She sent a message in a bottle into the sea
And watched the waves move it away
Into the horizon, beneath the visiting Sun,
The sight she could not bear without passion.
She spoke a song into the ether
And saw it fall into the water,
deeper into the vale of abyss
as she was panting with longings.
Then, long afterward, in quicksands
on shore washed up by the memories,
She found the bottle with two messages
sealed with a lover’s song in his words.
RE: July 30th 2018 article of “A Fight over Amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act” by Robert F. Bukaly of The Los Angeles Times
Ever a voracious reader of good books and sensible, informative articles of The Los Angeles Times, Paul Collie is immediately steeped in a headline of today’s newspaper; that is, an article he has just read in the Times about a fight over the present fishing laws. It is reported that some amendments were made to the laws, which are called “The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act”, a 42-year old rules regulating over-fishing of New England Sea Scallops and Bering Sea Crabs, and that they were approved by the House of Representatives on Monday. Subsequently, these changes have stirred a projected friction between fishermen and environmentalists mostly consisting of researchers, scientists, and radical natural/animal conservatory activist whose viewpoints are normally out of touch with realities.
As Paul is perusing the article word for word as if he were tattooing it on the cerebral globe of his brain, Paul’s thoughts are embroiled in a swirl of agitation and indignation that begins to brew a collection of words in a form of cogent opinion. ‘The amendments were favorable to many people and will promote business growth, especially commercial and recreational fishing groups that need to hire many more people. The changes relate to a provision of managers with flexibility and refocus of the Act on sound science. It’s all about modernizing the management of recreational fishing! But those recalcitrant opponents who know nothing or little about dealing with constraints of daily task think that it is a rollback of the landmark law! There is no risk of over-fishing delaying the re-population of depleted fish! Logical Fiddlesticks!’
Paul has cogent reasons for his argument for the amendments to the Act: the purpose of the changes is to remove unscientific time frames that unnecessarily restrict access to fishery, which encompasses an revocation of a requirement for annual catch limits for certain fish species as aforesaid as well as amending rules about requirements to rebuild the stocks. He strongly believes that reauthorizing of the Act seems and is believed to be long overdue. As a matter of fact, Paul cannot help but link the article with The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley that he read last year with relish. In it, Ridley tries to enlighten the reader about the necessities of changes as part of cultural evolution for the betterment of mankind and the world itself. However, Ridley lays bare the the pressure of militant environmentalists who are evermore against any changes made to the agricultural as well as fishing industry. To Paul, their flagrantly truculent opposition to any such changes is a luxury disguised in the package of humanity/nature that only pampers their far-flung elitist attitudes that disregards or overlooks the need of everyday life.
Such is Paul’s axiomatic opinion on the article that he feels strongly. It’s not because he has a means of business, nor is his conservative tendency, nor his hereditary solidification of genes in the Proud Scottish Collie Family; but because the Act was unnecessarily binding the hands and feet of independent fishermen and other proprietors of the business tied to and related to fishery to overtly harsh conditions in which their households suffered under the strains of financial hardship. Which also brings Paul back to Act I, Scene 2 of Hamlet that illustrates the the hypocrisy of environmentalist dogmatism:
The head is not more native to the heart,The hand more instrumental to the mouth,Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.What wouldst thou have, Laertes?
She writes, and speaks to a soul in many sorts of music. She sometimes invokes inspirations from her favorite Muses: Kalliope for epic poetry; Clio for history; and Euterpe for lyric poetry. In fact, she feels most ecstatic when the divine inspirations become one with her body and soul creating the ineffable rapture of the body and elevating the excitement of the soul in zenith. She is no less a dilettante of amateur music aficionado and an apprentice of alchemy of literature and history than Seraphina by herself.
She also has a secret: that she practices her secondhand acoustic guitar she bought from a traveling troubadour who with his finely cultivated artfulness of sweet talking laced with a streak of medieval chivalry, tempted her to possess it three years ago at a reasonable price of $100. And it turned out that the crafty troubadour was a nice sort of reprobate who could make your otherwise bleak life a bit more cheerful and jovial to live because Seraphina loved the guitar at first blush and has played it since the farewell of the sportive wayfarer.
