I see no reason to segregate scientific and technical posts from humanistic ones. In my life, scientific concerns mix with ethical ones, and they shade into a philosophical interest in the nature of cognition and the nature of people. Doing science is as creative as writing fiction, and I get inspiration for both from the same gods.
You will find little here on current politics. I'm activist, but in causes not symptoms. Experience in martial arts shows me that the sure way to lose is reactivity; but if you stay cool and remember your training and what you're there for then you achieve goals and, when conflict is unavoidable, you fight and win. The idea of the liberal arts I was brought up in is that broad understanding of cultures and ideas gives you deeper, better goals -- making success more likely and more satisfying. Negatively, the hysteria since 9/11 shows how a country frightened and reactive can destroy itself more than an enemy can. I'm trying to contribute by changing the terms of discourse. See 
One fact shouldn't require special mention; but -- given the nature of the society in which I've grown up and lived -- it often does: namely that I'm gay. You'll see it in some posts and in some links below. I'm proud of being gay and do not hide; more about this on the 
Drinking wine
Tao Qian
365-427 CE
(translated by William P. Coleman)
I’ve made my home among people,
yet I hear no noise of cart horses.
You ask how am I able to do that?
A heart in a far place seeks its own.
I pick chrysanthemums from the east hedge
and gaze, at leisure, on South Mountain.
In this mountain air, day is beautiful — and night too;
birds fly out, then return together.
These facts all have a clear meaning;
I want to argue for my points, but already forget to speak.
I found the Chinese text and an English translation of this poem — along with the word-by-word literal translation I used to create this one — at Chinese Poems.
Similar resources are on pp. 157-159 of Greg Whincup’s book The Heart of Chinese Poetry, Anchor Books, 1987; ISBN 0-385-23967-X.
Also pp. 168-9 of Wai-Lim Yip’s book Chinese Poetry: an Anthology of Major Modes and Genres, Duke University Press, 1997; ISBN 0-8223-1946-2.
The grammar of Chinese allows poets to leave interpretive choices open, and it’s an unattainable ideal of translating to bring out possibilities without closing others. I try to use my sense of English to at least intrigue you. If I’ve succeeded, it’s best — even if you don’t know Chinese, which I don’t either — to follow up at the source I cite above and see the original word-by-word translation from which I worked. It’ll be richer than what I’ve given you. To understand the poem best, try to construct your own translation.
See the FAQ and the external links at Chinese Poems, a beautiful resource with many poems.
More Chinese poetry translations in this blog. Home page for my Tao Qian translations.
Tags: Poetry, translation, Chinese poetry, poem, Tao Qian, T'ao Ch'ien, Tao Yuanming, Drinking wine, Tau Chyen
