Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet

Obama Chooses Family Friend for Inaugural Poet


With much excitement, anticipation, toes crossed and breath held, we all wondered who might be selected as the poet for Barak Obama’s Inauguration. Would it be the new Library of Congress Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, or her predecessor, Charles Simic? Would Maya Angelou be invited back for a repeat of “On the Pulse in the Morning”? Who has the fortitude to stand before 4-6 million shivering Americans and world guests to listen to the waxing and waning of “an occasional poem,” as they are so terribly named? Who even memorizes poems these days as Robert Frost did on a cold January in 1961? Is there such an American poet who has been vetted of appropriate metaphors and synecdoches for such an auspicious occasion?

Lyndon Baines didn’t even want to waste time with such triviality at his Inauguration. And Ike? Does anyone remember a poet honoring the great General? Well perhaps this is unfair, for who remembers the Benediction at any of the Inaugurals? Okay, can anyone out there (without Goggling) remember a line from any of the Presidential Inaugural speeches, with the exception of “Ask not….”? Lines do seem to fade once the party’s over, don’t they?

So we do have a Presidential Inaugural Poet, and she is Elizabeth Alexander of Yale University who has a remarkably fine list of honors and achievements, and you can find more about her by going to the www.npr.org site
and searching for her interview on Thursday, Dec.18. But I was just wondering, what do you think would be appropriate images or even lines of the Inaugural Poem?

Who could forget Maya Angelou’s?

Here, on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope --
Good morning.

A favorite image is seeing old man Frost reading from memory his closing lines of such solemnity:

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

Those lines do sound today a bit heavy handed with the piano key-iambic hitting just the right stresses. But heck, it was cold out, and we never got to hear the poem he wished to read, as he didn’t wear sunglasses for the intense snow glare that day. Anyone remember “Dedication”? It’s even more somber, if that’s possible. What is it about “the state of somberness” which gets these Inaugural poets bringing out the chariots, or cheerleaders? Sorry!

Now Miller Williams had it right, when he stepped up to the podium for Bill’s Second Inaugural. The photo of Bill sitting behind Miller who is reading is near priceless for “rapt attention of a poet reading a poem.” Here’s a stinger of Miller’s:

But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s talk about the dead, a favorite for all poets.

And then there was James Dickey of all people, standing up for Jimmy Carter in 1977, choosing not to read a piece written for the occasion, but instead, pulling out a favorite of his, “The Strength of Fields,” with a rip roaring closing line of

My life belongs to the world. I will do what I can.

Now I am getting goose bumps; aren’t you? Okay, enough of this inaugural poetic torture. What would you like to read at the mike? Do you have an inaugural line? A title? Please submit your lines, images, metaphors and synecdoches, and I’ll try my best to cut and paste something that might catch the attention of the Academy of American Poets, for who knows what we might be able to create? We might be making inaugural poetic history here.

Please, though, no “hope springs eternal” lines. We’ve gotten the point on that one. Also, no blubbering. No whining. No chest puffing. Nothing too bellicose. Please, only one personification per poet, please. Think out of the sonnet box. Be grand, but not too grand. Be strong but not too strong. Be fresh, like Ezra Pound (see college modern poetry textbook) insisted. Perhaps a little pedestrian, but some nobility as well, for a Kennedy is bound to be in the audience. No “send forth” instructions. We’ve already done that. Keep it family style, too, as we don’t want any nipples showing that might need to be covered, after all, the meteorologists predict the temps will be in the low 20’s. Finally, and with some reservation as a poet who loves long historical poems, keep it to two pages, please. The public isn’t ready for a modified epic, at least not when teeth are chattering. So here’s your challenge. Send a few lines, titles, noble thoughts, and we’ll try to paste together a hit for the Yes We Can Team.







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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Returns

Sir Gawain & The Green Knight Makes the Top 100 Notable Books of the Year

The news is quite astounding, and reflects much on the power of a good poem, written, some say, in the late 14th Century in a dialect few of us can converse in, but imagine the surprise when the newest translation of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight showed up on the New York Times Book Review “100 Notable Books of 2008.”

