When
God Speaks..."The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Web Log Archive, December 24th, 2006 through January 6th, 2007
Saturday, January 6th, 2007
Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1, chanting of the three witches:
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Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches' mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver'd in the moon's eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron.
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Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
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Round about the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
By the pricking of my thumbs, |
Friday, January 5th, 2007
"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little
something in me dies."
Gore Vidal
Thursday, January 4th, 2007
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007
"In trying to please other people,
we find ourselves directed toward what lies outside of our sphere of influence
and we lose hold of our own life's purpose. Content yourself with being a
lover of wisdom and a seeker of truth. Look to what is essential and worthy. Do
not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your
own terms and in your own eyes."
Epictetus (55-135)
Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007
When
God Speaks...
"The
Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."
Monday, January 1st, 2007
Lake Superior State University's claim-to-fame is that it is Michigan's smallest public university but it has also, for three decades, been hosting the compilation of a list of 'Banished Words' or, rather, a list of words and phrases that contributors to the list feel ought to be banished, either because they're dumb or because they've been over-used. Most entries (IMHO---on the list!) are dull, but a few will bring a smile:
There's 'at the end of the day' and 'hopefully' and 'awesome' and 'end result' and 'on the same page' and 'prioritize' and 'prostrate gland' and 'whatever' and 'near miss' and 'phone tag' and 'vast majority' and 'close proximity' and 'proactive' and 'false pretenses' and 'jumbo shrimp' and 'past history'. Missing from the list is 'save up to 50% or more'. I'll send it in! ;-)
Q: Why are only 2% of blondes touch-typists?
A: Because 98% are hunt'n peckers.
Sunday, December 31st, 2006
I am grossed out by the execution
of Saddam Hussein!
Our leaders have 'treated' us to a political 'snuff
film'!
Nothing from our fat, dumb & happy MSM, but it's
clear that someone was in an unseemly rush to dispose of Saddam before he
had a chance to talk publicly about all
those many years that he was our 'buddy in Baghdad'...about all the American
'help' he received with the capital crimes of which he stood accused.
Only the willfully-uninformed will accept this grisly event as the product of 'justice'
within a 'sovereign Iraq'! Most people in the world will
recognize his death as a (pro-Shiite) American action, and as one
that will surely fuel the sectarian divisions of the Middle East. But...could it
be that these divisions are, actually and after all, the objective
of American foreign policy? Look at it this way: the
more we do to keep these people at each others' throats, the less
likely it is that they will ever be capable of organizing and uniting against
us! Or am I giving Bush et al too much
'credit'?
Saturday, December 30th, 2006
"...the Republican faithful lined up to shake hands with
the headliner, Dick Cheney. But before getting to the Veep, they had to get past
the wife of the local Congress critter. She was standing adjacent to Cheney,
holding a big bottle of Purell, a hand sanitizer that claims to kill '99.99% of
most common germs.' Each person waiting to get their grip-and-grin with the
honoree first had to accept a squirt of the goop from this lady to purify their
hands! After the meet-and-greet was over, Cheney ducked backstage and rubbed a
generous dollop of the antiseptic onto his own hands, cleansing him of the human
contact he had just endured."
Jim Hightower
Friday, December 29th, 2006
"...in every age it has been the
tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of
patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people."
Eugene Victor Debs from a
speech in Canton, Ohio, on June 16th, 1918 for which he was sentenced to ten
years in prison.
Thursday, December 28th, 2006
"Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God!" Susan B. Anthony
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
Talking of constitutional melancholy [i.e.,
depression], he observed, "A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert
distressing thoughts, and not combat with them."
Boswell: "May
not he think them down, Sir?"
Johnson: "No, Sir. To attempt to think them down is
madness. He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed chamber during the
night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose himself to
rest. To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained
in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.."
Boswell: "Should not he provide amusements for himself? Would
it not, for instance, be right for him to take a course of chymistry?"
Johnson: "Let him take a course of chymistry, or a course of
rope-dancing, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let
him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to
which it can fly from
itself."
From Boswell's Life of
Johnson
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006 Boxing Day
"Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. One party
always devotes its energies to trying to prove that the other party is
unfit to rule - and both succeed, and are right."
"If a politician found he had cannibals among
his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."
"Religion is
fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration.
Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car
salesman."
H.L Mencken (1880-1956)
Monday, December 25th, 2006
major disaster
serious emergency
unexpected surprise
active involvement
up to 50% or more
significant milestone
extra added bonus
But in the end, with the exception of his impromptu visit to his
nephew's dinner party, Scrooge was still using his money to control and
intimidate people. Particularly (and for example), consider the scene in which
he allowed Bob Cratchit to grovel before him as he (Scrooge) feigned displeasure
at his clerk's late arrival on the morning after Christmas Day. So, then, what
had changed? Money was still the basis for social order.
Sunday, December 24th,
2006 Christmas
Eve
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the
gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we
should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly
at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are
they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could
say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?", said
Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge.
"I'm very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or
body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are
endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of
warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when
Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down
for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me
what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at
Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support
the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly
off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it,
and decrease the surplus population. Besides -- excuse me -- I don't know
that."
"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.
"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for
a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.
Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
Charles Dickens, 1843