Here's A Surprising Thought
Could the media be guilty of propagandizing the news to conform to their personal prejudices and beliefs? According to "The Image of the Truth" by Caroline B. Glick in the Jewish World Review, Sept. 12, 2005, that may be true. Big Bubba has always been puzzled by our national aversion to government information that is perceived to be propaganda while weaker minds gleefully accept the propaganda peddled by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN and others, as being the gospel truth.
posted by BigBubba at 7:04 AM
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69 Comments:
I hate to admit to BB that I was trolling over at FPM this morning (no takers though) with the following piece of work...from Nietzsche's "This Spoke Zarathustra"...
"Herdsmen, I say, but they call themselves the good and just.
Herdsmen, I say, but they call themselves the believers in the orthodox belief.
Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:—he, however, is the creator.
Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most? Him who breaketh up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker—he, however, is the creator.
Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses—and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh—those who grave new values on new tables.
Companions, the creator seeketh, and fellow-reapers: for everything is ripe for the harvest with him. But he lacketh the hundred sickles: so he plucketh the ears of corn and is vexed.
Companions, the creator seeketh, and such as know how to whet their sickles. Destroyers, will they be called, and despisers of good and evil. But they are the reapers and rejoicers.
Fellow-creators, Zarathustra seeketh; fellow-reapers and fellow-rejoicers, Zarathustra seeketh: what hath he to do with herds and herdsmen and corpses!
And thou, my first companion, rest in peace! Well have I buried thee in thy hollow tree; well have I hid thee from the wolves.
But I part from thee; the time hath arrived. ’Twixt rosy dawn and rosy dawn there came unto me a new truth.
I am not to be a herdsman, I am not to be a grave-digger. Not any more will I
With the creators, the reapers, and the rejoicers will I associate: the rainbow will I show them, and all the stairs to the Superman."
---
There’s a new Church in America. It’s called the Church of Man. Its’ leaders are not the law-breakers Nietzsche talks about. Its’ leaders are the law-makers of the Progressive Caucus. They fancy themselves creators of new “tables of values”, and they write these values down in the laws of the United States of America.
These men fancy themselves G_ds. They are the New Creators. They evade the “old” laws that prevented a conjoined Church and State established by America’s 1st Amendment by simply NOT calling themselves a “church”. Instead, they call themselves a secular “political movement”. But they are writing a new Bible which they are FORCING us all to use. We know this Bible by another, “secular” name. Political Correctness.
Why did the Founders establish an amendment to the Constitution separating Church and State? Because they didn’t want to the Government using its’ powers to FORCE funding Church charities, educating “priests” and “ministers”, and interfering with EVERY man’s right to hold the ideas of his own conscience sacred and live their OWN lives. But this is PRECISELY what is happening today. It is funding the constituents of this new church of SOCIALISM with money extorted from non-believers in the form of TAXES. And it is paying salaries to educate its’ new preachers, in American Universities nation wide. And it is telling YOU and ME how we HAVE to THINK about their “sacred lambs”, the GLAD’s, minorities, and those that live below the “poverty” line. For THEY do not think American’s were doing enough through “private” charities to “raise up” their lambs. For they MEASURED their lambs “progress” by the amount of MONEY they had, not by measures of HEALTH and SPIRIT.
Something must be done to SEPARATE this Church of Man from our government. For this church violates ALL of the principle’s upon which this country was founded. Freedom of Conscience. Freedom from mind-molding “human” Ministers of Guilt. Freedom to worship one’s OWN Creator. Freedom to reject FALSE man-made IDOLS.
And so now, we must exercise our Freedom to reject the new creators of the religion of “Progressivism” and “Man”…. And exorcise our government from its’ evil influence. That way, we will not be "merely" HERDSMEN. We will also be INDIVIDUALS empowered to “create” and then live, our OWN lives. Not somebody else’s idea a “good” life. Some socialist "progressive's" idea of a "good" life.
-------
Anyways, I apparently forgot to include and denounce "journalists" as the primary "spreaders" of the new "gospel" of "political correctness". Maybe next time.
I DID, however, link to Madison's 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance to back up some of my claims.
Would you mind if I troll here? It was on a back page, not likely to be seen by the bigger fish. And if I include "jounalists" as its' evangelists, that does make it topical doesn't it?
;-)
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Tell you what. I'll move to Montana in live in an 8x10 log cabin for the rest of my years if you can promise me Montana will still be there, untouched, for another 40 years. Otherwise, I'm afraid I'll continue to blab away.
As for moving to Afghanistan, I'd rather go toe-to-toe face-to-face with a sword against Osama equally armed than watch him run little boys with bombs into crowds of American school-children ANY day.
-FJ
Actually,
Give him the sword and me a sharp pencil, and I'd be willing to give it a shot.
-FJ
Farmer John, there was a story floating about this week end that FEMA required volunteer first responders to attend training on sensitivity to survivors and sexual harassment prior to being dispatched to New Orleans. In today's second guessing, finger pointing, litigious society it makes sense to me. Could we expect anything less?
Perhaps a multi million dollar independent investigation would help us understand these perplexing questions with a modicum of sensitivity and decorum to all without harassing any females.
The story was in the New York Times. I looked, but could not find it. Anyone spot it?
Mr. Ducky, you are so oblivious to reason, wallowing up to your eyeballs in your own b.s., that you fail to respond when corrected (often). One more time, Duck, Snopes.com has examined the school bus picture issue for the edification you tinfoil hat boys.
Sorry mr. ducky,
I don't like the very idea of Sharia. And I seldom pray. Platonists are like that. Wouldn't fit in.
BB,
Both party's support Diversity. They have to. We're no longer a confederation of independent states. I doubt you could get them to ever eliminate it. It's engrained in the government itself DEEPER than anywhere else. But please, encourage them to investigate and let's see if they bring it up. Maybe they could have a FEMA exception to the requirement (just like not all regs need to be followed during wartime). They'd simply push the training $ and requirments into a "preparation" budget that ALL local jurisdictions would have to accomplish to receive Homeland Defense funds.
-FJ
Never mind the Astrodome, Duck, any high ground out of New Orleans would have been an improvement. You presume that since all could not be evacuated than let the transportation sit and evacuate no one and that is one of your sillier presumptions lately.
You like to pick and choose, pick and choose this, Duck,
"The next time you are forced to listen to someone try to blame the lack of help for New Orleans on our Federal Government show them this."
But, my dear Duck, there always seems to be an error in your thinking. You are still angry because Bush smiled the other day. Get over it.