This calls for much celebration, not only among living poets, but all of us who take an interest in literature that lasts beyond the year of publication.
Let’s all find a copy (for some, look in an old college literature anthology, English Lit Vol. I) of the poem, and set aside time between New Year’s Eve Day, and New Year’s Day to savor some of the mind-tripping Middle English 101 stanzas that aren’t all that long, if you don’t mind a giant who loses his head, and some pretty steamy scenes, and a potential second beheading.

May I suggest we read it to our loved ones over whatever hot drinks when sipping throughout the New Year, but please, try to find a green scarf to help carry all of us back in time to knights, a lady fair indeed, and one very sharp axe that does draw blood.

Go ahead and stimulate the economy by actually buying the new translation by Simon Armitage (Norton, $25.95), but I am sure you can find other editions not quite so pricy if you look around. So as you are all making your trips for Holiday Merriment, be it Christmas or Hanukkah, or Winter Solstice, Saturnalia, or Kawanza, take time to bring in some firewood, find some extra lap warmers, see what kinds of English teas are tucked away in the back of the pantry, and see if there’s even time for baking a batch of scones.

With much anticipation, we begin:
No, I have come to this court for a bit of Christmas fun
fitting for Yuletide and New Years with such a fine crowd.
Who here in this house thinks he has what it takes,
has bold blood and a brash head,
and dares to stand his ground, giving stroke for stroke?
Here! I shall give him this gilded blade as my gift;
this heavy ax shall be his, to handle as he likes.
and I shall stand here bare of armor, and brave the first blow.
If anyone's tough enough to try out my game,
let him come here quickly and claim his weapon!
I give up all rights; he will get it for keeps.
I'll stand like a tree trunk -- he can strike at me once,
if you'll grant me the right to give as good as I get
in play.
But later is soon enough,
a full year and a day.
Get up, if you think you're rough,
let's see what you dare to say!"
(Paul Deane, trans., 1999)

Armistice Day Remembered

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Below is an op-ed piece that appears in the Nov. 11, 2008 New York Times. Today I also begin a short section on Holocaust Studies in my World of Ideas class at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and I'll provide a little information about the Treaty of Versailles which was signed in June of 1919. So I thought this might be an appropriate piece for all of us to read. Your blogmeister, DeWitt Clinton


from The New York Times
November 11, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
A Holiday to End All Wars
By ALEXANDER WATSON
Cambridge, England

TODAY is the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War, and it will be commemorated very differently on each side of the Atlantic and across the borders of Europe. It’s a reminder that not all “victors” experience wars in the same way, and that their citizens can have almost as much difficulty as those of the vanquished states in coping with the collective trauma of conflict.

For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation’s 20th and 21st century wars. In France and Britain, by contrast, the mood is altogether more somber. In these countries, it is the dead who, since 1919, have been the focus of the ceremonies.

Why this difference? After all, for citizens of all three countries the date marks a shared victory. In the jargon of the time, Nov. 11, 1918, was the day of their soldiers’ triumph over “Prussian militarism,” the vindication of a “fight for civilization” and the successful finish of a “war to end all wars.”

In the years after the war, official ceremonies in the United States reflected these victorious ideals and celebrated “world peace” — it was only after World War II that the day was dedicated specifically to veterans. The touchstone of loss and suffering for Americans remained the Civil War, the world’s first industrial conflict, which 50 years before World War I had taken the lives of more than 600,000 soldiers. Memorial Day (or as it was originally known, Decoration Day) was first instituted in May during the late 1860s to commemorate these fallen.

In contrast, it was only in August 1914 that the horrors and shock of modern warfare came to Europe. The Great War, as the conflict is still known in France and Britain, was a prolonged and vicious struggle demanding the commitment of nations’ wealth and manpower on an unprecedented scale.

Over four years, armies millions of men strong clashed indecisively in horrendous conditions. For the first time on this scale, genuine home fronts formed, as civilians were targets of bombings and food blockades. British war losses, at more than 700,000 men, remain the heaviest in the country’s history. French and German dead were even more numerous, totaling 1.4 million and likely 2 million, respectively.

It was the need to come to terms with this immense loss of life that shaped European commemorations of Nov. 11. On the armistice’s first anniversary in Britain, a two-minute silence was observed at 11 a.m., the time the fighting ended; industry was shut down, traffic halted and people across the country fell quiet to remember the nation’s dead. In France, public grief was expressed more loudly, local communities gathering every armistice day to hear the names of the dead read out by a war orphan, and responding in unison, “mort pour la patrie” — “died for his country.”

