There is something grotesque about the way the airlines have begun to bully and browbeat the Civil Aviation Authority, and governments, who (rightly, it seems to me) threw wind to caution, and grounded planes due to scientific concerns about the damage volcanic ash can due to jet engines. Yes, it is true the industry lost a billion dollars or so - though clearly they should recoup much of these losses as they fly people home eventually. But to claim that economic interests might trump public safety seems odious, and wrong-headed. The aviation industry is already too strong a lobby. Flying should be pruned back. Despite the travel headaches, everyone on the ground noted the bucolic blue skies above with some degree of approval. Less planes would do more for the planet. And, until science establishes a different set of facts, it stands as given that volcanic ash can cause catastrophic engine failure and result in hull losses. It was right to be prudent about the plume. Fly the careful skies, not the reckless ones.
When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....
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