Friday, January 1, 2010

What I Am
Most Proud Of...



I write well.

I write poetry.

I appreciate Beethoven.

I prize many varieties of music.

I enjoy reading the English version of
Marcel Proust's
A la recherche du temps perdu
translated by G K Scott Moncrieff.

David Hume is my preferred philosopher.

I am indebted to Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell.

I delight in the company of others.

I can make people laugh.

I use public transport exclusively.

I was interviewed by Larry King.

I have not been in the DisUnited States of Northamerica since 31 December 1975.

I am an atheist.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York.

I did not permit the Roman Catholic church to quash me physically
or intellectually.

I have kissed three Italian princesses:
La Principessa Marcella Borghese, La Principessa Giorgiana Corsini, and
La Principessa Fiona Corsini.

I did not murder when I was an artillery officer in Vietnam.

I fight with my words not my fists.
I am TheWordWarrior!

I admire beautiful women.

When I watch a sporting event, I mute the sound.

I renounced my DisUnited States' citizenship.

I am a mitigated Marxist.

My electric bill is the lowest in my apartment building.

I read at least four or five or six or seven books at a time.

I possess a built-in instinct for what is insincere.

I have refused to recognize the three medals I was awarded for service in Vietnam.

I relish cigars.

I survived an airplane crash.

I listen to classical music (www.wqxr.org and www.retetoscanaclassica.it)
every day.

I outlasted two armed robberies.

Every time I encounter an Italian priest or sister,
I ask them if Hell is big enough to accommodate 57,000,000 Italians.

I pulled through two 122mm Chinese rocket attacks on the Cambodian-Laotian borders.

I outlived assorted mortar barrages in Vietnam.

I understand the Venezuelan people.

I have two doctors: Dr Diet & Dr Repose.

I comprehend the Italians.

I am a fan of Roger Federer but hope he has no “stupid” or criminal skeletons in his closet!

I walk as much as I can.

I bicycle for pleasure.

I suggest that young children be disciplined by tickling them—not
slugging them.

I was discharged by the State of Florida's
Division of Family Services because I refused to swindle
Afroamericans living in the ghetto of Fort Lauderdale
where I served as a social worker.

I was a journalist for three newspapers.

I was a copy editor for Venezuela's English-speaking daily.

My sensitivity for people's suffering and the incredulity I possess in watching them do all they can to worsen their condition.

My respect for Nature.

I do not own a motor vehicle.

My will to preserve the natural resources I depend upon.

My hope in the future.

My utilization of the computer and Internet.

The varied work experiences I have had in my life.

The extensive listing of subjects that influence my reading.

I have no respect for Tony Blair, John Bolton, Thomas Friedman, Francis Fukuyama, Al Gore, Stanley Hoffmann, Samuel Huntington, Robert Kagan, John Kerry, Henry Kissinger, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, John McCain, Norman Podhoretz, George Will, Paul Wolfowitz,...and others of this ilk.

I admire Daniel Bell, Fausto Bertinotti, Hugo Chávez, Noam Chomsky, Hillary Clinton, Paul A Cohen, Rodney Dangerfield, Richard Dawkins, Simone de Beauvoir, Barbara Dorris, Vittoria Franco, Eric Hobsbawn, Martin Jacques, Peter Lavelle, Karl Marx, Alain Minc, Robert Reich, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, Ségolène Royal, Edward W Said, Israel Shamir, Peter Singer, Sun Tzu, Gore Vidal, Oscar Wilde, Howard Zinn,...among others.




Updated: 29 December 2009
Anthony St. John: www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior




* * *
Lamento per L’Europa



Terra del Sole Calante

Calderone ribollente in famelica disperazione
Per ritrovare i sapori del Passato.
Tu cerchi di proiettarti in avanti
Sull’energia della Tua logica
E di speranze non ancora idealizzate.
Tu invochi la Tua storia
Per rinvigorire le Tue fantasie.
Ti avvinghi stretta al Tuo orgoglioso io
Screpolato e corroso dalle intemperie.
Ti sforzi di far crescere nuovi fiori
Dalla putredine delle Tue tormentate memorie.
I Tuoi giovani, annusati da squadre di cani al guinzaglio,
Violentano-odiano nei Tuoi stadi
Strisciati con allettamenti elettronici
A premere morbidi e colorati bottoni di plastica.
I Tuoi vecchi serpeggiano stancamente verso ministeri della sanità in rovina
Dove i medici si trastullano con i moduli
E riempiono schedine del totocalcio.
I Tuoi vicini dell’Est—
Arroganti, sordidi—
Si aggrappano a Te
Pretendendo rudemente ciò che bramano e credono dovuto.
Tu, Europa, siedi imbalsamata—
Impregnata dei succhi del Tuo spregevole tempo che fu.
I Tuoi politici dilettanti spiegano bandiere
E i loro poteri vergognano—
Vergognano!—
Questo Nostro mondo.


Anthony St. John
A Lament for Europe

Land of the Setting Sun
Caldron simmering in hungering desperation
To regain the smacks of the Past.
You seek to lunge ahead
On the energy of Your logic
And hopes not yet lionized.
You call upon Your histories
To lend strength to Your phantasies.
You coil up hard on Your proud self
Wrinkled and weather-beaten.
You struggle to nurture new flowers
On the dry rot of Your haunted memories.
Your youth, sniffed upon by strapped canine squads,
Rape-hate in Your stadiums
Striped with electronic rejoinders
To press softly-pliant, gaily-tinged plastic buttons.
Your elderly curl their ways to bankrupt health ministries
Where physicians fool with forms
And fill in football pools.
Your neighbors to the East—
Brazen, sordid—
Yank towards You
Roughly extracting for exacting theirs craved for.
You, Europe, sit pickled—
Soused in the juices of Your scummy heretofore.
Your dabblers in politics set flags unfurled
And their powers shame—
Shame!—
This Our world.


Anthony St. John