made to order in favor of a French invasion. Moreover, most of the principal cities of Italy are vulnerable to attack from the sea--and the Italian battle fleet is inferior to the combined French and British forces in the Mediterranean.

The entry of Italy into the war might insure the victory of Germany, though that is far from certain. But it is quite likely that in the process Italy would be turned into a desert, fit for the habitation of nothing but wolves and wild hogs.