E. B. White on Democracy, Brotherly Love, and Technology

He says of the first, among other things, that it needs defending, with arms if necessary; of the second, that he prefers the rule of law; and, of the third, that it's the wheel in the hamster-cage.

On Democracy:

"We received a letter from the Writers' War Board the other day asking for a statement on "The Meaning of Democracy." It is presumably our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure. Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don't in don't shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles, the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere.Democracy is the letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn't been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It's the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of the morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is."

The New Yorker (1943-07-03); reprinted as "Democracy" in The Wild Flag (1946)

On Brotherly Love and the Rule of Law

"Government is the thing. Law is the thing. Not brotherhood, not international cooperation, not security councils that can stop war only by waging it... Where does security lie, anyway — security against the thief, a bad man, the murderer? In brotherly love? Not at all. It lies in government.
As quoted in Common Cause: A Monthly Report of the Committee to Frame a World Constitution Vol. I, No. 2 (August 1947)

On Technology

Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
"The Old and the New," The New Yorker (1937-06-19)

There is more at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._B._White

Choose Pickles, Not War

Turşu...

Ahmet Altan

Şöyle iri gövdeli temiz bir kavanozun içine salatalıklar dizip, su, limon, sarımsak, bir iki dal dereotu koyup, kavanozun ağzını bir bez parçasıyla örttükten sonra kapağını sıkıca kapatacaksınız.
Onlar yavaş yavaş sararacak.
Kehribar rengini alacak.
Sonra kapağını açacaksınız
Isırdığınızda, salatalıkların diri çıtırtısıyla birlikte harikulade tadını hissedeceksiniz.
Yağmurlar da başlamış olacak.
Akşam erken çökecek.
Minarelerin ışıkları yandığında, camdaki damlalara çarpıp onları karanlık pencerelerde inci kolyeler gibi ışıldatacak.
Derin, yumuşak bir koltuğa oturacaksın.
Heyecanlı, hareketli bir film olacak televizyonda.
Yanındaki sehpanın üstünde sigaran, küllüğün, birkaç kitap bulunacak.
Ayaklarını altında toplayıp sevdiğin kadın yanına oturacak.
Kalın çoraplar giyecek.
Kaba bir hırka belki üstünde.
Üşüyüp mırıldanarak sana sokulacak.
Hiç konuşmadan filmi seyredeceksiniz.
Film bittiğinde, sakın o bir şey söylemeden sen bir şey söyleme, belki de film hakkında hiç konuşmayacaksınız.
Öyle oturacaksınız.
Şöyle kaba yünden, zırh gibi bir yorgan almalısınız.
Yattığınızda, yatak soğuk olmalı önce.
Bir zaman kımıldamadan durmalısınız.
Yorgan sizi güvenle koruyup ısıtmalı.
İyice ısınınca, kıpırdanacaksınız.
Uyandığınızda hâlâ yağmur olacak.
Ağaçlarda hışırtılı bir rüzgâr.
Pencereyi açıp derin bir soluk alacaksın.
Soğuk yüzünüze çarpacak, telaşla içeri çekeceksin başını.
Sonra bir daha açıp pencereyi, yaramaz bir çocuk gibi kafanı gene dışarı uzatacaksın.
Yanakların biraz kızaracak.
Kalın bir kazak giyeceksin, üstüne şu damalı oduncu gömleklerinden birini.
Ayağında kalıbı çoktan bozulmuş kadife bir pantolon.
Kahvaltıdan sonra yağmurda birlikte yürüyeceksiniz.
Şemsiye almayın bence, kukuletalı yağmurluklardan giyin.
Varsa belki lastik çizmeler.
Döneceksiniz sonra.
Masana oturacaksın.
Olmayan insanları toplayacaksın etrafınıza, onlar konuşacak sen yazacaksın.
Yüksek sesli bir müzik çalacak.
Oda müziği belki...
Belki de bir konçerto...
Belki bir sonat...
Müslüman dostları kızdırmak pahasına küçük bir kadehte akik rengi konyak, o kadeh olmadan, “olmayan” insanlarla konuşmak, onları dinlemek zor çünkü.
Gırtlağın yanacak.
İçerlerden, evin derinlerinden sıcacık bir yemek kokusu.
Kapının pervazına dayanmış gülümseyen bir yüz.
Bir şey söylemeden bakacak.
Hiç sormadan yemek yiyecek misin yoksa biraz daha mı çalışacaksın onu anlayacak.
Sen çalışacaksan, o da gidip içerde kitabını okuyacak, yazacakları varsa yazacak.
Hafifçe utanacaksın.
Onca işi arasında, sana bakıp, seni beslediği için.
Garip bir hüznü de içinde barındıran, mutluluğa benzer bir minnet duyacaksın.
Sakın aklındakilerin hepsini yazma.
Hemingway’in kuralını unutma.
Masadan kalktığında mutlaka aklında yazılmaya hazır bir paragraf olsun.
Yeniden döndüğünde, seni o paragraf karşılasın.
Alsın seni, yeniden yazdıklarının arasına sokuversin usulca.
Yabancılık çekme.
İlk oturduğunda ağaçları, müziği, rüzgârı duy, penceredeki yağmuru gör.
Sonra silinsin her şey.
Sen yeniden “olmayan” bir âlemin kapısından geç.
Hava kararırken masanın üstündeki lambanın düğmesine bas, turuncu renkli bir aydınlık vursun harflere.
Gece çöktüğünde sandalyenden bitkin bir şekilde kalk.
Kalın tahta masanın üstüne dizilmiş tabaklarda akşam yemeği.
Ve sararmış, kehribar rengi turşular.
Dereotu ve sarımsak kokusu.
Boşver ölümü, boşver hayatı.
İyisin işte.
Yazılacak iki satır yazın...
Kütürtülü turşuların...
Bir de sevip güvendiğin bir kadının varsa...
Ne hayat dokunur sana, ne de ölüm.

