Once upon a time
in the land of hush-a-bye,
around the wonderous days of yore,
They came across a sort of box
Bound up with chains
and locked with locks
And labeled,
`Kindly do not touch, it's war.'
A decree was issue round about --
All with a flourish and a shout
And a gaily coloured mascot
Tripping lightly on before --
`Don't fiddle with that deadly box
or break the chains or pick the locks
And please don't ever mess
about with war.'
Well the children understood,
Children happen to be good
And were just as good
around the time of yore.
They didn't try to pick the locks
Or break into that deadly box
And never tried to play about with war.
Mommies didn't either
Sisters, Aunts nor Grannies neither
`Cos they were quiet
and sweet and pretty
In those wonderous days of yore,
Well very much the same as now
And not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war,
But someone did,
Someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out
across the floor,
A sort of bouncy bumpy ball
made up of flags and guns and all
The tears and horror and the death
That goes with war.
It bounced right out
And went bashing all about
And bumping into everything in store
And what is sad and most unfair
was that it didn't really seem to care
Much who it bumped, or why,
Or what, or for.
It bumped the children mainly
And I'll tell you this quite plainly,
It bumps them everyday and more and more
And leaves them dead and burned and dying
housands of them sick and crying,
`Cos when it bumps its very very sore.
There is a way to stop the ball,
It isn't very hard at all,
All it takes is wisdom
And I'm absolutely sure
We could get it back into the box
And bind the chains and lock the locks
But no one seems to want to save the children anymore.
Well that's the way it all appears
`Cos it's been bouncing
around for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom wizzed
Since those wonderous days of yore,
And the time they cam across that box
Bound up with chains
and locked with locks
And labeled,
`Kindly do not touch, it's war.'
[Note: The Smothers Brothers presentation of this poem is said to have caused the cancellation of their show]
Kendrew Lascelles On War
Andrew Marvel On Romance
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness Lady were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Times winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae On War
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch, be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields
Superman On Greatness (The Dark Knight Returns)
Diana went back to her people.
Hal went to the stars.
And I have walked the razor's edge for so long... But you, Bruce -- you with your wild obsession --
They'll kill us if they can, Bruce.
Every year they grow smaller. Every year they hate us more.
We must not remind them that giants walk the Earth.
Sean Connery On Success ("The Rock")
Your best? Losers always whine about 'their best'. Winners go home and fuck the Prom Queen.
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Dark Wraith On War
The sonic dimension is a vast drum waiting to be pounded rhythmically, each pulse stunning the ears, confusing the mind. The thermal dimension is an oven waiting to be turned on, crackling the skin, confusing the mind. The shockwave dimension is an ocean of air ready to articulate concussive force through a body as if it were a thin curtain. The emotional dimension is a chessboard waiting for a master to play the fool into a corner of rage, confusing the mind.
The inventory of weapons is a list of fingers, each tuned to stroke one or more dimensions of that zone, each geared to construct a field ripe with enemy combatants ready to be killed.
The battle begins as a symphony of harmonics, with each dimension suddenly, violently revealing itself to the enemy. The dimensions curl down over his world, compressing it into an ever tightening sensorial experience for which he has no response save panic.
Li Po On Loneliness
THE RIVER MERCHANT'S WIFE: A LETTER
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
Played I about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you,
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into fat Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early in autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
by Rihaku [a.k.a. Li Po, Translated by Ezra Pound]
SEWilco On Mileage
even better! do you know how many mpg you can get on PURE EVIL?!?
Only 5 MPG. Running over old people and firing the cannon really slows you down.
Jeff Dorchen On Religion
Now, look at it from the secular humanist point of view, which says that you are all either 1) engaging the same numinous forces but dressing them in your respective cultural masks, or 2) all pretty much equally superstitious, getting it more or less equally wrong.
If you can't tell the difference between Secular Humanism and Religion, you have failed the test, and the true God, who is a Secular Humanist, is very disappointed in you. There are no real consequences to you for disappointing God, who has many genders and will therefore be called "it," except that it shakes its many heads in pity and sometimes mocks you to its friends, the Secular Humanists, homosexuals, and Hollywood Jews.
Now, there are those who have faith but do not consider every other style of attempt at placating or connecting with God, the gods, or godhead to be or have been an utter mistake. These are Ecumenical Religious Humanists, and I suppose many Secular Humanists aren't secular at all but rather fall into the Ecumenical Religious category of Humanist.
And that's fine. God, who is a Secular Humanist, admires the Ecumenical Religious Humanists for finding a way toward a reasonable version of the stupid thing all the mutually exclusive religions got wrong.
Seumas On The Danger Of Duplication
[...] like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy. Or, if you like another analogy, you go from being Alec Baldwin to Stephen Baldwin to Daniel Baldwin to a pool of primordial goo.
Mooney On Scientific Reporting
A lot of the time, what's prized in [the Washington journalism] world is the ability to make a clever argument--to turn conventional wisdom on its head.
When you apply this approach to science, however, there's an utter mismatch. In science, "conventional wisdom" is a consensus perspective that has withstood repeated expert attempts to unseat it. In this context, being "counterintuitive"--especially when one is doing so well outside of the traditional channels of scientific discourse--usually amounts to little more than being just plain wrong.
ajs318 On Software Licensing (Slashdot)
MS EULA => Sharing is stealing.
BSD => Sharing is not stealing.
GPL => Not sharing is stealing.
Robert Frost On Ragnarok
Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
William Blake On Revenge
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine, -
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Sting On Divorce
The park is full of Sunday fathers and melted ice cream
A kid should be with his mother
Everybody knows that
What can a father do but baby-sit sometimes?
"I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying", EP
Audio Sample: Amazon
Some Smiting Is In Order
A Dutch reality show plans to have three people compete for the kidney of a terminally ill 37-year-old woman.
Frank Herbert On Glory (The Dosadi Experiment)
The Gowachin, a BuSab analysis
For the Gowachin, to stand alone against all adveristy is the most sacred moment of existence.
Enya On Honour (Caribbean Blue)
If every man says all he can,
if every man is true,
do I believe the sky above
is Caribbean blue.
Neil Asher On Trust (Cowl)
Sometime soon the sale would have to be made and in any such transaction there was always a point where one party must, however briefly, be prepared to trust the other party.
And it was in such brief intervals that Tack operated most efficiently.
David Carradine On Humanity (Kill Bill Vol. 2)
Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak... he's unsure of himself... he's a coward.
Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.
