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Eric M. Murphy

@ericmmurphy.bsky.social

1.5K followers 830 following 2.9K posts

Birds, Math, Literature, & Airpower. BoD Member @Strategy_Bridge, #Strategy, #Development, #NationalSecurity, #MilitaryAffairs. Repost is not endorsement. Nothing interesting to say.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · Aug 19

I’m led back to this: “Of all sins, the greatest is certainty.”

And, for the record and to head off the inevitable cleverness from the peanut gallery, of this and other things I am not certain.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 11h

“What Would I Do Without This World Faceless Incurious”
Samuel Beckett

www.best-poems.net/samuel_becke...

what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living

in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 21h

“Vitamins and Roughage”
Kenneth Rexroth

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42802/...

Strong ankled, sun burned, almost naked,
The daughters of California
Educate reluctant humanists;
Drive into their skulls with tennis balls
The unhappy realization
That nature is still stronger than man.
The special Hellenic privilege
Of the special intellect seeps out
At last in this irrigated soil.
Sweat of athletes and juice of lovers
Are stronger than Socrates’ hemlock;
And the games of scrupulous Euclid
Vanish in the gymnopaedia.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

“Father and Son”
Stanley Kunitz

allpoetry.com/poem/8508845...

Now in the suburbs and the falling light
I followed him, and now down sandy road
Whitter than bone-dust, through the sweet
Curdle of fields, where the plums
Dropped with their load of ripeness, one by one.
Mile after mile I followed, with skimming feet,
After the secret master of my blood,
Him, steeped in the odor of ponds, whose indomitable love
Kept me in chains. Strode years; stretched into bird;
Raced through the sleeping country where I was young,
The silence unrolling before me as I came,
The night nailed like an orange to my brow.

How should I tell him my fable and the fears,
How bridge the chasm in a casual tone,
Saying, "The house, the stucco one you built,
We lost. Sister married and went from home,
And nothing comes back, it's strange, from where she goes.
I lived on a hill that had too many rooms;
Light we could make, but not enough of warmth,
And when the light failed, I climbed under the hill.
The papers are delivered every day;
I am alone and never shed a tear."

At the water's edge, where the smothering ferns lifted
Their arms, "Father!" I cried, "Return! You know
The way. I’ll wipe the mudstains from your clothes;
No trace, I promise, will remain. Instruct
You son, whirling between two wars,
In the Gemara of your gentleness,
For I would be a child to those who mourn
And brother to the foundlings of the field
And friend of innocence and all bright eyes.
0 teach me how to work and keep me kind."

Among the turtles and the lilies he turned to me
The white ignorant hollow of his face.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

“History”
Robert Penn Warren

www.vqronline.org/summer-1935/...

(I can’t find a version of the poem this side of a paywall. Alas.)

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Even in LITERATURE we ask questions about the reliability of the narrator. 🤣

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Truth.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Most schools that do OR degrees are nothing more than trade schools. I have nothing against bricklayers, but that’s not what I need from an AFIT graduate in OR (or, for that matter, from a PME graduate).

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

I say the same thing about my own community of military ops research.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

A thought for journalists (looking at you, @nytimes.com):

If one source says it’s raining, & another source says it isn’t, you don’t report both uncritically. YOU GO THE HELL OUTSIDE & report how the assertions correspond to the evidence.

You’re reporters for fuck sake, not stenographers!

a man with an umbrella is walking through a puddle

ALT: a man with an umbrella is walking through a puddle

media.tenor.com

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

To be fair, there is a provision in statute that allows fairly broad discretion for the SECDEF to reprogram funds. The $6B limit has been increased (in Mar) to $8B. The president and the SECDEF get to define military necessity unless Congress imposes constraints.

www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

www.congress.gov

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

Around 45 years ago, I heard “My Bologna,” and I’ve been a little silly since.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

It’s a matter of information. If the rule is to always include the serial comma, its absence conveys information. We get more clarity. God knows we could use a little clarity.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

“They are the most curious creature of all. Hyper-focused. Single-minded. Intense. Devoted. Often single. They speak in reverent tones and hushed whispers and can walk with preternatural silence across a bed of leaves…”

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Here’s to the birdwatchers! Optimistic, slightly eccentric custodians of wonder and joy and passion and love

At its heart, birdwatching is an act of quiet rebellion, says Natalie Kyriacou. It is the gentle act of noticing – the willingness to see the world around you

www.theguardian.com

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 3d

We like owls.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 4d

*has been shy about breaking

Sheesh.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 4d

All true, but it’s not as if the administration about breaking the law with respect to appropriations thus far. In the case it may actually be difficult mechanically, though.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 6d

I’ve not read the Butler or the Lattimore. I’ll check out the latter.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 6d

The Landmark are great in many ways—the maps, essays, timeline, summary/concordance are so helpful. That’s why we use them in PME.

I much prefer other translations. Strassler, god bless him, was looking for translations in the public domain.

But in every case, Landmark was my first.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 6d

I think I’ll change the titles on this little shelf each month.

I’m a little late this month. Government shutdowns, having to turn someone else’s concept of a plan into an actual plan, etc., have interfered.

So here’s some grand stategerizationing.

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 8d

I agree.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 8d

I’m a birder. I came to this thing, not quite an obsession (except when it is), relatively late in life.

There are classic works that capture and communicate what this is. Now, I have a new one.

This is good. So. Fucking. Good.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-w...

LISTERS: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching

YouTube video by owen reiser

m.youtube.com

Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 8d

“Inniskeen Road: July Evening”
Patrick Kavanagh

allpoetry.com/Inniskeen-Ro...

The bicycles go by in twos and threes -
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn to-night,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.
I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 8d

Fun note:

I first looked for the book at the public library, using a card catalog. There were two cards. One was filed under G: “Goldman, William…see Morgenstern, S.” The other, was filed under M: “Morgenstern, S…see Goldman, William.”

I shit you not. I friggin LOVE librarians.

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Eric M. Murphy @ericmmurphy.bsky.social · 9d

On an exciting Sat night in the laundry, I found this in our residents’ little lending library. It’s frivolous but fun. I saw the film in the theater, found the book at a library, read it repeatedly, & watched the film daily for a summer. I never tire of it. The song over the CREDITS makes me cry.

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