Katrina Timeline
Reading Nagin, Blanco and Landrieu with a critical eye one realizes what absolutely silly mental defects this crew really is. The reason for the fiasco becomes much clearer.
mr. ducky,
Perhaps you'd like to move to Montana with me. We can permanently turn off the television sets and share meds. Maybe samwich can teach us how REAL fishing is done. And bubba and norm could deliver supplies once a month, promising NOT to let us in on what's happening in the world.
-FJ
Mr. Ducky, the only people you speak for are malcontents and shallow thinkers. I predict that President Bush will be President until 2008. Sorry, Duck. I think that as long as Howard "Aaaargh" Dean and moveon.org have the demoracist party by the gonads chances are good that President Bush will be followed by another Republican.
methinks BB is very politicaly astute. People tend to be more emotional than rational. But then there's emotional, and then there's "nuts". Methinks mr. dean borders on the "nuts". And even stupid people can read that.
-FJ
samwich
You'd have to be able to mix reasonable logic with you emotion to create acceptable rhetoric. Dean lacks the "reasonable", and to certain degree, the "logical" aspects of a "good" rhetoritician. He can stir the heart and body, but NOT the mind.
He loses it once people "digest" his cocktale.
-FJ
a tale for the duck and other birds of a feather, for truly I am as mad as a Hatter,
Sing a song of sixpence
A pocket full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie
When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing
Was that not a tasty dish
To set before a king?
The King was in his counting house
Counting out his money
The Queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey
The Maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes
When down came a blackbird
And snapped off her nose!
The nursery rhyme "Six a Song of Sixpence" was a coded message that evolved over several years' times and was used by confederates of the notorious pirate Blackbeard to recruit crew members for his prize-hunting expeditions. Like many other messages passed down to us over hundreds of years by oral tradition, there is no one "official" version, nor is there a "correct" interpretation for any particular variant. In general, however, the most common form of this rhyme bore these veiled meanings:
Sing a song of sixpence / A pocket full of rye -
Blackbeard's standard payment of sixpence a day was considered good money in the 1700s, especially since most pirate vessels did not pay a salary: the crew only received a share of the spoils if they were successful in capturing prizes (and many a pirate ship had to return to port empty-handed after spending several fruitless months at sea). As well, his crew was promised a pocket (a leather bag somewhat like an early canteen which held about a liter) full of rye (whiskey) per day. Not bad, considering that alcohol was the average sailor's raison d'etre.
Four and twenty blackbirds / Baked in a pie-
As Henry Betts points out in his book on the origins and history of nursery rhymes, "It was a favourite trick in the sixteenth century to conceal all sorts of surprises in a pie." Buccaneers, too, were fond of surprises, and one of Blackbeard's favorite ruses to lure a ship within boarding range was to make his own vessel (or crew) appear to be in distress, typically by pretending to have been dismasted in a storm or to have sprung a leak below the waterline. Passing ships - both honest sailors wanting to help and other pirates looking for an easy catch - would sail in close to offer assistance, whereupon a crew of two dozen heavily-armed seamen dressed in black would board the other vessel (via a boat in darkness or fog, or by simply jumping into the other ship when it came alongside if no other means of surprise attack was possible) to quickly kill or disable as many crew members as possible. Thus the four and twenty "blackbirds" (i.e., Blackbeard's crewmen) "baked in a pie" (i.e., concealed in anticipation of springing a trap).
When the pie was opened / The birds began to sing-
This follows from the previous line. Once the victim's ship was lured in for the kill, the "blackbirds" came out of hiding and attacked with a fearsome din.
Was that not a tasty dish / To set before a king?-
This line is commonly misinterpreted. The King is not a reference to any real king, but rather to Blackbeard himself, the king of pirates. And the tasty dish is the plundered ship that was so easily captured.
The King was in his counting house / Counting out his money-
Again, the King is Blackbeard (no real king would take on such a mean task as counting money). This line of the message signals that Blackbeard had the cash on hand to pay a crew on salary rather than strictly on divided spoils.
The Queen was in the parlor / Eating bread and honey-
Blackbeard's main vessel was a French merchant ship named "Le Concorde de Nantes" that was jointly captured by Blackbeard and Captain Hornigold in the Grenadines in November of 1717. Upon his retirement from pirating, Hornigold presented the ship to Blackbeard, who renamed it "The Queen Anne's Revenge". Thus the "Queen" referred to here is Blackbeard's ship, and "eating bread and honey" meant that it was in port taking on supplies in preparation for a cruise.
The Maid was in the garden / Hanging out the clothes-
The use of the word "maid" indicated that the location/route of one or more prize ships was known, and they were going to be specific targets of the upcoming cruise (this greatly enhancing the probability of the crew's collecting prize money). The waters around the Carolinas down to the Caribbean were referred to as the garden, as this was an area where pirates would often cruise for easy pickings. "Hanging out the clothes" meant the targeted ship was already at sea or just about to leave port (thus its sails - or "clothes" - have been hung).
When down came a blackbird / And snapped off her nose!-
There is some scholarly debate in literary and maritime circles as to whether the last part was originally "and snapped off her nose" or "and snapped off a rose." Either way, the passage is taken to be a Blackbeard's bragging about his plans to swoop in and have his way with the targeted ship.
So, next time you hear this innocent children's song, remember that it was originally recited in taverns by drunken, bloodthirsty buccaneers as a code to recruit other pirates for their next murderous voyage!
(the above analysis was pirated by a swabby surfing the bountiful internet)
-FJ
As for Dali, who knows what a man with his soul should look like. I can't make out his ends except to believe that they aren't Divine
-FJ
A pie baked especially for the duck and others of his fine feathered friends...
`Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire -- a great plague to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of heart while they embrace their own destruction.'
So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace
upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and a deceitful nature.
So he ordered. And they obeyed the lord Zeus the son of Cronos. Forthwith the famous Lame God moulded clay in the likeness of a modest maid, as the son of Cronos purposed. And the goddess bright-eyed Athene girded and clothed her, and the divine Graces and queenly Persuasion put necklaces of gold upon her, and the rich-haired Hours crowned her head with spring flowers. And Pallas Athene bedecked her form with all manners of finery. Also the Guide, the Slayer of Argus, contrived within
her lies and crafty words and a deceitful nature at the will of loud thundering Zeus, and the Herald of the gods put speech in her. And he called this woman Pandora, because all they who dwelt on Olympus gave each a gift, a plague to men who eat bread.
But when he had finished the sheer, hopeless snare, the Father sent glorious Argus-Slayer, the swift messenger of the gods, to take it to Epimetheus as a gift. And Epimetheus did not think on what Prometheus had said to him, bidding him never take a gift of Olympian Zeus, but to send it back for fear it might prove to be something harmful to men. But he took the gift, and afterwards, when the evil thing was already his, he understood.
