What do vegetarian Zombies eat?
Graaaiiins. Grrraaaaaiiinnss. Gggrraaaaaiiiiinnnnssss!
Francis Church's Affirmation
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS.
Williams' Snack Apology
This Is Just To Say
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
- William Carlos Williams.
Nash On Righteousness
You're so full of what's right that you can't see what's good.
-N .Richard Nash
Fletcher On Calculating Love
[...] It is sentimenal, simplistic, and romantically backward to "feel" that love cannot or ought not calculate[...]
- Joseph F. Fletcher, Situation Ethics
The Longs On Prima Facie Evidence
Back when the rancid visage of George W. Bush first spittled its way into the national consciousness, we were sure he would never be elected. Our reason? "Just look at him!" You could see he was the most transparently unfit being to hold office since Caligula made his horse a Senator.
Megan's Muscle Rumour
I'm told that your body is limited by the amount of neurotransmitter it takes to fire all your muscles at once. Once those are gone, doesn't matter if your muscles are still good to go. I have not looked it up to confirm or deny this.
Lenard On Initiative
The first liar always sets the rules of the game.
-Roger X. Lenard [Ed: Not the Creati0nist of the same name]
Suskind Through The Looking Glass
[...]
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
Schweber's Prediction
Electoral college: Obama 349. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Missouri. Not North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, or North Dakota. Which means there's room at the top for an even higher number, because every single one of those states is easily competitive. I have an even higher number in mind, but I'm afraid that if I try to type it my monitor will burst into flames.
strahlungsamt Reponds To The Evils Of Porn
I should know. As a guy with the looks and charm of Joe the Plumber, I spent most of my life struggling to get a woman. Either I walked around like a sad horn-dog trying to get a date, or I jerked off to a big pile of porn.
Believe me, women objectify men just as much as men objectify women. Plenty of times I have had a good job and women all told me I needed a good wife (when I couldn't bag a girlfriend). If I was the kind of Guido or Homeboy who beat his wife and wore bling-bling, I wouldn't need porn. Those guys get porn-star girlfriends all the time (along with credit card debt, repossession and stds).
I don't care for really abusive porn and I don't like seeing women being abused. And watching a woman being penetrated by four dicks is for gay guys on the DL.
Still, porn does it for me. I can jerk-off to porn in the morning and go to work and not think of pinching the secretary's ass or getting a blow-job in the (female) attorney's cubicle. I am not obsessed with mindless dating like the media is telling me to be. Nor do I have any sexual harassment lawsuits pending against me. The best part is: women actually approach me since I am less threatening and have a stable life.
Thank you Internet Porn.
[Ed: Apologies for the racist language]
Roberts On Trust
There are nights when all my aching bones won't let me sleep
And demons come to plague me as I lie in bed
But I know if you were sleeping there beside me then
That you could fend them off and they would let me rest
- Brad Roberts (Crash Test Dummies), The Ghosts that Haunt Me
Thiele On The Unspoken
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of the people passing by
I see friends shaking hands, saying, “how do you do?”
But they’re really saying, “I love you”
- Bob Thiele, What A Wonderful World
Philip K. Dick On Philosophy
- Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle
[Note: Etymology sources differ, generally claiming "egghead" is an early 20th c. term for baldness.]
Vogt On Cowardice
"If I were you, Crang, I wouldn't trust Blayney after he gets to be forty."
"Eh?" That was Blayney, an astounded look on his face. Crang's yellow eyes questioned Gosseyn.
"There are psychiatrical explanations for Blayney hitting me as he did," Gosseyn explained. "His nervous system is beginning to react as strongly to things that might have happened as it would if they had actually occurred. It's a purely functional disorder, but its outward form is distressing to the individual. A gradual loss of courage. Sadistic outbursts to cover up the developing cowardice. By the time he's forty he'll be having nightmares about the damage he might have suffered in some of the danger spots he was in as a youth." He shrugged. "Another case of a person lacking null-A integration."
Blayney had gray eyes. They glard at Gosseyn, then twisted over to Crang. He said in a hushed voice, "May I hit him again, Mr. Crang?"
- A.E. van Vogt, The World of Null-A
McDonald On The Prodigal Son
The most touching moment was when I registered a man in his late 50's, a long-ago native of Arkansas named Robert. Robert had obviously been drinking before arriving at LoveFest; he was probably just in the neighborhood, saw the excitement and decided to wander over. Robert came to our voter registration booth with a sad look on his face, to announce that he wished he could vote [...], but he couldn't. When asked why not, he responded that he could not vote because he "had a felony."