Cenotaphs were built to comfort the bereaved whose relatives had no known resting place — the bodies of hundreds of thousands of men had been lost on the battlefield or eviscerated by shellfire. In 1920, “Unknown Warriors” were chosen and entombed in London and Paris; Rome followed suit in 1921.

In towns and villages more modest memorials and plaques to the fallen were erected, becoming an enduring feature of Europe’s landscape. At veterans’ insistence, Nov. 11 was declared a national holiday in France in 1922, and Germany too introduced an official “people’s day of sorrow,” or Volkstrauertag, in 1925 to honor its war dead.

Today, the commemoration of Nov. 11 varies greatly across Europe. For Poles, the holiday is not a day of mourning but rather of celebration, commemorating the rebirth of their nation in 1918 after more than a century of occupation by Austria-Hungary, Prussia and Russia. In Italy, the war dead are remembered on Nov. 4, “the feast of the fallen,” the day in 1918 that fighting came to an end on its battlefront. Across Central Europe though, the greater horrors of the Second World War have subsumed those of its predecessor within popular memory; in Germany, for example, commemoration of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities now takes precedence over the losses of the last century’s first conflagration.

Yet in France, where the death toll of 1914 to 1918 exceeded that of 1939 to 1945, the dead of World War I retain a strong grip on the national conscience. Across the country today, local mayors will lead remembrance services, the names of long-buried soldiers will be read out, military bands will play and citizens will sing “La Marseillaise.”

In Britain, where an estimated three-quarters of the population paused during the two-minute silence on the armistice’s 80th anniversary and where, in 2002, a BBC poll rated the Unknown Warrior as the country’s 76th greatest citizen, public memory of the war is even stronger. Visit the country (or its former dominions including Canada and New Zealand) in November and you will still see paper poppies being widely worn — a reference to the blood-red flowers which grew on the shell-torn battlefields and to John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields.”

The brainchild of an American educator, Moina Michael, the poppies have been sold since 1921 to support war widows and veterans; a record 37 million were purchased in Britain in 2006. Even 90 years after the war’s end, the rites and symbols of what George Kennan termed “the great seminal catastrophe” of the 20th century retain their poignancy.

Alexander Watson is a research fellow at Cambridge University and the author of “Enduring the Great War.”

My Friends, Our Long National Nightmare is Over

MY FRIENDS, OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER

Somewhere in the hazy craw of childhood memory, I can still see Dwight Eisenhower “inspecting the troops,” a Boy Scout Jamboree somewhere in safe Republican Kansas in the late 1950’s. I’m sure, as nearly always, he “carried” Kansas in the Electoral Votes, but I do recall someone saying how he scowled at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. I’ll admit I can still see Tricky Dick, but mostly due to the occasional documentaries on History Channel, as well as a slightly improved memory of his decision to bomb Cambodia, to prowl around in Democratic offices looking for scuttlebutt, and being somewhat paralyzed, as we all might have been who are still alive, by the Watergate Hearings.

Those Victory hands still pop up occasionally in my abdulla oblongata, or somewhere up there, when I see presidential candidates ascend or descend from planes from various political trips made across the world, or here in the U.S. I’ll admit I remember more from President Ford on Saturday Night Live, than I do of his presidency, but mostly I connect a few wires to the Fall of Saigon, and the Aftermath, which is still a nightmare.

Mostly, I remember Ronald Reagan as amusing, as someone who didn’t seem to attack civil liberties, or undermine the Constitution, though we still need to investigate more of the Iran Contra scandal, though most of us would just like to forget it, but perhaps not the Nicaraguans. For eight years we lived under his doting leadership, and though the specific days are just about as hazy as when Dwight Eisenhower walked by, we probably did not seem to revile the actor, but we tolerated him, knowing he earned the respect one has to accept for a landslide victory, or was it two?

