It’s probably the worst part of the whole deal to have one’s own body providing itself with its own problems; between losing hair at an alarming rate and the nightly trips to the BR, it’s a wonder I haven’t snapped and hurt someone. Of course, no one is ever here, so I’d have to go find someone to flail upon, which just serves to add more angst. Ah well, the alternative is worse, I suppose….I wouldn’t go back to my teens unless forced at gunpoint……. let’s drop the whole subject, shall we?….. it helps to think of this, from a man with experience….

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” — George Burns

Which is a damn sight better than, “Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar without his duck …” Okay, I’m through fooling around now; we’ll get on with the regular program……sorry, I needed the warm-up…..
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“It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

I’d have to agree here. I’d also like to add it would be pleasant to possess both qualities…. I’ve always felt Oscar was being more than a little facetious with this, but even if not, and it was entirely cynical, that would not alter its attraction, because, after all, it IS a value judgment….. in fact, several value judgments in one package. What I mean by that has been classified secret, so unfortunately, that’s the end of this little segment….. if I said any more, I have to find and cream pie all of you…..
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:religious issues: n.  Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off {holy wars}, such as “What is the best operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail reader, news reader)?”, “What about that Heinlein guy, eh?”, “What should we add to the new Jargon File?”  See {holy wars}; see also {theology}, {bigot}. — This term is a prime example of {ha ha only serious}.  People actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.  The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave — unless, of course, one’s _own_ unassailably rational and obviously correct choices are being slammed. — from The on-line Hacker Jargon File V423

I have, in previous posts, expressed admiration of hacker culture, and I don’t think it is misplaced. This term, used as humor, parallels exactly the same phenomenon in society at large, for the same kinds of questions, i.e., “What do you mean, the banks need more money?” or “My, that’s a lot of oil you have there…..wanna share?” I especially like the given default response when confronted, “get a life”; it shows a lot of class and restraint to leave it at that. SIGH….I’d love to be able to leave it at that….. so I will….. you lucked out, in one respect. I don’t quite have the built-up outrage for a full rant just now; we’ll have to get back to this another day…… you can put the Taser down, now, you won’t need it……
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” Stereotypes are like a supermarket. They are convenient, economical, and useful. They do our thinking for us. We don’t have to waste time trying to make sense of our ignorance. Stereotypes slice through the niceties of language, tide us over the loose ends we don’t understand and wrap up into a comfortable package our narrow – mindedness about everything and everybody except ourselves.” — Chuck Stone (Washington Post 6/3/96)

I’m sorry I missed this article, whatever it was about, when it was first printed; this excerpt shows a lot of insight, and the article itself would no doubt have some good things to say. This is a really accurate description of Robert Heinlein’s Mrs. Grundy; she’s the old busybody who lives in every neighborhood, who spends all her copious free time peeking out the windows and noting down all the gossip she can find about her neighbors, and pronouncing criticisms and moralistic judgments on everyone but herself. This sort of attitude, petty, mean, lazy, and ignorant, is all-too-familiar, and may ultimately lead to our downfall as a species.

Though given adequate tools, much of mankind refuses, in far too many cases, to use, even minimally, the gift of imagination, save to imagine their fears, magnifying them all out of proportion because they have not the courage to face them. Whether it is about religion, or freedom, or truth, or whatever, the ignoramus’s among us react with anxiety and rage to any ideas that are unfamiliar, or in any way differ from their own set of preconceived stereotypes and standards. Thus, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, even Lutherans & Papists, or anyone with a differently hued skin, become objects of fear and loathing, and the age-old arguments continue. I often like to use the following in trying to reason with such people, but fanaticism is usually immune to such frippery as truth or rationality……

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket, nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson

I also like this take on the subject; it gives permission to fire away at these Bozos, whenever and wherever we encounter them…..

“In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.” — John Kenneth Galbraith, Guardian (London, 28 July 1989)

…And in a final spasm of pearlistic splendor, we have this from Mrs. Grundy’s antithesis, a woman of grace and intelligence….. ’nuff said….

“I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.” — Edith Sitwell
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And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
— Henry W. Longfellow (1807-1882) — The Day is done

SIGH……that’s better. I’ve just spent the last 40 minutes desperately searching for something profound to write about, and had little success in the quest at hand, until I came across this little gem. I’m sure it’s quite familiar; I seem to remember several long, boring sessions in high school English class discussing this, and a number of other classic poems. It may possibly have been made to be a fun class, but our English teacher was, at that time, suffering a bit of career burp, apparently feeling somewhat despondent over his career choice; regretful of being stuck in a small town, and small school, where someone of his delicate sensibilities and artistic bent was not quite as appreciated as he might have been in a larger town, where there would conceivably be people with tastes that didn’t include anything to do with tractors, the weather, or sheep.

He once commented to the class at large, after grading a test on grammar in the 10th grade, in which all but two of the class failed miserably, that he could teach this subject to a roomful of developmentally disabled chimpanzees faster than our group was picking it up. He may have been right; a good 30% of my classmates still wear cowboy boots, string ties, and shirts with pearl buttons to dress up; I understand, though, that even those who still drive pickup trucks, and who still depend on the land for their living, have email addresses, so there has been some progress made there. In the group photo from our last reunion last year, I didn’t see even one belt buckle bigger than the wearer’s fist.  Heck, I hear there is now a hospital, and TWO bars in town; there’s just no stopping progress, I suppose….. I’ll just fold my tent, and steal silently away…..
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And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium
— T.S. Eliot

No adornment needed……
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Well, THAT turned on me! Getting all this down in comprehensible form became a matter of ripping it out of my head, and literally flogging myself to type it onto the screen, a bloody process at best. I shall require copious sustenance in the form of high-caloric comestibles, to replace all the energy that got burned up. Not complaining; sometimes that’s what it takes….. but it always comes as a surprise, and I should know better than to be so heavily affected. One word….. Murphy….. Q.E.D………y’all take care out there……