I asked him if he had finished serving his time ("Oh, a long time ago!") and if he was currently on probation or parole ("No, I finished with all that years ago"). So I informed him that yes, he was indeed eligible to vote and that I would register him right then and there, even help him to understand the procedure. As he painstakingly started to fill out the form, placing every letter in the correct box, and squinting his eyes to read the small print, he abruptly stopped, put the pen down, and looked at me with watery, fearful red eyes. "I won't get in trouble for doing this, will I?" I had to catch my breath and call the other volunteer in the booth for support. I called Registration headquarters on my cell phone just to make sure, just to reassure Robert, and to confirm what was written on the handout and the form: If a person, even a convicted felon, wishes to vote, it is his American right to vote, so long as he is no longer in prison or on parole.
Robert completed his form and handed it to me with all seriousness. He seemed to sober up as we went over the form to search for errors or omissions. I signed the form and handed him his receipt, which he slowly and carefully folded and placed in his wallet. He looked into my eyes with gratitude, thanked me, shook my hand, and accepted the big hug I gave him. My last words to him as he walked away toward the street were, "Robert, look--you tell everyone you know that they all have the right to vote! They can vote! Once they've served their time, they can be a citizen again! Tell everybody! Tell them all!"
[Note: Mildly edited to be non-partisan. Follow link for more context.]
Invitation To Excel
It's up to us now. We may never again have our hands on history quite like this again for as long as we live. That makes each hour so so precious. We can slack off, sleep in, and make excuses for the rest of our lives. But today - and for the next 3 weeks... whether we knew what we were getting into or not... we have ended up with people's lives, livelihoods, and dreams for their children - all dependent on our performance day in and day out. This is our one chance at history... our one chance at perfection. Our one chance to live forever. So today - breathe this in... realize that your grandkids will be reading about you... realize that you will miss this feeling very very soon... and win every single hour.
[Excerpt from a North Carolina campaign regional field director note to organizers]
Ostroy On Negative Campaigning
And anyway, is it possible for one person to be a socialist, an elitist, a terrorist and a celebrity? How would that even look? Do you attend Harvard to get high-paying jobs so you can live in a wealthy neighborhood just so you can steal from your rich neighbors to give to the poor, all before you blow up their houses and then go for drinks with Alec Baldwin? I'm lost....
Shantideva On Perspective
To cover all the earth with sheets of hide
Where could such amounts of skin be found?
But simply wrap some leather round your feet
And it's as if the whole earth has been covered
- Shantideva (circa 8th century A.D.)
Armstrong's Epiphany On Men
I still wasn't sorry. It seemed necessary to emasculate men--to keep me safe. That was when I saw the sixteen year-old running my life. The saucy teen who had concluded that men "are bigger and stronger and they'll hurt you." In the instant that I saw that inexperienced, unknowledgeable, scared little girl, I knew that I would never experience the true power of a woman until I allowed men their own power.
I told Ellen, "Okay, I'll stop." Her response surprised me. She said, "I'm not asking this for you. I'm asking you to stop castrating men because I believe when women stop castrating men, men will give us everything we ever wanted. Including peace and the end of hunger."
McLintock's Gift Of Love
Becky! Come here. Somethin' I ought to tell you. Guess now's as good a time as any. You're going to have every young buck west of the Missouri around here tryin' to marry you - mostly because you're a handsome filly, but partly because I own everything in this country from here to there. They'll think you're going to inherit it.
Well, you're not. I'm going to leave most of it to, well, to the nation really, for a park where no lumbermen'll cut down all the trees for houses with leaky roofs. Nobody'll kill all the beaver for hats for dudes nor murder the buffalo for robes.
What I'm going to give you is a 500 cow spread on the Upper Green River. Now that may not seem like much, but it's more than we had, your mother and I. Some folks are gonna say I'm doin' all this so I can sit up in the hereafter and look down on a park named after me, or that I was disappointed in you - didn't want you to get all that money.
But the real reason, Becky, is because I love you, and I want you and some young man to have what I had, because all the gold in the United States Treasury and all the harp music in heaven can't equal what happens between a man and a woman with all that growin' together. I can't explain it any better than that.