For ere this the tribes of men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil and heavy sickness which bring the Fates upon men; for in misery men grow old quickly. But the woman took off the great lid of the jar with her hands and scattered all these and her thought caused sorrow and mischief to men. Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds. But the rest, countless plagues, wander amongst men; for earth is full of evils and the sea is full. Of themselves diseases come upon men continually by day and by night, bringing mischief to mortals silently; for wise Zeus took away speech from them. So is there no way to escape the will of Zeus.
-FJ
The proles. Working for sixpence instead of a portion. Honest seamen got a share of captured prizes based upon their function and contribution to the successful enterprise.
But then, honest men stay home and work the family farm. They have no use for the sea, birds, fish, fishermen or pirates. For as Hesiod has said (Works and Days)... "to the son of Chronos law ordained, fishes, beasts, and winged fowls should devour one another, for right is not in them, but to MEN he gave right which provides far the best."
-FJ
erratum...
Substitute "beastly seamen" for "honest seamen" in the above admonition. Hesiod would have wanted it that way.
-FJ
I'm on a roll... to my fine feathered friends, informers (Reporters) who's wings bear painful likeness to fine Corcyrean leather whips... Aristophanes' "Birds" (from Hesiod again)
"And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his
crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: `Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.' So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long-winged bird."
-FJ
Pan-d-ora (Gold for All)?
-FJ
nose/rose - I guess it matters which side you were on in the war of the roses. Either way, domination by white or red is bound to spite one's face. Best deal parallel lines, split halves, and add a patch of loyal blue. Perhaps the stars in heaven will shine. But right now, the true flag seems to favor that of the Lone Star State, not the Fifty United States. Perhaps they should fly the former by day, the latter by night? Nahhh, you know how people are with changes made without their consent... And besides, the fifty have gone international now. They've removed the Ltd. from their names and replaced them with Inc. My how times have changed.
-FJ
I love the American Eagle. He started out with symmetrical wings but as of late, one has grown long and the other short again. How the results of a war can change men. And that's the long and the short of it.
-FJ
Hope has stuck in mr. ducky's jar. Hence even hope has a dark side.
-FJ
Oh,
btw me hardies,
Not every hat is cut the same.
FAS
-FJ
Epilogue for Epithemus,
White Rabbit
by Jefferson Airplane
One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,
And the ones that Mother gives you don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call.
Call Alice when she was just small.
When the men on the chess board get up and tell you where to go,
And you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low,
Go ask Alice. I think she'll know.
When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead,
And the white knight is talking backward, and the red queen's off with her head,
Remember what the doormouse
said: "Feed your head! Feed your head!"
-FJ
Note to Alice... when you feed your head, it's best to avoid the Hookah's and pills.
Just ask a mathematican like Lewis Carroll,
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
-FJ
multi-temporalism is the route to mono-culturalism within multi-culturalism. But whose to say that there is a third pill Nemo?
-FJ
or is that Neo?
-FJ
The Modern interprets Nietzsche as follows...
Metamorphasis
And aims to create the creative and playful child. They fail to take note of Nietzsche's transformative sequence and aim to jump immediately to the ends WITHOUT utilizing the means. And so, drug use became MUCH more acceptable to them. In fact, their poets prescribed it. And they aim to beach us on a Nitzschean blessed island without any adults to supervise who have actually followed the prescribed path. And so, the only thing that can result is for night to descend upon the Enlightenment, and the Lord of the Flies to make his appearance.
-FJ
Never-Mind,
Just kid-ding
-FJ
I guess I really am just a Fish out of water
Nietzsche on Java-nese Men,
From Ecce Homo - "Why I am so clever"...
" I prefer those places where there are numerous opportunities of drinking from running brooks as at Nice, Turin, Sils, where water follows me wherever I turn. In vino veritas: it seems that here too I disagree with the rest of the world about the concept "Truth"-with me spirit moves on the face of the waters. Here are a few more bits of advice taken from my morality. A heavy meal is digested more easily than one that is too meager. The first condition of a good digestion is that the stomach should be active as a whole. Therefore a man ought to know the size of his stomach. For the sanae reasons I advise against all those interminable meals, which I call interrupted sacrificial feasts, and which are to be had at any table d'hdte. Nothing between meals, NO COFFEE -coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is advisable only in the morning-in small quantities, but very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the whole day, if it is the least bit too weak. Here each one has his own standard, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In a very enervating climate it is, inadvisable to begin the day with tea: an hour before, it is a good thing to have a cup of thick cocoa, free from oil. Remain seated as little as possible; trust no thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion-nor one in which your very muscles do not celebrate a feast. All prejudices may be traced back to the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Ghost."
-FJ
And to the children of the 60's, did I mention that just before this excerpt, he says something about the advisability of taking WINE as well?
mr. ducky,
I don't have the original painting at my disposal, but it seemed to me for the 30 seconds during which I viewed it that the Javanese Man's soul appeared rather wooden, and therefore "of the earth". Or is this an "incorrect" interpretation? Plato's souls are made of metals gold-silver-iron- and brass... iron being magnetic and therefore subject to unseen influences, and brass but an alloy of copper and nickel and unable to be influenced by magnets?
I now notice that at one end of the soul there appears to be a silver sphere, denoting one of the guardian class, but there does not appear to be gold at the other end denoting a philosopher king. It appears to be much more malformed and "dross-like" in appearance. Hardly Divine, something a little more Modern intellectually. Fool's gold, perhaps? Makes me wonder what sort of spirit the silver guardian protects.
btw - I do think Simon is rather like you. I like to think of myself as the "naval officer", having filled that role rather ineffectively in real life.
Javanese Mannequin
-FJ
Who whistles now, senor duck?
-FJ
ps - and senor duck, can a Divine Soul have "ends"?
-FJ
Touche'
-FJ
Perhap's a new nickname is in order for you mr. ducky...
"The Silver Duque"?
-FJ
btw,
Have you kicked out the old man's crutch yet? Perhaps I represent evidence that it is still rather tenuously in place? ;-)
-FJ
Funny how persistent us "iron" men can be. Or am I a Laputan adamantine load-stone? Funny how I can see the island floating overhead, yet am not crushed to the ground in the presence of it's field. Ahhh, way up top, I see Gulliver! Pardon me while I go wave to him.
-FJ
Just me again. You won't believe what I saw. A Silver Duque was piloting the amazing craft! Would that he knew where he was going, he'd make a fine pilot!
