As promised, Richard Cory, by Edward Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning,"
and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich — yes, richer than a king —
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.


Counterpoint - Without having been in or near those places in my lifetime, I would be a much poorer human being. I have been at the door of suicide, and have had dear friends pass through that door. The despair cannot be translated to words, and only the morally ignorant can dismiss it lightly. Perhaps our collective lives are rather too easy to foster understanding. There has been reference in the community blog to meat. We buy it fried brown and juicy or packaged attractively, and blind ourselves to the truth that someone had to slaughter the animal. We sit in our warm or cool homes, and don't recall that others have had to produce the energy source that heats us, cools us, and runs our computers, and that those people have real lives, hard live. Bad things will never happen to us, and we simply don't remember that there have to be people like Rox and Tim who see humans at their physical and emotional worst. Elsewhere, I am addressing the brethren on these things tonight, too. Our collective ignorance and sloth are displacing work and honor in our society, and if we don't decide to stand up, that will simply continue.

Perhaps I sound a bit shrill this evening. Certainly, this is stream-of-consciousness and not organized with any advance thoughts. But these are my words, and some here will recognize the meaning of that and the meaning of these words.

And I have been dealing with fucking idiots the entire day, with few exceptions, and if bad judgment, intellectual triviality and spectacular human ignorance become Olympic sports, America will have a team of around 100 million.

Pippa passes.

R