George Washington McLintock In Love
Half the people in the world are women. Why does it have to be you that stirs me?
dagan68 On Canvassing
I understand from a friend at a local official registration location that Kai did indeed show up - with about 50 of his friends in tow. I actually started crying.
Kakistocracy
Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.Rick Finkelstein observes it was first used by Thomas Love Peacock in The Misfortunes of Elphin (1829), basing it on the Greek "kakistos", meaning "worst."
The Demands Of Conscience
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far
To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star
-The Impossible Dream, lyrics by Joe Darion
"God help us - we are both men of La Mancha."
- Miguel de Cervantes, Man Of La Mancha
M*A*S*H Theme
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be,
The pains that are withheld for me,
I realize and I can see...
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
The game of life is hard to play,
I'm going to loose it anyway,
The loosin' card I'll someday lay;
So this is all I have to say...
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I'm beat
And to another give my seat
For that's the only painless feat.
That suicide is painless,
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
And you can do the same thing if you please.
-Suicide is Painless (M*A*S*H Theme), Mike Altman and Johnny Mandel
Yeats' Sphinx Rises
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
- The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Schaeffer On Sola Scriptura
The Historic Church by contrast never held the Bible up as a magic book that could solve all your problems but rather regarded the Bible as just one element of a liturgical tradition based on community, worship and participation. It never was about the hyped-up spoken word in the mouths of hyped-up "personalities," it was about community. It never was about grandstanding entertainment, but about a liturgy that was the same wherever you went within Christendom; up until the church split in 1054, into Western and Eastern churches and then the later fracturing of the Reformation followed by the era of Protestant chaos and lastly American-style Evangelical every-man-for-himself insanity.
Kelly On Tyler's Taste
On Tyler's suggestions, "Mission to Mars", "Sunshine" - be aware that Tyler has absolutely no taste in movies, perhaps even negative taste - and I base that on viewing some of his previous suggestions.
If he recommends a movie, consider that as a reasonably good reason to avoid it.
Betty Davis On Garbo
Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft.
I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera.
Requited Unedited Desire
Barry: I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty.
Lena: I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them.
Barry: OK. This is funny. This is nice.
Yeats On Precious Gifts
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
-He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven, William Butler Yeats
[Note: As quoted by Gammatron Cleric Partridge (played by Sean Bean) in the movie Equilibrium.]
Colin Hay, "Beautiful World"
All around is anger automatic guns
It’s death in large numbers no respect for women or our little ones
I tried talking to Jesus but He just put me on hold
Said He’d been swamped by calls this week
And He couldn’t shake His cold
Simon & Garfunkle On Expression
Here is my song for the asking
Ask me and I will play
So sweetly, I'll make you smile
This is my tune for the taking
Take it, don't turn away
I've been waiting all my life
Thinking it over, I've been sad
Thinking it over, I'd be more than glad
To change my ways for the asking
Ask me and I will play
All the love that I hold inside
- Simon & Garfunkel, Song for the Asking
Ask me and I will play
So sweetly, I'll make you smile
This is my tune for the taking
Take it, don't turn away
I've been waiting all my life
Thinking it over, I've been sad
Thinking it over, I'd be more than glad
To change my ways for the asking
Ask me and I will play
All the love that I hold inside
- Simon & Garfunkel, Song for the Asking
Leonard Cohen On Praise
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
- Leohard Cohen, Hallelujah
Agranoff On The Sandman
I can tell you've got the itch, Kid, that you'd like to be a jock.
Well, give it up, the magic's gone, there's nothing left but schlock.
You deal with all the crazies, and the drugged-out suicide calls,
And the sponsors and the FCC have got you by the throat.
Programming tells you what to play, and they take no denying.
You read copy advertising crap you'd never think of buying.
The hours are long, the pay is squat, vacations are... but then
The cut would end, he'd face the mike, and weave magic once again.
- Mike Agranoff, Ballad of the Sandman
Geraghty Quoting Obama On Fundraising
As a rule, they were smart,interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class; the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate.
They believed in the free market and an educational meritocracy; they found it hard to imagine that there might be any social ill that could not be cured with a high SAT score. They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by movements of global capital. Most were adamantly prochoice and were vaguely suspicious of deep religious sentiment…
I know that as a consequence of my fund-raising I became more like the wealthy donors I met, in the very particular sense that I spent more and more of my time above the fray, outside the world of immediate hunger, disappointment, fear, irrationality, and frequent hardship of the other 99 percent of the population - that is, the people I’d entered public life to serve.
- Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, page 114
symbolset On Bits vs. Fictons
Well, actually, the quantum unit of information is a bit.No, the binary quantum unit of information is a bit. A ficton is several orders of magnitude "smaller" than that. A bit can be true or false. A light that's on or off. A ficton is a value that represents the smallest possible division of "possibly true".
The universe is not binary at a very fine scale. Things fade in and out of frame with increasing and decreasing probability in the present moment. It's only when the arrow of entropy has passed and the frame is set that a thing was or was not, from our point of view.
Ken On Contradiction
Cleave is such an interesting word; it is it's own opposite: To cling to, to separate.
Coleridge On Architecture
Kubla Khan
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
OR, A VISION IN A DREAM.
A FRAGMENT.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dr. William Dement On Dreams
Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
Williams On Hyperinflation
Williams reverse-engineers the GDP, employment and inflation data for more accurate readings. He backs out manipulative changes to produce more valid figures. Take the 5.5% May unemployment rate for example. BLS calculates it on persons who looked for work in the last 30 days. Williams adds those who want to work but gave up in frustration plus people working part-time who want (but can't find) full-time jobs. Result: real unemployment of over 12%.
M3 (the broadest money supply measure) growth is so high that the Fed no longer reports it. Economists like Williams do because it's crucial to know, and the data he reveals are disturbing - record M3 growth at a near 18% annual pace. Hyperinflationary seeds are now sown. Dollar valuation is falling, and at some point may accelerate when investors flee it for safer havens. The Fed again will respond. More debt will be monetized. It will build over time. Things will get worse and then be exacerbated when the government is less able to meet its obligations. "Therein lies the ultimate basis for the pending hyperinflation," in Williams' judgment.
Things are so out of hand, Williams sees "no way of avoiding a financial Armageddon." We're nearly or already bankrupt; are creating money to cover our obligations; the more we print, the more we need; it's fiat currency unbacked by gold; and every new dollar created dilutes the value of all others in circulation. Double the money supply, and presto - every dollar is worth 50 cents. Double it again, and you get the point. We've been doing it for decades, especially since Nixon closed the gold window in 1971.
At some point, the music stops, the dollar collapses, it becomes worthless paper, and related dollar-demoninated paper assets go down with it. Williams quotes a law professor who experienced Weimar Germany's hyperinflation first hand. It was the worst by far ever recorded. "It was horrible. Horrible! Like lightening it struck. No one was prepared." Shelves in grocery stores emptied. "You could buy nothing with your paper money." At the trough in 1923, the mark plunged to an astonishing 4,200,000,000,000 to the dollar.
Futurepower(R) On "One Night In Bangkok"
The song is about a real event. One year the world chess championship was held in Thailand. The men went out at night, and were not prepared for the experience of being treated with gentleness. The Dalai Lama says that Thai people are gentle, and he's right.
I've seen it myself. One night, a long time ago, standing on the corner of Patpong road, a western woman was trying to get control over her western man again after he had seen in a Thai bar that a woman could be truly gentle with a man. All the man had known in his entire life, apparently, was women being harsh with men.
Justin Frank On Splitting
From early infancy, we try to organize our internal world, a need that persists throughout life. At first we simplify that world, turning our experiences into good and bad, comfort at our mother's presence and discomfort in her absence.
This attempt to order psychic life into good and bad experiences is called splitting, and it is a fundamental way to make sense of different emotions by keeping opposite feelings separate from one another. This protects the child from feeling confused or anxious that his bad feelings will destroy his good ones.
When children divide up into teams of good guys and bad guys, they are splitting. When parents divorce, some children have to see one parent as the victim and the other as the victimizer in order to manage their fears and confusion. Whatever the circumstance, as children we all learn to split in order to manage anxiety. It is normal and a necessary part of emotional growth.
[...] People split between idealization and demonization. Before the age of five, most children idealize their parents as powerful people without fault. Idealization facilitates growth and development, enabling the child to identify with the strengths of a parent. At the same time idealization keeps aggressive or murderous feelings from reaching the child's consciousness. The child thus avoids guilt feelings, remaining unaware of potentially destructive wishes against his perfect caregivers.
Orlando Gibbons On The Swan Song
The silver Swan, who living had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
"More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."