From http://www.taraf.com.tr/yazar.asp?mid=1822,

Diğer Ahmet Altan Makaleleri:
23.09.2008 - Ezan
21.09.2008 - Bir anı
20.09.2008 - Cunta mı?
19.09.2008 - Genç subaylar
18.09.2008 - Niye yapıyorsunuz bunu?
17.09.2008 - Dünya değişirken DTP
16.09.2008 - Fener ve yalan
14.09.2008 - Neler öğreniyoruz
13.09.2008 - Savcı
12.09.2008 - 12 Eylül
11.09.2008 - Kimseyi sevmiyoruz
10.09.2008 - İnsanlık ve biz
09.09.2008 - Kavga
06.09.2008 - Ah ahparik
05.09.2008 - Korgeneral
Tüm yazıları

A Quiet Life

A Quiet Life
by Baron WormserScattered Chapters

What a person desires in life is a properly boiled egg.This isn't as easy as it seems.There must be gas and a stove, the gas requires pipelines, mastodon drills, banks that dispense the lozenge of capital.There must be a pot, the product of mines and furnaces and factories, of dim early mornings and night-owl shifts, of women in kerchiefs and men with sweat-soaked hair.Then water, the stuff of clouds and skies and God knows what causes it to happen.There seems always too much or too little of it and more pipelines, meters, pumping stations, towers, tanks.And salt-a miracle of the first order, the ace in any argument for God. Only God could have imagined from nothingness the pang of salt.Political peace too. It should be quiet when one eats an egg. No political hoodlums knocking down doors, no lieutenants who are ticked off at their scheming girlfriends and take it out on you, no dictators posing as tribunes.It should be quiet, so quiet you can hear the chicken, a creature usually mocked as a type of fool, a cluck chained to the chore of her body.Listen, she is there, pecking at a bit of grain that came from nowhere.
"A Quiet Life" by Baron Wormser, from Scattered Chapters. © Sarabande Books, 2008. Reprinted with permission.

