1.13.2003

Have been reading Steven Runciman's classic history of the Crusades. Great dilemma facing civilization: peace, justice, security can't be achieved by military force. The irony of nuclear states trying to control proliferation. The necessary step is global disarmament. A few days ago, heard a brief interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu; he spoke about "just war" theory. Said that perhaps it's time to recognize that modern weaponry - even "conventional" weapons - are so indiscriminately destructive that the concept of "just war" of any kind is rendered obsolete.

Another little old poem from Way Stations:

Epitaph


He set his hand to many
treacherous decrees,
and made many enemies
among nobles of good family.

Quarrels being the cement
of state, after the blood-
scrawl of a name is understood:
honorable Gloucester, noble Kent.

Yet who will rise to condemn
this prince of liberty's decay?
With a mortal wound he lay
by the seashore, crying "Jerusalem!"

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