George Elder was a statesman I suppose, and though no one wants to really consider that Kuwait was a legal province of Iraq before European powers separated it from the northern provinces, shortly after WWI, I still sense that George Elder was not motivated by madness as his son would be regarding who actually owns the oil fields. So as poor as my memory is, life under Republican presidents up to George the Younger was not miserable, in fact, some of those days since Dwight must have been pretty good.

But that all changed eight years ago today. I can remember “Florida, Florida, Florida,” as Tim Russet so ably put it. And then we were off to the Supreme Court to decide who would lead us into the Age of Terror(ism). The memory of 9/11/1001 is, of course, burned, singed on all of our memories, much more than any aching memory of being overrun by North Vietnamese regular Army soldiers who captured for a few minutes one mountain top somewhere in South East Asia. Soon, without precedent (perhaps I can be corrected on this) we learned that all laws and justice, a bit to our surprise, would emanate from the White House, even if they were illegal and unprecedented.

Soon we were going to muscle our way against the world, intimidating everyone, as if we were not behind George the Younger, then we were against him. Actually I didn’t want to be behind him, or in front of him, as he was such an intimidating cowboy with such unusual swagger and smirk. Well, I’m no White House historian, but looking back, it seems like the eye of Hurricane Katrina was actually hovering inside George Bush’s Office, and so the level of devastation and destruction is nearly impossible to record, but many writers will begin the herculean task.
Our world shrank after the dismissal of the Kyoto Accords, and whether it was graft, or stupidity, or just proof that absolute power does corrupt even born again Christians, to a certain degree, (and you can decide how much), we became an old crumbling Roman Empire, with too many enemies from too many borders. But last night something changed, a sea shifted, and so without tearing up, I’m just glad to have lasted as long as we all did in our makeshift foxholes. Perhaps we can join other earthlings in learning how to live together again.

Just in Case II

Just in Case, Chapter II

Just as everyone I see has shorter fingernails, and other signs of an expected crisis, I now realize we may have to reconsider moving to an abandoned nuclear silo, or nest of silos, to live out our days as deprived democrats. However, I do have some good news regarding the General Election. We have made new arrangements to launch a NASA space vehicle to the planet Uranus which we have heard on good authority has no RNC (Republican National Committee) offices, or even better, no lobbyists. Sadly, the planet also does not have any DNC offices, so we’d be pretty much on our own out there. So we are rounding up all those who’d like to take the life journey with us, and though we are moving into our senior years, we’re not too worried about arriving when we are over 200 years old, as the opportunities are just too great to pass up. Some of you may be wondering where we will launch, and I can say, unofficially, we have reconnoitered a downtown skyscraper scheduled for demolition and we’ve been rebuilding the launch vehicle in the old elevator shaft. Of course if the Election does go haywire sometime around the last Florida votes are counted, we realize the possibility of a few downtown buildings buckling and collapsing as we make quite a bit of boom boom as we skedaddle out of town.

We’ve actually been receiving bon voyage cards, so many are asking about our supplies for the 140 year trip. Definitely, we’re thinking of a dairy herd, as who’d want to go without cheese that long, but we do wonder how many pots and pans we’d need for a few wheels of Colby or Cheddar. We’re also thinking about a barn full of hay for our high flying mo-mo’s. I actually have some farm experience, so we’re taking a field of broccoli sprouts, as well as a number of other stable vegetables that will get us through until we land sometime in 2208 or maybe, if we’re lucky with wind speed, 2206. Right now we’re trying to figure out the formula for converting soy beans into soy burgers, but I’m sure it’ll come to us soon. We’ve also asked the local bakery if they’d supply us for say, a long trip to Uranus, with a variety of loaves, just to keep us happy and contented. Butter is no problem, as we can call upon or Holsteins to change their routine every now and then.

We also have plenty of room for a menagerie of beasts and fowl, so we are now scouring the far corners for some of our favorite critters. We’ve spotted rare red-beaked cranes flying through the DMZ between North and South Korea, and they’re expected, well, we’ll keep the doors open until the very last minute as we very much would like their company on our long flight. We’ve also asked our botanist friends what would transport well, so we’re making a list of plants and small growing things that we just shouldn’t do without. Oh yes, we’re negotiating right now for a truckload of bottled Evian, though it’s a bit pricy buying wholesale.

