Thursday, September 28, 2006
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can
endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in
vindication
of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of
that
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
--Thomas Jefferson
endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in
vindication
of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of
that
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
--Thomas Jefferson
What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can
endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in
vindication
of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of
that
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
--Thomas Jefferson
endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in
vindication
of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of
that
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.
--Thomas Jefferson
Sunday, September 24, 2006
I NEED TO SAY GOODBYE ALTHOUGH YOU'RE WITH ME
I need to say goodbye although you're with me.
I stand beside your grave, yet you are here.
I miss you terribly and hope you miss me,
But when I turn to you, you're always near.
I talk to you as though you lived within me,
Not changed but simply moved in from outside.
I know each day you must a little leave me,
But here, as always, you must be my guide.
You were and are and will be, just as ever,
In many minds and hearts, not only mine.
No physical event can such love sever;
Death is a dimension, not a line.
And so goodbye does not mean you are gone:
So long as I still love you, you live on.
- Nicholas Gordon
I need to say goodbye although you're with me.
I stand beside your grave, yet you are here.
I miss you terribly and hope you miss me,
But when I turn to you, you're always near.
I talk to you as though you lived within me,
Not changed but simply moved in from outside.
I know each day you must a little leave me,
But here, as always, you must be my guide.
You were and are and will be, just as ever,
In many minds and hearts, not only mine.
No physical event can such love sever;
Death is a dimension, not a line.
And so goodbye does not mean you are gone:
So long as I still love you, you live on.
- Nicholas Gordon
Thursday, September 21, 2006
On Death
What if it is for life's sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.
- Will Durant
What if it is for life's sake that we must die? In truth we are not individuals; and it is because we think ourselves such that death seems unforgivable. We are temporary organs of the race, cells in the body of life; we die and drop away that life may remain young and strong. If we were to live forever, growth would be stifled, and youth would find no room on earth. Death, like style, is the removal of rubbish, the circumcision of the superfluous. In the midst of death life renews itself immortally.
- Will Durant
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the
rest of the world.
-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
rest of the world.
-John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building.
Steve Irwin
Steve Irwin
"Confrontation is necessary to shake up the complacent, the "good
people" who are indeed "good" but within their inherited prejudices and
traditions."
-- William Sloane Coffin, The Heart Is a Little to the Left, 37
people" who are indeed "good" but within their inherited prejudices and
traditions."
-- William Sloane Coffin, The Heart Is a Little to the Left, 37
Monday, September 18, 2006
"Everyone, whether cardinal or scientist, who believes that his own truth is complete and final must become a dogmatist...The more sincere his faith, the more he is bound to persecute, to save others from falling into error."
-- (Arthur) Joyce
-- (Arthur) Joyce
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
ON 9/11
Poem: "For the Falling Man" by Annie Farnsworth from Bodies of Water,
Bodies of Light.
For the Falling Man
I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting?
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
?but we can't help ourselves?how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.
Poem: "For the Falling Man" by Annie Farnsworth from Bodies of Water,
Bodies of Light.
For the Falling Man
I see you again and again
tumbling out of the sky,
in your slate-grey suit and pressed white shirt.
At first I thought you were debris
from the explosion, maybe gray plaster wall
or fuselage but then I realized
that people were leaping.
I know who you are, I know
there's more to you than just this image
on the news, this ragdoll plummeting?
I know you were someone's lover, husband,
daddy. Last night you read stories
to your children, tucked them in, then curled into sleep
next to your wife. Perhaps there was small
sleepy talk of the future. Then,
before your morning coffee had cooled
you'd come to this; a choice between fire
or falling.
How feeble these words, billowing
in this aftermath, how ineffectual
this utterance of sorrow. We can see plainly
it's hopeless, even as the words trail from our mouths
?but we can't help ourselves?how I wish
we could trade them for something
that could really have caught you.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
"My father said, 'Politics asks the question: Is it expedient? Vanity asks: Is it popular? But conscience asks: Is it right?'"
-- Dexter Scott King
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Edward Abbey once said of wilderness "we may need it someday not only
as
a refuge from excessive industrialism but also as a refuge from
authoritarian government, from political oppression." I think we need
public libraries in the same way we need wilderness. Both are
sanctuaries
of a king. Both are storehouses of diversity.
Anna Kirkpatrick, quoted in Beyond Words: BC's Public Libraries Are
Changing Lives.
as
a refuge from excessive industrialism but also as a refuge from
authoritarian government, from political oppression." I think we need
public libraries in the same way we need wilderness. Both are
sanctuaries
of a king. Both are storehouses of diversity.
Anna Kirkpatrick, quoted in Beyond Words: BC's Public Libraries Are
Changing Lives.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
In his work Of the Gods, Protagoras said, "About the gods I have no means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not exist or what they are like to look at; many things prevent my knowing -- among others, the fact that they are never seen and the shortness of human life." Protagoras also made a statement often associated with humanism: "Man is the measure of all things, of the reality of those which are, and of the unreality of those which are not."
"Fun is fundamental. There is no way around it. You absolutely must have fun. Without fun, there is no enthusiasm. Without enthusiasm, there is no energy. Without energy, there are only shades of gray."
-- Doug Hall
-- Doug Hall