Seraphina is an Aquarius, and therefore an independent beauty. She is an autodidact and is at best when she’s least self-conscious and left alone. She has been teaching herself to play the guitar in hope of playing the songs she loves flawlessly by changing the chords swiftly in keeping up with the rhythms. One of her repertoires for her guitar practicing is “As Tears Go By” by Rolling Stones – not the version of Marianne Faithful – It is another secret that Seraphina sings the song while playing the guitar in her room, and she loves the moment of doing it because she feels like a Jane Birkin or a Joni Mitchell or a Francois Hardy.
Kurt Vonnegut once said, “To practice any form of art, however good or bad, is to make your soul grow, so do it.” In accordance with such supportive tenet of art, Seraphina thinks that it’s all about unlocking the artist from within. Surely, not everyone of us can’t make our names marked in the world, but then each one of us is something of a creator of a life. In her ideal firmament, being an amateur artist means being able to create her own artistic world unsullied by the material demands of life that often yield myriads of existential vertigo. But then who would know what might bring Seraphina into changing her weltanschauung in future? After all, we think we know what we are, but know not what we may be. In the brevity of life, Seraphina thinks to herself, ‘Sweets to the sweet: Farewell to worries!’
A word is dead in the ether
when it’s swayed in smother
Some say.
I say it begins to live long
today and tomorrow along
If I try.
All’s over, it’s all over – and then?
Does truth sound bitter and brutal
as you wish not to believe it again?
Look, it’s Shadow, ever centrifugal
In his whimsical silence I see thru
The lover once clutched to you alone.
In midday’s light, his fidelity is shown thru;
In darkness of sunset, he leaves you all alone!
Will you believe it’s all over then?
RE: July 28th 2018 article of “Immunity in case of attack: the 2002 SAFETY ACT would prevent legal claims from survivors by Matt Pearce of The Los Angeles Times
The cardinal purposes and functions of law in any civilized society per se are: (i) establishing standards; (ii) maintaining order; (iii) resolving disputes; and (iv) protecting liberties and rights of citizens, all of which transcend the subjectivity of time and culture in the universality of Reason as illustrated in the canons of the Decalogue, the Hammurabi Code, and the Napoleonic Codes. Since the law itself is immaterial – that is, devoid of feelings, emotions, and thoughts, its intrinsic nature is neutral. There is nothing either good or bad, but interpretation and applicability makes it so in the execution of justice.
That is exactly what MGM, the owner of Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, is trying to do with the law called the 2002 SAFETY ACT (“The SAFETY ACT”), which the company wants to use as an indemnity against their liability from last year’s Las Vegas shooting survivors’ lawsuits. The SAFETY ACT is an acronym for “The Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act” passed after the Sept, 11, 2001, which allows companies to apply to the Department of Homeland Security to seek verification that their security products and services were beneficial. In exchange, Homeland Security would provide certification under the law, which is a portent immunity claim in federal court in case of a terrorist attack.
The SAFETY ACT defines the nature and kinds of terrorism in its own terms, discrete from the traditional counterparts based on an ideological agenda of law, thus leading to multitudinous interpretations of the law. To illustrate, the SAFETY ACT defines terrorism as acts “intended to cause mass destruction, injury or other loss to citizen or institutions of the United States.”
Could MGM, then, successfully escape from liability for the massacre of fifty eight people at a concert in Las Vegas last year on the ground of an act of terrorism under the protection of the SAFETY ACT with certification issued from Homeland Security? It all seems to me that human nature has not changed at all throughout the history of civilization. For example, indemnity from liability in the form of certification reminds me of the sale of Indulgence by the church in the medieval times, especially in Germany, which ultimately gave rise to Reformation led by Martin Luther. Or shall I compare it to a letter of Marquis from the Crown kept and carried about by English privateers (or more popularly known as “pirates”) because it protected them from being pursued by the Navy and gave free rein to pirating in open seas?
In my opinion, defendant MGM’s argument of the massacre as an act of terrorism does not hold water, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing because the company was responsible for duty of care owed to the concert attendees on the ground of a breach of duty by neglecting an assumption of unforeseeable and foreseeable risks. For if the case is rendered in favor of the company, it could be all systems go for all other negligent companies to misappropriate the otherwise sovereign protection from the SAFETY ACT over any incident that lacks such political motive, such as this Vegas case. The authority of law should lay bare the facts and the truth, and there should be no fettering of authority in deliverance of justice.
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