Das Boot!

I don't know if you are familiar with this sort of argument against alcohol, frequently put forward by baptists, but I think Lewis Carroll in "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded", addressed it fairly neatly when he wrote the following:

"So Lady Muriel took up the cudgels. “Do you hold the theory”, she enquired, “that people can preach teetotalism more effectually by being teetotalers themselves?”

“Certainly I do!” replied the red-faced man. “Now, here is a case in point,” unfolding a newspaper-cutting: “let me read you this letter from a teetotaler. To the Editor. Sir, I was once a moderate drinker, and knew a man who drank to excess. I went to him. ‘Give up this drink,’ I said. ‘It will ruin your health!’ ‘You drink,’ he said: ‘why shouldn’t I?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I know when to leave off.’ He turned away from me. ‘You drink in your way,’ he said: ‘let me drink in mine. Be off!’ Then I saw that, to do any good with him, I must forswear drink. From that hour l haven’t touched a drop!”

“There! What do you say to that?” He looked round triumphantly, while the cutting was handed round for inspection.

“How very curious!” exclaimed Arthur when it had reached him. “Did you happen to see a letter, last week, about early rising? It was strangely like this one.”

The red-faced man’s curiosity was roused. “Where did it appear?” he asked.

“Let me read it to you,” said Arthur. He took some papers from his pocket, opened one of them, and read as follows. To the Editor. Sir, I was once a moderate sleeper, and knew a man who slept to excess. I pleaded with him. Give up this lying in bed,’ I said. ‘It will ruin your health!’ You go to bed,’ he said: ‘why shouldn’t I?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, but I know when to get up in the morning.’ He turned away from me. ‘You sleep in your way,’ he said: ‘let me sleep in mine. Be off!’ Then I saw that to do any good with him, I must forswear sleep. From that hour I haven’t been to bed!”

Arthur folded and pocketed his paper, and passed on the newspaper-cutting. None of us dared to laugh, the red-faced man was evidently so angry."

The book is a fascinating fairy tale mixed up with some eloquent and profound moral arguments, and is highly recommended. To the point Batman!

The point is, a grocery store opened nearby with an entire aisle of beer.

This post was sent from the FUTURE!

While you all were wildly entertained with that last post, I'm sure you all are wondering where in the galaxy did all of the educational stuff go?

To put it bluntly, several unidentified species of lizard-y things ran off with our education correspondent, and we've been negotiating a deal for the return of his watch and wallet.

So today, I plan on savagely beating another writer here until he regales us with fantastic tales of educational bent, and wont stop until we learn something.

"The Past, once forgotten and consequently ignored, contains many mysteries and artifacts, hidden from sight and covered with filth. If one were to build a functioning time machine and travel back there, one would presumably die instantly, because the Past is an ethereal dream filled with danger and giant intergalactic existence-eating spiders.

I did it once, with a team of insipid explorers and a magician, but we didn't go back very far, and were too scared to leave the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile."

The author of this interesting fable was fired, but not before surrendering the keys to his Oscar Meyer Weinermobile time machine.

Great jokes and hilarity

Alright, time to apologize for my laziness in only posting the creations of other people, and not my own. I only enjoyed several of those to be quite honest.

So here I am, trying to think of something to say when all I really want to do is anything else.

For starters, what's the difference between βιος and ζωη? Likely nothing at all really, perhaps at one point, lost in time, there was a vast world of difference which required two different words for 'life', perhaps they are born of different dialects, I don't know.

Various sources, each less reputable than the last, offer insights of varying profundity and depth--"βιος," they say, "is physical, temporal life," or "a specific life", while "ζωη is eternal life, or life in general".

The differences seem artificial to me, applied retrospectively to the words, but again, I have no idea. We have words of our own which have this same problem, say 'soul' and 'spirit'. Souls aren't spirits, except when they are. A student of English would have a difficult time discerning the difference twixt the two, though a religious text may help, or not.

I tend to think the same applies to agape, eros, and philo, (here I grow tired of typing in greek) good examples of the frustrating futility of the average person diving to the greek of the bible for a nice esoteric insight into the mysteries of the divine, and the dangers of the foolhardy pastors who lead their flocks blindly into the murky depths of the koine (not my specialty, by any means). The blind leading the blind, as it were.

There are, of course, great things to be found in the ancient texts, but they require you to dig deep through the crust of your familiar and relatively simple native tongue first, before you can scratch the surface of an ancient language, artfully declined and deceitfully conjugated with myriad prepositions and nuances fleeting away on wings of gossamer. Mastering a tiny bit is like catching a rare butterfly in the Amazonian rainforest, a feat that is all your own, meaningless to hoi polloi, but will satisfy the hell out of you and make for fascinating discussion among collectors.

There are great philosophical and theological theories which are beautifully illustrated or even constructed entirely on ancient greek, latin, hebrew, or sanskrit words, few of which do more than use the words as algebraic symbols representing relative ideas apart from etymological history.

I don't mean that anyone and everyone is lying, or even often completely mistaken in the meanings of words, especially not in their own context, but that the great romance is removed by the unwitting, by ripping the words out of the context in which they exist, they are pulling the stars from Van Gogh's starry starry night and divorcing them from the rich tapestry in which they find meaning.

But enough of that nonsense!

Just a little trip

Poets of the Fall-Carnival of Rust:

(I can't help thinking "Are you my mummy?")

And some Massive Attack, paired with scenes from The Fall:

However:

Whoohoo!

Wacky Fun Post!

The Purpose of Copyright

It's an interesting read regarding a subject which is of some debate among various parties I'm familiar with, some stating it's the bane of human existence, while others point out that guaranteed money is cool.

As a wonderfully untalented hack and sporadic scribbler of nonsense and tomfoolery, I'd love money, but I hate that someone might send me an email and complain I stole their art, words, music, car, etc.

Ahaha!

Genius!