“Do you know the legend about cicadas? They say they are the souls of poets who cannot keep quiet because, when they were alive, they never wrote the poems they wanted to.”
— John Berger
“Weeping Willow Haiku,” by Eric Robert Nolan
Sighing submission,
all our weeping willows now
sway in evening’s storm.
(c) Eric Robert Nolan 2019
Photo credit: André Karwath aka Aka [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D
Cover to “The Superior Spider-Man: Goblin Nation” #1, Giuseppe Camuncoli, 2014
Marvel Comics.
“How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?”
One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.
— Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail, 1963
Trolley shot.
Somebody told me that the trolley actually goes up Mill Mountain at one point in its route. Is that true?
Ah, the things we’re left to ponder when we’re too apathetic to Google a schedule. These are the mysteries faced by the lazy.
My aunt was my hero.
Sure, she had a few traits or qualities that heroes aren’t supposed to have, but Auntie was always there when I needed her.
So I guess she was my antihero.
Cover to “4Most” #6, 1948
The Premium Comics Group. Artist — L.B. Cole (?).
“Had your life been good.”
“God may reduce you on Judgment Day to tears of shame, reciting by heart the poems you would have written, had your life been good.”
— W. H. Auden
By opheliarossetti – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40809665
My idea for an “Iron Man” horror story:
Tony Stark programs his suit to act fully autonomously in the event he’s ever knocked unconscious or otherwise incapacitated. In addition to fighting villains and saving people, it’s programmed to seek out a power source so it can replenish itself.
Except he dies inside the suit, which continues carrying out all its advanced programs without him. And it cannot be shut down, especially because it will defend itself against anyone who tries to tamper with it. Even Tony’s friends and allies can’t take it offline.
So essentially you’ve got Tony’s metal-encased corpse rocketing around committing various heroic deeds, indefinitely. People are grateful to be helped but really freaked out at the same time. And poor Pepper.
By Julito82 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4844819
Cover to “Detective Comics” #566, Dick Giordano and Anthony Tollin, 1986
DC Comics.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 