Many are wondering about our opportunities in a place where no Republicans or Democrats have ever been spotted. Of course we’ll open a listening post, in case any wish to follow our flight path, but for the most part, we expect a lot of hiking, and we’re told, on very good authority, that a herd of Blue Point Siamese are looking for a trainer, so I am taking a few extra “cat dancers” toys to see if I might apply for the position. My wife is right now packing away all of her pastels and water colors as we’ve also heard the planet is looking for a good visualist who can capture the radiant colors for a travel-to-Uranus campaign offer that is just too good to turn down.

Of course we’re packing favorite books, and yes the Tibetan Book of the Dead is at the top of our list, along with a few verses of Genesis (we like the Noah story), the Bhagavad-Gita, who couldn’t travel without that wonderful story, and of course, our subscription to The New Yorker. My wife has asked if we can’t add a few catalogs, in case we get an internet link and can do some on-line shopping as we speed by the planets.

We’ll be working right up until November 4, and we’ll even calculate a delay if the Supreme Court has to decide, again, who will capture the White House. We do have a few seats left, but please, if you do want to consider travelling with us, be sure to bring a few peanut butter and jellys as it could be a long ride. I’ve also been speculating on inviting a few young people to come aboard, something like Lot’s daughters, just in case we need to keep the population growing as we sail into our future. The details of that are still a bit iffy, as we’ve not worked out a good enticement offer. But you’re invited, so just email us your arrival plans, and I’d suggest only one piece of luggage with one carry-on please. Yes, we’re serving chocolate cookies as Midwest Express has arranged for us to buy all of their jet engine fuel, as long as we promised to take pictures of any new planetary airports for future expansion plans.

Oh, yes, of course, we’ll shut down the launch engines if enough blue states can carry us into a new era. Yes, we’d still have those lobbyists, and those nastier than usual Repubs, but perhaps we can find a way to all get along, at least until another General Election. So wish us well, be sure to vote, cross your fingers and toes, and take a few good deep yoga breaths. It’ll all work out, someway.

Just in Case

Just in Case (Plan B)

Just in case Dems are swindled (“the Bradley effect”) out of another General Election, I’ve decided to form a “more perfect union,” though I’m still struggling where to either buy or rent land for the new Capitol. Yes, of course we would have a foreign policy, and as well, something domestic, but perhaps these will not be priorities in the new Administration.

I’m currently searching on Google Maps for the closest (from Milwaukee, Wisconsin) underground nuclear silo, or nest of silos, as a possible site for the new Clintonia, as historians might refer to it someday. In many respects, this perfect union will be like a much-looked-forward-to sequel to another Governor’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” with of course creatures identified as female terminators, aka T-Xers or “Terminatrixes,” as Republicanators.

Yes, we’ll have a farm policy but to the surprise of the new electorate of disenchanted Dems, we’ll need to establish soy as the new protein base, allowing the atmosphere above Clintonia to cleanse itself of bovine gases, which may take a decade or two. (Note: we may need to sell all our beef to foreign governments to raise cash for our new Treasury, but perhaps we should keep the dairy herds, for who doesn’t like Cheese Heads? This loss of beef may disappoint carnivorous Dems, but to appease the masses, I’ve found a supply of Kikkoman soy sauce with a big distributor in Wisconsin which would add a dash of flavor to the poor legumes. Some have suggested we plant acres of broccoli, perhaps to honor another Rebublicanator, the great George W. Bush ’41, who had much to say about the cultivated cruciferous plant.

But on to the more important business of running the “perfect union.” We will form Departments and Agencies, though in a brief review of who will immediately be living in the nest of silos, we can’t have as many “heads” as our new space will be quite restricted. Our first mission, however, will be to set sail for Cuba not only due to the amiable amigos, but because the warm waters will be therapeutic to all those who suffered through the disaster known as the 08 Debacle.

I can say this with some authority that we will move the National Endowment for the Arts up to the Department level, and perhaps expect our new citizens to partake in the artistic life of the new Clintonia with more verve and enthusiasm, reading not one book every year, but possibly two. Since we’ll be producing soy beans by the ton, perhaps even able to export the little ones, we might not need an Agriculture Department, but let’s keep a slot open in Interior for someone who likes trees, oxygen, polar bears and arctic ice, some of my favorite agenda items we’ll want to defend in the next Administration.