- Orlando Gibbons
Wikipedia: The phrase "swan song" is a reference to an ancient belief that the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) is completely mute during its lifetime until the moment just before it dies, when it sings one beautiful song. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_song
Alice Bag On Chola Style
But Chola style can be fierce - just ask Gwen Stefani, who incorporated elements of it at one time.
Growing up in East LA, I got to see the real thing and Cholas can pull off a strong, beautiful warrior style like no one else.
Keedwell On The Benefits Of Depression
[...] There are benefits and that's why it has persisted. It's a tough message to hear while you are in depression but I think that there's a life afterwards
I have received e-mails from ex-sufferers saying in retrospect it probably did help them because they changed direction, a new career for example, and as a result they're more content day-to-day than before the depression.
One woman left an abusive relationship and moved on and might not have done if depression had not provided the necessary introspection.
Similarly, unrealistic expectations are revised when depression sparks a more humble reassessment of strengths and weaknesses.
Peter Mayle On Love's Hunger
with an irrational and suspicious goddess.
Some short-tempered jealousy on the side.
A bottle of wine that tastes like you
and a glass that's never empty.
Leif Parsons On Lying
Peter Moskos On Police Use Of Force
[...] If I followed departmental policy, I could have maced about 3 people a shift. Instead, I maced one person in 14 months. Mace has a natural check and balance: it goes everywhere. No officer quick with the mace will be popular in the department for long.
Physical force can often be done without too much pain. And the pain caused is directly proportional to your resistance. For instance, I need you to put your hands behind your back. I use force. Force isn't the same as pain. It might hurt if you fight it. But as soon as you stop resisting, any pain is over.
Officers use Tasers quicker than they otherwise would apply hands-on force. "Comply or I Taze you." You don't comply so I Taze. Clean and legal. But wrong because it's not necessary.
We're talking about pain compliance... hurting somebody. Tasers cause pain as punishment. That's not right. We shouldn’t pretend that causing pain is clean process. It never is.
Force is part of the police job. No suspect puts handcuffs on himself.
Without a Taser, I just say "Comply." You don't. So I keep talking to you, cajoling you, ordering you, threatening you. But the point is I'll work harder trying to convince you to comply if my only alternative is hands-on force. Officers *should* be reluctant to use force. You don't want to use physical force because there is some danger... and also you break a sweat--something you always want to avoid while wearing body armor. Departmental regulation be damned! It’s too easy to press a button.
When I do use hands-on force, at least my force is geared toward getting you to do what I want (like getting your arms behind your back so I can cuff you). With a Taser, it's just about disabling pain. That's torture. And consider this, it's not easy to follow instructions after being in the greatest pain of your life. So you get tazed again.
Moyers On Regan's Legacy
Overheard In Bermuda
Donald: There, you just heard it from the horse's mouth.
Kevin: Did you just call Calvin a horse?
Calvin: Nay.
Cary Tennis On Adaptation
Ah. That's the trick! Maintaining!
At first nothing happens. You stand in the fire of art and all that happens is you burn. That is no fun. But then you see it's not just you that is burning: Something around you is being burned away. Layers of assumption and fear and grime are being burned away. As you burn, you start to see the sculpture in a new way.
TheLink On Social Networking
Many animals willingly engage in potentially risky behaviours to increase their odds of mating.
Fanning out a brightly coloured tail, making loud noises, dancing and many many other things that make them more obvious to potential mates, but at the same time more vulnerable to predators.
Posting pictures of yourself in panties, passed out or french kissing on a "social" website is about the same thing.
Anonymous On Soft Bribery
They can't outright bribe them. That's illegal and probably wouldn't work anyway - people would feel insulted. So what they need to do is ensure that the "thought leader"'s economic interest is aligned with their own.
We see this happen all the time - a previous strong advocate against something, in this case pro ODF and against OOXML, will suddenly get more concilatory. See Durusau's change of tone for an example. Now I don't know him, but I'm pretty sure here's what happened.
He would be in constant contact with the OOXML team in MS just as a matter of course. One day, though, they'll tell him to expect a call from a VP or higher - big guns. He's excited to be able to reach higher up in the company. Finally, they're taking him seriously. He might be talking to a billionaire!
He'll get the call. "Wow, we're really impressed with your work on this. My team is always telling me what a smart, together guy you are", says the VP or Partner or whatever. "I just wanted to tell you that we really appreciate the work you're doing and we can learn a lot from you. Say, when this is all over, if OOXML finally gets accepted - we'd love to get you in for some interoperability training and consulting, our staff could really use your insight. We pay pretty well, $500 an hour, and we estimate the contract would last for a year fulltime, but we're flexible with your current work - we just need you on call. What do you think?"