-FJ
samwich,
Actually I think Dean goes over the top WHILST being agreed with, which pushes him over the top. A-a-a-r-r-r-g-g-g-h-h-h. People saw it, and it scared them. Looney-tunes. Daffy Duck! woo-hoo woo-hoo woo-hoo
-FJ
PS Samwich,
How Freudian is this? "John S-wal-low"
Or this? "Ma-the son"
Like last nights Iraq CNN briefing by a colonel name "McMasters"
Ma k Ma S Ter S
mother- k aka (love ended)
mother- S-s-s-nake (feminine)
Terra- S-s-snake Earth- (feminine)
I know, I need to up the dosage. I'm starting to see subliminals in everything. I getting to be as bad as Chomsky! ;-)
-FJ
pps- Ever seen the subliminal point and arrow in the FedEx logo? Creepy!
-FJ
ps,
I wonder where Nietzsche got his cautions about thought sources
from? Could it have been from Hipparchus (One-time Tyrant of Athens)? Thoughts from Plato's "Hipparchus".
(for the record, Hermes was a deceiptful messenger of the Zeus and patron "saint" of theives)...
2. Inscriptions on Hermai (Herms) (aka Phallus' or obelisks if you prefer) of Hipparchus:
a. "A reminder of Hipparchus: walk thinking just thoughts."
b. "A reminder of Hipparchus: do not deceive a friend."
([Plato], Hipparchus 229a-b)
-FJ
Hermai were located at "cross-roads". Perhaps they were meant to influence one's future path?
-FJ
A-a-a-r-r-r-g-g-g-h-h-h!
I'm becoming more and more like Howard Dean every day!
-FJ
Must come from cogitating in a vacuum. It helps to visit the town of Motley Cow once and a while, scream in the marketplace, watch another tight-rope-walker fall, and then go bury him in a hollow tree so the wolves don't get him. But don't ask me to dig any graves. Hollow trees are as far as I'm willing to go!
-FJ
And now, a little Golden silence. Fertile soil. Seed's planted. Pray for rain. Pray for sunshine. Watch for growth. Possibly apply fertilizers and insecticides at a later date. But better observe the winds, or the application might not prove effective. Time to go outside and grab some air, possibly lite up a smoke. ;-)
-FJ
samwich,
Sounds like quite a Fourth of July kinda meal. It's a shame our holi-days are so few and far between. But it isn't healthy to eat like that all the time. Upsets the stomache and makes one run for the Milk Of Magnesia. Ever Read Plato's "Laws"? Magnesia was one heck of a place. But best go eat now and put the digestion to work. I'm having Country Fried Steak tonight!
-FJ
Afterthought,
Perhaps I should add one small fact to the recipe. Hesiod sings to the Pierian not Helicon Muses (as in his "Theogony"). This is a mountain found on the Island of Crete, ancient home of the Amazonomachy and sacred to Artemis, Apollo's virginal feminine and lunar opposite. These muses are as follows:
The Thrakian Muses of Piera:
Daughters of Pierene, whose name means 'of the willows,' sometimes their mother was called Antiope 'opposing Moon'
Kolymbas - shrub Iynx - spell, charm
Cenchrias - spotted serpent
Kissa - jay
Chloris - green
Akalanthis - goldfinch
Nessa - having come down (from heaven)
Pipo - woodpecker
Drakonitis - a type of bird sometimes replaced by Achelois - she who drives away grief
And I believe it is said in one legend that Theseus, founder of Athens, defeated Minos, killed the Minotaur, and brought Ariadne, his web spinning daughter with him back to Greece. Anybody here familiar with Plutarch's "Lives"? Well the Cow was sacred to the Amazons, and the Bull to Minos.
And of course, in Plato's "Laws", he lectures the Spartans (masculine) AND the Cretans (feminine) so as to "fuse" their cultures together into a single spider-like web.
I also heard a rumor that Zeus had an affair with Io, but he disguised her as a Cow when his wife Hera approached. She ended up sending a gadfly after Io who pursued Io all the way to Egypt. While being pursued, she stopped briefly to have an interesting conversation with Prometheus (Aeschylus, "Prometheus Bound").
Just thought I'd throw in a dyspeptic to interrupt digestion.
-FJ
A bedtime story,
From Amazonomachy...more Cretans...on Palace Culture
"Diktynna the Lawgiver
Often scholars claim her name meant 'she of the fishing nets' when in fact her name meant 'speaker' or 'lawgiver..' She is the mother aspect of the Cretan Great Trinity. Often portrayed as a naked woman riding a goat with a net in one hand, and an apple in the other, accompanying her were a hare and a raven. The net connects her to lifegiving water, the apple to wisdom and sexual mysteries. Diktynna may also have had warlike aspects. Her image sheds new light on the tale of Lady Godiva, whose name means 'Goddess-Goddess.'
Diktynna gave her laws from Mount Dikte on the East part of Crete. They were carved on stone tablets and passed down to the people, a common method used by lawgiving Goddesses. It is interesting that today words like 'dictate' and 'edict' have mainly negative connotations, since both derive from her name. Cave temples called dikteria were originally places where people slept with the sacred priestesses of the Goddess as part of her mysteries.
Mount Dikte may once have been a volcano, considering the geology of the area, and a bit of curious herb lore. Diktannon, now called dittany aromatic was sacred to Diktynna, as its older name suggests. Holding a flame near its stem and below the flower can produce a flash because the plant produces small amounts of flammable gas.
Hence dictation, edict, diction, and so on."
---
And another tale from the "woods" of Arcadia just north of Laconia (Sparta)...(same source)
Atalanta
The 'impassable or unswaying one' was worshipped first in Arkadia and later in Boeotia. Wild, unbribable, and inescapable, this Death Goddess hunted souls like Artemis. A warrior and great athlete, her totem was the bear, and a spring near the ruins of Kyphanta in Lakonia was sacred to her. Atalanta's priestesses were great athletes and hunters like their Goddess, and commonly took in the unwanted little girls left outside to die by Greek invaders34. Such children were 'suckled by she-bears.'
One such little girl, daughter of Klymene 'famous strength, famous Moon' or Themisto 'oracular, daughter of Themis' survived in this way. Called by the name of her Goddess, she was picked up from the Parthenian Hill and suckled by a female bear. Usually the bear is identified as Artemis, but was probably Atalanta originally. The girl grew into an unmatched warrior and athlete, who won the footraces and wrestling matches of the funeral games of Pelias.
Among her first deeds was winning the Heraeon in her own age class, and then outrunning all the men who scornfully challenged her. On her travels Atalanta found herself in a forest during drought with her companions. Calling on her Goddess, she struck a rock with her spear. A spring promptly began to flow from the rock, a feat so impressive, Moses was said to have done it.
Later Atalanta sailed with the Argonauts, and participated in the Kalydonian boar hunt, drawing first blood. The hunt was instigated by a king desperate to destroy a boar sent by Artemis in punishment for breaking her laws. During the hunt Atalanta was forced to kill two attempted rapists. The infamous footrace is a misunderstanding of an icon depicting a man attempting to steal the Goddess' golden apples. However, these apples gave eternal afterlife, not a means of preventing death.
