Hello Douglas,

hope it is all right with you over there.

To answer Ruark's question I would ask some other questions. What does
medicine do for beggars? Physics, astrophysics, chemistry, engineering,
mechanics, ...?
On Ruark's leitmotiv, why not shut down the world?
Yes, let's close everything down. It is all useless.

I think I heard a similar echoing sound some decades ago. It was a distant
current called Existentialism. Then there were some developments. Distinct
questions.

We don't like repetitions, do we?
Best,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>


> Ruark
>
> you're right to suggest that poetry (art) won't do much to change the
lives
> of, say, people forced to live in the street, I certainly wasn't trying to
> say anything along that line.
>
> Political will might. Therefore doing something in/with politics might
make
> change possible.  On the other hand, the neo-conservative push (putsch?)
we
> feel all too clearly here in North America these days might be too strong
> to overcome. It seems to have found ways to fool most of the people most
of
> the time, that's for sure.
>
> But I'd take Ken's message that many of those out there didn't CHOOSE to
be
> as valid most of the time. And I'd agree that art won't do much to change
> the situation, not directly anyway.
>
> I think the list has been going since 1999?
>
> Doug
>
> Douglas Barbour
> Department of English
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
> (h) [780] 436 3320      (b) [780] 492 0521
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
>
>         No one could be
> more hostile than a species enclosed in
> a chimney for a century or so they told me.
>
>                 Clark Coolidge
>