Getting To The Bottom Of Things

      Gee, some good stuff in today's Globe and Mail. Check out these articles by Jeff Simpson and Marcus Gee, both about current American dilemmas. Check out this eye-opener, too, from The Washington Post.



      Okay, not so interested in world affairs or international politics? Well, then check out this article about laying things bare. That noted, it's worth recalling this classic poem from Robert Graves:

The Naked and The Nude

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers construed
As synonyms that should express
The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.

Lovers without reproach will gaze
On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons with long whips pursued,
How naked go the sometime nude!

Yes, as always, this blog is always concerned with the most pressing matters of the day. Especially naked ones. Or nude. Trailing clouds of glory do we come.