Such priestesses of any Goddess probably took in unwanted children exposed in this manner.
And of course, two on the Lost City of Atlantis from Plato (ps - Critias shows up as a Spartan protagonist in Plato's "Laws" later)
Critias
and
Timaeus
----
Something to sleep on. Was Plato's Atlantis actually the ancient, and by Plato's time ruined, Palace Culture of Crete? Was the Palace Culture sacked by the Myceneans centered in Argos? Weren't the Myceneans precursers to the Lacadaemeons (Spartans) who later went on to sack Troy in Homer's "Iliad"? Did exiled Trojans the found Rome as Virgil says they did? Were the Phoenicians the precursers to the Cartheginians? Why did Cartheginians also worship the Bull? Weren't they ruled by Dido, a Queen, who killed herself for love of the Trojan Aeneas after he stopped there briefly? Didn't the Cartheginian's found Cartegena (new Carthage) and perhaps Barcelona as well? Didn't Dali hail from Barcelona? Didn't he paint the Javanese Marionette? And isn't bullfighting a dying sport in Spain? And didn't Zulu fighting tactics simulate the movement of a bull's head and horns?
All these questions. All these links. Sounds like one of those PBS shows that links a whole, but unrelated, yet interconnected series of events.
Yes, it is QUITE easy to become delusional using simply reason and logic. Unless of course, one checks ones logic and reason against some measure like Nature herself. Perhaps nature is truth after all, for isn't that our science? But isn't nature a woman? Mother Nature? Eternal Feminine ;-)
Nite kid-dies.
-FJ
And FINALLY why did Nashville, and not Atlanta, build this? Parthenon Replica for Centennial Celebration
Perhaps Atlanta and the Amazonomachy lie to the west? For the Amazonomachy was always features on the west, sunset facing metopes of the actual structure. Could America have lost it's sense of Sacred Geometry? Washington DC has many great examples of Sacred Geometry. Enquirinf minds want to Know!
A new dawn breaks. Aurora spreads her rosy fingers through the heavens. The Farmer recovers from eating Mrs. Farmer's chicken fried steak, a rather poor cut of beef wrapped in breadcrumbs and spices to make it taste good and therefore very much like a pie, or is that, a pi (3.14168...)?
Plato, "Georgias" (On cookery)
Polus: Then what, in your opinion, is rhetoric?
Socrates: A thing which, as I was lately reading in a book of yours, you say that you have made an art.
Polus: What thing?
Socrates: I should say a sort of experience.
Polus: Does rhetoric seem to you to be an experience?
Socrates: That is my view, but you may be of another mind.
Polus: An experience in what?
Socrates: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification.
Polus: And if able to gratify others, must not rhetoric be a fine thing?
Socrates: What are you saying, Polus? Why do you ask me whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, when I have not as yet told you what rhetoric is?
Polus: Did I not hear you say that rhetoric was a sort of experience?
Socrates: Will you, who are so desirous to gratify others, afford a slight gratification to me?
Polus: I will.
Socrates: Will you ask me, what sort of an art is cookery?
Polus: What sort of an art is cookery?
Socrates: Not an art at all, Polus.
Polus: What then?
Socrates: I should say an experience.
Polus: In what? I wish that you would explain to me.
Socrates: An experience in producing a sort of delight and gratification, Polus.
Polus: Then are cookery and rhetoric the same?
Socrates: No, they are only different parts of the same profession.
Polus: Of what profession?
Socrates: I am afraid that the truth may seem discourteous; and I hesitate to answer, lest Gorgias should imagine that I am making fun of his own profession. For whether or no this is that art of rhetoric which Gorgias practises I really cannot tell:-from what he was just now saying, nothing appeared of what he thought of his art, but the rhetoric which I mean is a part of a not very creditable whole.
Gorgias: A part of what, Socrates? Say what you mean, and never mind me.
Socrates: In my opinion then, Gorgias, the whole of which rhetoric is a part is not an art at all, but the habit of a bold and ready wit, which knows how to manage mankind: this habit I sum up under the word "flattery"; and it appears to me to have many other parts, one of which is cookery, which may seem to be an art, but, as I maintain, is only an experience or routine and not an art:-another part is rhetoric, and the art of attiring and sophistry are two others: thus there are four branches, and four different things answering to them. And Polus may ask, if he likes, for he has not as yet been informed, what part of flattery is rhetoric: he did not see that I had not yet answered him when he proceeded to ask a further question: Whether I do not think rhetoric a fine thing? But I shall not tell him whether rhetoric is a fine thing or not, until I have first answered, "What is rhetoric?" For that would not be right, Polus; but I shall be happy to answer, if you will ask me, What part of flattery is rhetoric?
Polus: I will ask and do you answer? What part of flattery is rhetoric?
Socrates: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics.
Polus: And noble or ignoble?
Socrates: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I was saying before.
Gorgias: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.
Socrates: I do not wonder, Gorgias; for I have not as yet explained myself, and our friend Polus, colt by name and colt by nature, is apt to run away.
Gorgias: Never mind him, but explain to me what you mean by saying that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
Socrates: I will try, then, to explain my notion of rhetoric, and if I am mistaken, my friend Polus shall refute me. We may assume the existence of bodies and of souls?
Gorgias: Of course.
Socrates: You would further admit that there is a good condition of either of them?
Gorgias: Yes.
Socrates: Which condition may not be really good, but good only in appearance? I mean to say, that there are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician or trainer will discern at first sight not to be in good health.
Gorgias: True.
Socrates: And this applies not only to the body, but also to the soul: in either there may be that which gives the appearance of health and not the reality?
Gorgias: Yes, certainly.
Socrates: And now I will endeavour to explain to you more clearly what I mean: The soul and body being two, have two arts corresponding to them: there is the art of politics attending on the soul; and another art attending on the body, of which I know no single name, but which may be described as having two divisions, one of them gymnastic, and the other medicine. And in politics there is a legislative part, which answers to gymnastic, as justice does to medicine; and the two parts run into one another, justice having to do with the same subject as legislation, and medicine with the same subject as gymnastic, but with a difference. Now, seeing that there are these four arts, two attending on the body and two on the soul for their highest good; flattery knowing, or rather guessing their natures, has distributed herself into four shams or simulations of them; she puts on the likeness of some one or other of them, and pretends to be that which she simulates, and having no regard for men's highest interests, is ever making pleasure the bait of the unwary, and deceiving them into the belief that she is of the highest value to them. Cookery simulates the disguise of medicine, and pretends to know what food is the best for the body; and if the physician and the cook had to enter into a competition in which children were the judges, or men who had no more sense than children, as to which of them best understands the goodness or badness of food, the physician would be starved to death. A flattery I deem this to be and of an ignoble sort, Polus, for to you I am now addressing myself, because it aims at pleasure without any thought of the best. An art I do not call it, but only an experience, because it is unable to explain or to give a reason of the nature of its own applications. And I do not call any irrational thing an art; but if you dispute my words, I am prepared to argue in defence of them.
