Poetry by Joaquin Roces RGJ Article by Joaquin Roces
friEnDs, FrIenDs, aNd mOrE fRieNDs
Jarhead & Full Metal Jacket because it makes me feel Nostalgic. Dougie Fresh & the grunts of Kilo Company, 3rd Bn, 2nd Marines-To us and those like us! Voltaire said it best: "Ecrasez l'infame!" I love foriegn films like A Very Long Engagement, Indochine & Motorcycle Diaries, but sometimes I just want to see things go boom. Oh, newsflash for Woody Allen: Match Point sucks. Watching it is like having your eyes pecked out by a sea gull...while you are still alive...and paying $8 for it! You can get more satisfaction for 8 bucks on east 4th street. Sin City had better dialogue and screen writing. So did Finding Nemo and Ice Age. Domino is one of those movies where things go boom. Beyond Borders and the Constant Gardner. Hotel Rawanda and Black Hawk Down are difinite keepers - Tears in the Sun, Malena and anything with Monica Bellucci. New World was epic. Beautiful movie all around. I laughed my ass off with Sideways and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The new Pink Pather tickles me pink. Got to love the classics: Casablanca, Gunga Din, Beau Geste, John Ford's work and Clint's Spaghetti westerns. John Wayne's old one's are faves as well. The enhanced Apocalypse Now is the bomb. I saw an Israeli film called Walk on Water-superb film. Muy gusto. Junction Boys with Tom Barenger is way cool, so is Remeber the Titans and Friday Night Lights-Touching social commentaries. I think that's it for now. More to follow.
Don't got one. I draw pictures on index cards and flip through them for entertainment.
The Tanakh because you need it to understand the Bible, and both to read the Koran. You can not call yourself a christian, jew or a muslim unless you've read all three. Don't tell me what is different about them, because that isn't what matters. I can tell you the difference between all three of my sons, I can talk about it till the cows come home,but at the end of the day, it is what they share in common that makes them brothers. There is Voltaire of course and we all could learn a lesson or two about tolerance from him. I love his poem on the Earth Quake in Lisbon. How he rails at the Optomists "Come, ye philosophers, who cry, "Alls well," And contemplate this ruin of a world." I love that line! It's the romantic in me. Next we have Stephen Gould's "Mismeasure of Man." Any of his books would work, but for me it started with that one. "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Lomborg is a good one as well. I have a rather tattered and yellowed book of French Poetry which I adore. It is a compilation or anthology of the classics and neo-classics. I purchased that book on a visit to Manila in 2000. I read Verlaine's "Il Pleure dans mon coeur" while tanks rattled down the plaza and revolution siezed the city. A president was in prison, a General cried for revolt, and it was another day in the Philippines. "Looking for Liling" is by Alfredo Roces, the youngest brother of my Grandfather. It chronicles our family's history. Tom Clancy's old stuff before his name became a franchise. WEB Griffin's "The Corps" series. I wonder why? Since we went there, "Dispatches" by Michael Herr, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, and "Fortunate Son" by Lewis B. Puller III (If you don't know that name, its a waste to explain it to you). "My wicked, wicked ways" by Errol Flynn. I have several books on Monet. "Love Beyond Reason" by Ortberg is fairly good for inspiration. So is "RFK" a collection of Bobby's speeches by Guthman and Allen. The Sonnets by Shakespeare, and the poetry of Lord Byron and Robert Frost.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said "We aren't what we ought to be, we aren't what we should be, we aren't even what we could be, but thank God we're not what we used to be." Along with him is John F Kennedy and his brother Bobby. Chesty Puller and his son, Lew. My sons, James, Michael and Sean. Ira Hayes. Other Marines: Ferst, Richardson, Baird, Capt. Paige, Lt. Liege, Gunny, Lt. Lotts, Rother, 280 Marines at Beruit, and those poor bastards who followed us. My father and his father before him, for they have taught me good and bad. As my grandfather's father passed on to all of us: “Palabra de honor, delicadeza y amor propio.†My mother who has always been there for all of us, who gave up so much. If there is one thing my family knows - it is sacrifice. My Lord and my God. "Bismi 'llahi 'r-rahmani 'r-rahim" [In the name of God, the most kind, the most merciful]. En este mundo triador, nada es verdad, ni es mentira-simplemente fe. Cristo Jesus camina en medio de nostros . I believe in the one God the Father Almighty, El Elyon, Allah Bapa; I walk with God. Martin Luther once said "Here I stand and I can do no other." So it is with my faith, and here, too, I stand and I can do no other. Nes Gadol Haya Po [A miracle happened here]. In this I have to mention Father Bob and Father Vincent, and Mayor Tony Armstrong. How can I be a poet and not recognize Voltaire and Stephen J Gould for those who know him. Gould once said, "Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny—and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do)." Professor Gould strongly opposes the notion that science and religion are irreconcilable, a claim defended in two classic works by the American scientist John William Draper, and by Cornell historian and first president Andrew Dickson White. Both Draper & White regard science and religion, especially Roman Catholicism, as locked in eternal combat. Science, Gould reminds us, is a search for the facts and laws of nature. Religion is a spiritual quest for ultimate meaning and for moral values that science is powerless to provide. To echo Kant and Hume, science tells us what is, not what ought to be. "To cite the usual cliches," Gould writes, "we get the age of the rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages; we study how the heavens go, and they determine how to go to heaven." In the words of Voltaire in his treatise on Tolerance "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the priviledge to do so too." There are a few pro athletes I admire, but as for heroes, its the coaches like Herman Boone, 'Bear' Bryant and Tom Landry. That's old school like Wallace, Canter, Dalton and Bossert, when the game was played for the love of the game.