As to Commerce, we’ll all need to know how to better add and subtract from our checkbooks, with no overdrafts anymore, as we just can’t afford it in this more “perfect union.” Perhaps we can use a TYME machine for our national bank. As to Justice, crime will diminish, I’m certain, as we’ll melt down all known weapons of both mass and individual destruction, so everyone will have to learn the art of debate and diplomacy all over again, in case they missed it in the 10th Grade! I admit I favor Al Gore for the Department of Energy. Is anybody really going to challenge that?

We can expect a new Department of Sports, and to everyone’s shock and awe, we’ll be making “triathlon” the new national sport, with everyone taking swims, rides or jogs on a much more individual, and group, basis. This will cut down the need for Health and Human Services, but we will probably have to open a few clinics for those who keep falling off of their new bikes with clip shoes, or for those who suck in too much lake water while trying to learn the Crawl. Soon the country will experience national fever for their new tri team.

We have much to do everyone. Someone should try to find a good zerox machine, but perhaps we can all stay in touch with a My Space account. Now, we do need to designate who’s cooking dinner on what nights, and who’s willing to wash up after. The little ones will need to be taken care of, so we will need lots of dads and moms to volunteer some play time on a regular basis. Anything else? Oh, I almost forgot, we’ll want to make an open invitation for Barak and his family and all of his election team to join us, perhaps in Havana, for a farewell to the old country, and a HooRaw for the new Republic. If the weather is nice, we just might make Havana our winter White House. In case the Election is favorable, however, and we all hope it will be, we’ll put all these ideas down the silo, and cap it until we face another bleak “End Times.”

Doomsday Machine May End Earth as We Know it With All of Us Spinning in a Black Hole, Forever

If you are interested in sub-atomic particle theory, as I am, the news of the Hadron Collider starting its engine today is too much to pass by. Many news outlets are stoking the improbable (probable) fear that our planet will be sucked into a new Black Hole that could escape from the underground Collider. For background, please scroll down this blog to March 27, 2008 for background on philosophical perspectives on this ominous day, only hours before the anniversary of September 11, 2001.




Ten things I’d like to do before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Cast an early vote for the Presidential race.
2. Ride the Amtrak coast to coast.
3. Hike through Hungary with a food critic.
4. Hike the modestly difficult trails in Zion National Park.
5. Swim around Manhattan Island sans stinging jellyfish.
6. Read another good book.
7. Write another great poem .
8. Orchestrate orgasms for everyone of appropriate age.
9. Refrain from grading any more papers.
10. Review Hebrew lessons.

Ten things we might all want to do before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Review rules for early voting.
2. Start digging a “black hole” shelter.
3. Contact everyone we’ve ever known and tell them how wonderful it was to know them.
4. Explore possibilities of being launched into space on a commuter flight.
5. Review rules of geometry, and, if possible, sub-atomic particle theory.
6. Invite everyone over for a feast, even if it is dark out.
7. Stop by the science store, and buy a telescope of any power, for possible gazing.
8. Make plans to move into your bank vault, if #2 is not feasible.
9. Kiss Kiss Kiss everyone you possibly can.
10. If time permits, review the Tao de Ching.

Ten things I wish I had done before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider
1. Walked down and walked back up The Grand Canyon more often.
2. Held my mother and father when they left this Earth for good.
3. Visited with the Dalai Lama about human suffering with a chai latte.
4. Came in last in the Beijing Olympic Triathlon.
5. Raced on a horse in the Il Palio Festival in Siena, Italy.
6. Helped more students to write more amazingly.
7. Been chummier with my siblings.
8. Loved my sweet heart more.
9. Invested in a local Greek restaurant.
10. Talked with Socrates more.

Ten things I wish we had not done before being evaporated into a black hole by the Big Hadron Collider

1. Not elected so many Republicans into office.
2. Learned how to speak with the larger insect, bird and animal world.
3. Not invented weapons of mass destruction.
4. Not discovered ways to murder each other.
5. Not abandoned Africa.
6. Not discovered oil.
7. Not invaded countries.
8. Became better listeners and diplomats.
9. Not let a country be controlled by influential lobbyists.
10. Learned how to save the polar ice shelves.