Cookery, then, I maintain to be a flattery which takes the form of medicine; and attiring, in like manner, is a flattery which takes the form of gymnastic, and is knavish, false, ignoble, illiberal, working deceitfully by the help of lines, and colours, and enamels, and garments, and making men affect a spurious beauty to the neglect of the true beauty which is given by gymnastic.
I would rather not be tedious, and therefore I will only say, after the manner of the geometricians (for I think that by this time you will be able to follow)
astiring : gymnastic :: cookery : medicine; or rather,
attiring : gymnastic :: sophistry : legislation; and
as cookery : medicine :: rhetoric : justice.
And this, I say, is the natural difference between the rhetorician and the sophist, but by reason of their near connection, they are apt to be jumbled up together; neither do they know what to make of themselves, nor do other men know what to make of them. For if the body presided over itself, and were not under the guidance of the soul, and the soul did not discern and discriminate between cookery and medicine, but the body was made the judge of them, and the rule of judgment was the bodily delight which was given by them, then the word of Anaxagoras, that word with which you, friend Polus, are so well acquainted, would prevail far and wide: "Chaos" would come again, and cookery, health, and medicine would mingle in an indiscriminate mass. And now I have told you my notion of rhetoric, which is, in relation to the soul, what cookery is to the body. I may have been inconsistent in making a long speech, when I would not allow you to discourse at length. But I think that I may be excused, because you did not understand me, and could make no use of my answer when I spoke shortly, and therefore I had to enter into explanation. And if I show an equal inability to make use of yours, I hope that you will speak at equal length; but if I am able to understand you, let me have the benefit of your brevity, as is only fair: And now you may do what you please with my answer.
Polus: What do you mean? do you think that rhetoric is flattery?
Socrates: Nay, I said a part of flattery-if at your age, Polus, you cannot remember, what will you do by-and-by, when you get older?
Polus: And are the good rhetoricians meanly regarded in states, under the idea that they are flatterers?
-FJ
Farmer John needs to seek relief in San Antonio where chicken fried steak is considered an artform. Like pie indeed! Only a satisfyingly crispy crust of flour is acceptable.
Well a chicken-fried steak can make me slam on the brakes
When the speeders got me feeling kind of edgy
I start squirmin' around until I come all unwound
And then I yank up on my drawers until I give myself a wedgie
Well, I've been ballin' that jack to get to this motel
And I've been jackin my ball since I got her
I got a beerful of fridges
And some son-of-a-bitches
And a three-legged midget sayin'
"Liquor in the rear."
The fifth labor of Hercules, cleansing of the Augean Stables (or river diversions and other USACE responsibilities)....
Let's see now, the Constitution was signed in 1786. The Centennial Exposition in Nashville was 1897. 111 years. Now Hunstville, AL is almost 111 miles directly South of Nashville. Artemis was goddess of the Hunt, and when AL was admitted to the Union, Huntsville was it's capital. Connections, connection, connections?
Now Washington DC is shaped kinda like a diamond with four sides. Only three of the edges of the diamonds are straight lines, and one of the borders is formed by the Potomac (sic?) River, and therefore NOT a straight-line but a NATURAL barrier. Kinda like the three branches of government, executive, legistative, and judicial, and of course, NATURALLY, the people themselves... where the mainstream lies.
Now the mathematic symbol for pi (3.14168..) is drawn with two parallel lines, a squiggley over the top, and open "space" at the bottom. Perhaps the more "Divine" squiggley placed on top is meant to influence and perhaps "oppose" and "show" limit to the un-substantiated and rather aethereal "open end" at the bottom, where NO limit is drawn.
And of course, pi is a necessary component for accurately calculating the circumference of a circle, the area of a circle, and the volume of a sphere, of which a point could be said to represent an individual citizen (kinda spherically shaped?)
Did I mention before that one of the "legs" in Dali's painting was "unsupported"? (No crutch). I wonder what holds it up?...perhaps it distributes it's weight towards the crutch? Or perhaps, something more or less "Divine" supports it, like the soul that sits atop it, suspending it's weight from above. Call it the "invisible strings" that control the marionette? Perhaps it gets moral support and strings from observing the like marionettes that surround it and comparing itself to them. It certainly can't get moral support from heaven itself for heaven appears to have no ends for a man who can make no ends for himself unless he in fact and deed, believes in heaven.
Yet another point regarding the Dali painting is that the fleshy portions have no ends. But the soul HAS ends, one directed by silver, the other by dross. Kind of like the Greek half-man/ half goat Pan, or a Satrye, or a Centaur. Well kinda sums up modern man for you. All proud of his progress, but with nothing but a drossy destination he can BEAR-LY put into words, or more likely, that are buried in modern platitudes like Peace or Social Justice, ends with un-defined limits like, but held in direct opposition to life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness and more importantly, freedom of conscience (aka - SOUL. And so, Moderns manufacture dross for the Javanese man's soul and support and extend the already rigidly and straightly delineated parallel north and south running lines in the pi symbol and defined by government and the others. In other words, they pare back Javenese mans fleshy parts, further diminishing his own personal ends AND means and offsetting them with additional and ever-increasing amounts of dross in his already limited and bifurcated soul.
Now if the soul could simply provide the means for achieving the body's ends, then the fleshy portions might have the CAPACITY to grow new and perhaps unique individual ends and match that growth. But for THAT to happen, the soul must be all MEANS and therefore rather circular that flow through a sigular, yet absolute point, perhaps based upon some naturally observed first principle or "truth" to provide and observe some limit and self-regulate him to duty. Perhaps the Means need to be equal to and perhaps symmetrically balance and offset the ends? Means would thereafter merge with ends and freedom would metamorphasize into duty.
And if one point is to create Freedom of choice AND will for the individual and groups of individuals, and NOT simply to create a marionette moved by others, to make the man himself Self-Moving and not always externally moved and influenced like a Modern Day Marionette then perhaps freedom is something that IS naturally observed, more often than it is not.
But the Freedom in nature is usually limited by the individual power and force of the animal, either singular, or as part of a group. And in order for a group to effectively and salubriously function in nature and hold its' environmental niche against other species and competitors, Force must be properly proportioned and distributed amongst its' members(not necessarily equally, for none of the members have precisely equal of capacities nor capabilities).