My Papa’s Waltz

My Papa’s Waltz
by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz” from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Copyright 1942

The People at My Tennis Club

Milton calls me Jacob. He has for years. There is nothing extraordinary about this except my name is not Jacob, and for about a year or so Milton has known it. He got wise one early Saturday when we were sharing the practice wall at the club, pretty much the only place we see each other. A passerby greeted me by my real name. Milton turned to me with an expression I imagine a dentist wears when he discovers he has pulled the wrong tooth. As it happens, Milton is a dentist and foot-faulting past the eight-decade mark cannot be altogether unfamiliar with the awful feeling. Still, I regretted his abrupt education and rushed to assure him. I said I liked being called Jacob; that once translated into English my dad’s name was Jacob. I even told him about the security guard in the building where my parents had a sandwich shop, who called me Hank for twenty-two years. Al, as we knew him, must have known at some point, or even from the beginning, that my name wasn’t Hank but figured I didn’t mind and went on that way to the end when he died at age 78 with a full head of pomaded hair and a pack of Camels in his shirt pocket. I told Milton he should go on calling me it. Now when we run into each other on early Saturday mornings, Milton greets me as Jacob and we go on just as before. He tells me stories about the club and the city from a time long before I stepped foot in either, or for that matter, long before I stepped foot anywhere. I ask him about his most recent lesson with Ignacio and what part of his game they are working on these days. We enjoy the morning quiet and the steady sound of tennis balls thumping the dark green wall, Milton and I.

Dick is a real gentleman and a paragon of equanimity. It’s no surprise, therefore, that he was elected to head the club’s tennis board of governors this year. It is a surprise that he ran at all, however. I am guessing someone, most likely some scarred predecessor, begged him to take the job. In my mind, Dick must attract positions of responsibility as naturally and effortlessly as Federer collects trophies. As anyone who has had him for a partner or an opponent on the tennis court would guess, he appears neither to relish nor neglect the distinction of his new office. This is a good thing in a ruler whose subjects’ sense of entitlement is surpassed only by their ability to find fault.

Jeff, apparently, is not a gentleman, not by a long shot. Many at the club openly speculate about a direct blood-line tethering the man to Lucifer. Someone in my earshot once likened him to Nastase but without his sense of fair play. You’d think the man worked for Alberto Gonzales. In truth, he is a minor Hollywood agent, one, according to club rumor, specializing in actors whose main source of income is restaurant tips. Nevertheless, Jeff has a place at the club. He was the club champ before he was eclipsed by new, younger faces and can still hold his own against anyone at the club. Stories about his outbursts and tantrums are so copious that no conversation may not be revived with one of them withing easy reach. What's more, Jeff reminds us all who haven't won the club championship that there is more to life than being good at tennis.

Andy’s secret weapon is a serve with enough spin to make a press-secretary cringe. Its malice is so plain that it’s hard for one not to take it personally. When Andy hits his serve just right, the arcing ball lands in the service box just inches from the net and quickly abandons all regard for the laws of physics. The astonished receiver, once past his disbelief, makes a late lunge but is soon reduced to the kind of nervous giggling people get after they step into shin-deep rain puddles. Off the court, Andy is all friendliness and kindness, and, in that state, proof that tennis has the power to alter personality.

The American Idea

Of all the Western democracies, America, we are told, is the most religious; Americans, the most God-fearing. Yet, it would be hard to deny that America’s God bears little resemblance to the now-dead European one or to the one ostensibly stirring America’s enemies. For one thing, America’s God appears so little to be in control of what’s happening to Americans that most of them would rather that their courts adjudicate his will. Elsewhere electricians fall off ladders because God wills that they should. In America they tumble because ladder manufacturers fail negligently to foresee every possible combination of factors that compel electricians to lose their balance. In America faith doesn’t seem to compel a belief in fate. America’s God helps only those who help themselves and presumably never those who do not. Americans love the freedom necessary for making their own fate, even if for many of them the principal exercise of that freedom is a belief in a God whose existence renders that freedom irrelevant. Americans are an inventive people, perhaps the most inventive in the world. Nothing, not even their God, is beyond the reach of their creativity.

Pensive Pinsky

Robert Pinsky Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.