There you go. That's it. A year's worth at $500/hr is close enough to a million bucks, the guy's got a mortgage, game over. Of course MS wants it kept quiet or the deal's off - that's their "standard business practise", and the contract has an NDA clause.
Why Bubbles Are Bad
An air embolism, or more generally gas embolism, is a medical condition caused by gas bubbles in the bloodstream (embolism in a medical context refers to any large moving mass or defect in the blood stream).
Small amounts of air often get into the blood circulation accidentally during surgery and other medical procedures, but most of these in veins are stopped at the lungs, and a venous air embolism that shows symptoms is very rare.
Death may occur if a large bubble of gas becomes lodged in the heart, stopping blood from flowing from the right ventricle to the lungs (this is similar to vapor lock in engine fuel systems). However, the amount of gas necessary for this to happen is quite variable, and also depends on a number of other factors, such as body position.
Gas embolism into an artery, termed arterial gas embolism, or AGE, is a more serious matter than in a vein, since a gas bubble in an artery may directly cause stoppage of blood flow to an area fed by the artery. The symptoms of AGE depend on the area of blood flow, and may be those of stroke or heart attack if the brain or heart, respectively, are affected.
Brooten On The Female Apostle Junia
Greet Andronicus and Junia [...] who are outstanding among the apostles.
-Romans 16:7
What does it mean that Junia and Andronicus were apostles? Was the apostolic charge not limited to the Twelve? New Testament usage varies on this point. Luke, for example, placed great emphasis on “the twelve apostles.” In fact, with one exception (Acts 14:4, 14: both Paul and Barnabas are called “apostles”), Luke does not honor Paul with the title “apostle.”
Paul on the other hand, never uses the term “the twelve apostles.” He himself claimed to be an apostle, though he was not one of the Twelve, and he also called others, such as James the brother of the Lord (Galatians 1:19, cf. 1Corinthians 15:7), “apostle.” This does not mean that Paul used “apostle” in an unrestricted, loose sense. Precisely because of the seriousness with which he defends his own claim to apostleship (he says that he received his call from Christ himself: Galatians 1:1, 11f.; 1Corinthians 9:1), we must assume that he recognized others as apostles only when he was convinced that their own apostolic charge had also come from the risen Lord (cf. 1Corinthians 15, 7 the risen Lord was seen by all the apostles).
[...] From this and from Paul’s description of his own apostolic work in his letters, we can assume that the apostles Junia and Andronicus were persons of great authority in the early Christian community, that they were probably missonaries and founders of churches, and that, just as with Paul, their apostleship had begun with a vision of the risen Lord and the charge to become apostles of Christ.
In light of Romans 16:7 then, the assertion that “Jesus did not entrust the apostolic charge to women” must be revised. The implications for women priests should be self-evident. If the first century Junia could be an apostle, it is hard to see how her twentieth century counterpart should not be allowed to become even a priest.
[Edited from http://www.womanpriests.org/]
Lisa Earle McLeod On Happiness
The list is a mile long, and we're convinced that true happiness will descend upon us when it's all checked off.
But the real secret of happiness isn't balance at all, it's two very simple things: We're the happiest when we're connected to others and we know that what we're doing with our time makes a difference.
That's it. Not new cars, not big promotions, not even more sex, the perfect life partner or photogenic kids.
It's been proven time and time again, by everyone from the researchers at Harvard to religious leaders, we human beings need both pleasure and purpose to be happy. And we need to experience them both at the same time.
[...]
Whether you know it or not, you do have purpose on this planet - we all do - and I suspect that much of our angst over balance comes from the gnawing knowledge that we're not fulfilling it.
But before you quit your day job, you should know that you don't have to create world peace to give yourself a reason to get out of bed. Sometimes your life's purpose is something as simple, elegant and meaningful as being a great friend or boss.
The Only Unforgivable Sin
31"Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.
32"And whoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age, or in the age to come
-Matthew Ch12 v 31,32, NASB
Asimov On Mystery
Detective Del Spooner: Is there something you want say to me?
Dr. Alfred Lanning: I'm sorry - my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.
Detective Del Spooner: Why would you kill yourself?
Dr. Alfred Lanning: That, detective, is the right question. Program terminated.
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