Now, I wonder why the Washington Monument is so tall? I wonder why the Masonic equivalent located towards the south of the National Monument is so tall? Perhaps Washington the man had such Divine qualities as to extend the unsupported and aethereal/ unlimited missing fourth side of the City of Washington DC represented by the people, and influence them to be more like him. He provided a kind of symbolic eternal masculine that was able to attract the love of and tame the natural eternal feminine.
He was, after all, a man of honor and loyalty only rarely encountered. A veritable Cincinnatus of Rome as unmovable and straight as Apollo or Hercules, or even Achilles himself. In cooperation with other great men, he diverted a river and therby cleansed the Augean Stables.
But if you ask me, it was done again a century later by a slightly delusional and mercury-influenced Lincoln, and then again another century later by the children of the 60's.
Forty years have passed, and it's getting so deep in the stables the job might need doing again, it ain't pretty. The kids only did a half-assed job. They tried taking a short-cut. They gave men drugs instead of wisdom. They listened to one too many hookah smoking catepillars after running down a rabbit hole and mistook THAT for the path to "enlightenment".
-FJ
Is that the red-duque quacking "Off with her head!" again?
PS - I like you cookin' methods gentlemen, but as we can all see, the Duque's dross build-up opposing his silver balls is getting excessive. Perhaps he should play poker in the front and stop listening to modern three legged midgets? Most earthly chairs got at least four legs.
-FJ
monsr la Duque,
Ever bet on the three legged horse at the races?
-FJ
PS - A few more connections...
USACE HQ is in Hunstville, at least the TVA part.
Augean Stables Myth
Is mathmatics of Divine origin and Evidence of Intelligent Design?
A lesson on Calculating Beauty for the Duque
On Natural Mathmatical Proportions like Phi and Pi
Washington DC Geometry
Masonic Washington Monument on located on Shooter's Hill
Who were the Shooter's and why did they need a hill?
Speakin' of Shooter's, does everbody remember old Ben?
-FJ
Read Schopenhauer? Like I haven't? Nietzsche started as HIS disciple. Do you know what Schoenhauer's "purpose" for living life was? Schop Answer - "To prepare you for death!".
Is that what you want out of life, Monsr Le Duque, to be "prepared for death"? I always thought you were a little maudlin and morose, but Jeez!. The difference between you & Shope'y is that like Jim Jone's, you want to take everyone with you. Prepare us all for death. You should have joined that cult in California and met the Alien Spaceship when it was due to arrive.
If you want, I'll prepare your embalming fluid now, and we can administer it tomorrow.
And so I do think that the individual needs to live his own life. Not somebody else's idea of a life. Like yours, to prepare yourself for death. No thanks, I'd rather LIVE!!!!
-FJ
mr. ducky,
Sacrifice, or Destruction? I admire those that go under. I simply want to know why you insist on taking EVERYONE with you? That isn't self-sacrifice, that's "other sacrifice".
Lonely? You've lost your cour and embraced the air. You should go sign up with Osama. Either that, or find some lake in Maine and ground yourself permanently. In nature. Not ethereal cities and republics in the sky (Aristophanes, "Birds"). There's no food for a duque in the air. You need to land in a pure cold mountain lake, swim to the bottom, and feed.
-FJ
On tree's that echo down the ages, struldbrugs, and/or people who demand universal health care and wish to live forever...Jonathan Swift, "Gulliver's Travels"
“That the system of living contrived by me, was unreasonable and unjust; because it supposed a perpetuity of youth, health, and vigour, which no man could be so foolish to hope, however extravagant he may be in his wishes. That the question therefore was not, whether a man would choose to be always in the prime of youth, attended with prosperity and health; but how he would pass a perpetual life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it. For although few men will avow their desires of being immortal, upon such hard conditions, yet in the two kingdoms before mentioned, of Balnibarbi and Japan, he observed that every man desired to put off death some time longer, let it approach ever so late: and he rarely heard of any man who died willingly, except he were incited by the extremity of grief or torture. And he appealed to me, whether in those countries I had travelled, as well as my own, I had not observed the same general disposition.”
After this preface, he gave me a particular account of the struldbrugs among them. He said, “they commonly acted like mortals till about thirty years old; after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession: for otherwise, there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to fourscore years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever they see a funeral, they lament and repine that others have gone to a harbour of rest to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle-age, and even that is very imperfect; and for the truth or particulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition, than upon their best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories; these meet with more pity and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others.
“If a struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the marriage is dissolved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as the younger of the two comes to be fourscore; for the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence, that those who are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual continuance in the world, should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.
“As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates; only a small pittance is reserved for their support; and the poor ones are maintained at the public charge. After that period, they are held incapable of any employment of trust or profit; they cannot purchase lands, or take leases; neither are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even for the decision of meers and bounds.
“At ninety, they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no distinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get, without relish or appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relations. For the same reason, they never can amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect, they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might otherwise be capable.
The language of this country being always upon the flux, the struldbrugs of one age do not understand those of another; neither are they able, after two hundred years, to hold any conversation (farther than by a few general words) with their neighbours the mortals; and thus they lie under the disadvantage of living like foreigners in their own country.”
This was the account given me of the struldbrugs, as near as I can remember. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the youngest not above two hundred years old, who were brought to me at several times by some of my friends; but although they were told, “that I was a great traveller, and had seen all the world,” they had not the least curiosity to ask me a question; only desired “I would give them slumskudask,” or a token of remembrance; which is a modest way of begging, to avoid the law, that strictly forbids it, because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a very scanty allowance.
They are despised and hated by all sorts of people. When one of them is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly so that you may know their age by consulting the register, which, however, has not been kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of computing how old they are, is by asking them what kings or great persons they can remember, and then consulting history; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old.
They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld; and the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between them.
The reader will easily believe, that from what I had hear and seen, my keen appetite for perpetuity of life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed; and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life. The king heard of all that had passed between me and my friends upon this occasion, and rallied me very pleasantly; wishing I could send a couple of struldbrugs to my own country, to arm our people against the fear of death; but this, it seems, is forbidden by the fundamental laws of the kingdom, or else I should have been well content with the trouble and expense of transporting them.
I could not but agree, that the laws of this kingdom relative to the struldbrugs were founded upon the strongest reasons, and such as any other country would be under the necessity of enacting, in the like circumstances. Otherwise, as avarice is the necessary consequence of old age, those immortals would in time become proprietors of the whole nation, and engross the civil power, which, for want of abilities to manage, must end in the ruin of the public."
-FJ
Speaking of struldbrugs, aren't corporations a form of struldbrug? In London, Corporation go by the designation Ltd. or "Limited". In America, they go by the designation "Inc." for "Incorporated". How can a private citizen compete financially with a struldbrug?
