wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] O from Forest Hills December 24, 2008 - 11:41AM

  Throw them off with romantic poetry from Romeo and Juliet:

  "When thy eyes touched mine

  for the very first time

  I knew it would be forever

  That we were meant to stay together

  And I had to keep my faith"

  
  
• [2] NC from NYC December 24, 2008 - 11:49AM

  I find it interesting that Blago quoted poetry. Maybe it's inspired by Obama's inspired use of rhetoric (relative to other inarticulate politicians like Bush or Palin).

  
  
• [3] Aaron from Brooklyn December 24, 2008 - 11:51AM

  I seem to have heard Holman attribute "The Charge of the Light Brigade" to Kipling.

  Hmmm... Anyone for Tennyson?

  
  
• [4] Freddy Jenkins December 24, 2008 - 11:55AM

  My favorite is just 2 words from Samuel Beckett's, Malone Dies:

  "What tedium."

  
  
• [5] Nick Bacon from Upper West Side December 24, 2008 - 11:57AM

  As a Brit, I'm interested that you should feature such a gung ho propagandist for the British Empire.

  His son was killed in World War One. The TV movie of how that came about - "My Boy Jack" should be seen by every politician who sends other people's kids off to war.

  
  
• [6] Lisa from Manhattan December 24, 2008 - 12:07PM

  Holman's simplistic interpretation doesn't begin to reach Kipling's complexity and thinking. Try Puck of Pook's Hill, and really reading The Jungle Book and thinking about the characters. And there's a;ways his poem "The Press..." Kipling knew the people and places and ideas (democracy was a major one) he was writing about; Holman and others who have these limited views of him don't.

  
  
• [7] Kerry Fried from New York December 24, 2008 - 12:19PM

  Does Bob Holman view poetry through anything but an ideological prism? His comparison of Kipling to Rumsfield merited more than collegial laughing agreement

  
  
• [8] margaret from morristown December 25, 2008 - 03:14AM

  the poem was for his son.

  these other left out lines are more fitting for the governor :

  "If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  with 60 seconds worth of distance run

  Yours is the world and everythin that's in it

  And what is more you'll be a man, my son"

  (recalled from 7th grade -- when everything was so easy to memorize.)

  Kipling fairly railroaded his son into the army & combat in the trenches where the son was killed.