-FJ
methinks Odin was greedy. Had he seized but one rune, and not many, they might have supported his weight.
-FJ
I'm no psychologist but what opinion might one hold in general if another fancies themselves a Whitsuntide Mummer?
For I fancy that one who, instead of wishing to kill one's father (or mother) (who was probably a nice guy/gal), projects this or some other "despicable" desire upon the collective's father and might wish to still their own will is suffering from repressed thoughts.
All this so as to openly indulge those thoughts thereby enabling one to mentally sleep with one's mother, or think "less" of a close loved one, or more of one-self if one near them violating their values of good and evil (ie - child molester, for one might have received some pleasure from it). Or to sleep with all the collective females of the family. Incest is best, they say.
Freud would advise a person like this to reconcile himself to the fact that his tabooed desires for incest exist. As do the instincts and desires for cannabalism and murder and violence and destruction. They exist in all of us.
These repressed intincts/ desires torture everyone. It gives and makes for some "crazy" dreams. It's the main force behind repression and the Superego. It's what causes Freud's "Civilized Discontents". And so we all need to learn a new ways of sublimating and defusing these inherent and engrained instincts.
The first step is to stop repressing these thoughts in one's rationale and conscious Ego "mentally" and see it for what it is, an inverted desire or hatred from childhood (or even later). One should address ones hatred towards a good father (or a departed loved one), by cursing their faults aloud, for after one mentally eats one real (not the collective) father or loved one, it usually free's up the Ego/ Superego repression pathways of this now mentally incarnated person and lessens their influence and the need to feel guilty for having these bad thoughts.
One might now hold this loved person a little less Holy, but also now hate one's self less and feel less need to be punished for the deed, although one may regret having destroyed the order and perfection the loved one presence had created and represents, and hate the chaos that ensued after their departure.
In fact, the loved one might, without one's knowledge, be punishing one right now for one's "evil" thoughts, only now they're projecting that hatred onto another. Or sometimes project one's love onto another (psycho-analyzed patients tend to fall in love with their analysts)
One's love for one's father or mother and the guilt created by the thought of killing them or sleeping with them might create unachievable standards of perfection which the Superego (Ego Ideal) seeks to impose on the "guilty" Ego, and so one who reduces THEIR stature to a less than perfect standard or raises one's own stature can learn to be a little easier on himself, and become more independent of the Ego Ideal and all its' standards.
Of course, drugs can be substituted for a talking-cure, but the lifetime costs of meds is ??? and the effects on other thought processes can be quite detri-mental.
Suggested reading: Freud's "Totem and Taboo", "Interpretation of Dreams", "Civilization and It's Discontents", Ego and the Id", et al. His case studies are pretty good too.
-FJ
Are some Americans projecting a collective hatred of themselves and what they've become onto the government? Like the paranoid schizophrenic who thinks others are "out to get him", because he thinks "they" know his "personal and secret sins" and are out to "punish him" for them.
Just a thought.
-FJ
On the influence of others on self (SuperEgo)... (Plato, "Ion")...
Background- Ion was a Rhapsode, a person who had memorized certain Homeric or Hesiodic poems and was hired or otherwise enticed by prize offerings to orally recite and re-enact them at sacred festivals and competitions.
"Socrates - I do consider, Ion, and proceed to show you how it appears to me. That you are able to discourse well concerning Homer is not owing to any art of which you are master; nor do you explain or illustrate him, as I said before, upon the principles or from the rules of art; but from a divine power, acting upon you, and impelling you: a power resembling that which acts in the stone, called by Euripides the magnet, but known commonly by the name of the loadstone. For this stone does not only attract iron rings, but impart to those rings the power of doing that very thing which itself does, enabling them to attract other rings of iron. So that sometimes may be seen a very long series of iron rings, depending, as in a chain, one from another. But from that stone, at the head of them is derived the virtue which operates in them all. In the same manner, the Muse, inspiring, moves men herself through her divine inpulse. From these men, thus inspired, others, catching the sacred power, form a chain of divine enthusiasts. For the best epic poets, and all such as excel in the composing any kind of verses to be recited, frame not those their admirable poems from the rules of art; but possessed by the Muse, they write from divine inspiration. Nor is it otherwise with the best lyric poets, and all other fine writers of verses to be sung. For as the priests of Cybele perform not their dances while they have the free use of their intellect; so these melody poets pen those beautiful songs of theirs only when they are out of their sober minds."
-FJ
Are some Americans projecting a collective hatred of themselves and what they've become onto the government?
I don't think so. I suspect that exactly the OPPOSITE is the case. Their Ego's are SO Inflated, and they are SO full of an inflated self-love (amour prope) for themselves, that they desire to eliminate ALL repressive forces out of a "Youthful" and "Naive" natural rebelliosness which they are never forced to grow out of. As Plato said in his "Republic"...
"The last extreme of popular liberty is when the slave bought with money, whether male or female, is just as free as his or her purchaser; nor must I forget to tell of the liberty and equality of the two sexes in relation to each other.
Why not, as Aeschylus says, utter the word which rises to our lips?
That is what I am doing, I replied; and I must add that no one who does not know would believe, how much greater is the liberty which the animals who are under the dominion of man have in a democracy than in any other State: for truly, the she-dogs, as the proverb says, are as good as their she-mistresses, and the horses and asses have a way of marching along with all the rights and dignities of freemen; and they will run at any body who comes in their way if he does not leave the road clear for them: and all things are just ready to burst with liberty.
When I take a country walk, he said, I often experience what you describe. You and I have dreamed the same thing.
And above all, I said, and as the result of all, see how sensitive the citizens become; they chafe impatiently at the least touch of authority, and at length, as you know, they cease to care even for the laws, written or unwritten; they will have no one over them.
Yes, he said, I know it too well.
Such, my friend, I said, is the fair and glorious beginning out of which springs tyranny.
Glorious indeed, he said."
---
In other words, they've got nothing but youthful activist silver and other-opinionated dross guiding their souls. They have literaly become Java-nese Marionettes.
-FJ
Big Bubba
Do you and Neptune have that list of subjects the Duck is ignorant of. I remember it was in the 20 area and climbing.
I feel sorry for anyone, like the Duck, who fails to appreciate the joys of a chicken fried steak.
We have been having a rib attack here in Big Bubba's Big Backyard this week, pork and beef. For labor day we smoked a brisket, several racks of pig ribs, a rack of beef ribs and Kiolbassa sausage. Last night we did the beef rib thing again. The meat was all prepared on my Silver Smoker to perfection.
Orientals have no qualms about eating carp. It certainly is no better or worse than the mighty cat fish when it comes to eating habits. I have had some very tasty carp prepared by Koreans.
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