Berlioz wrote, "Time is a great teacher. Unfortunately, it kills all its pupils."


Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

-G.B. Shaw


A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other.


 

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. -- Helen Keller (thanks to David Hawkins)

 


If I don't know I don't know, I think I know. If I don't know I know, I think I don't know:

--R.D. Laing


To expect the world to treat you fairly because you're a good person,
is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you're a vegetarian.


Autobiography in Five Chapters Portia Nelson

1. I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I fall in.

I am lost ... I am hopeless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

 

2. I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it.

I fall in again.

I can't believe i'm in the same place.

But it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

 

3. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open
I know where I am. It is MY fault.
I get out immediately.

 

4. I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

 

5. I walk down another street.

 


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear --

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'


A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling by Mark Twain:

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet.
The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later.
Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.


The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.

-- Simone Weil


Politicians and diapers have one thing in common: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.


Time may be a great healer,
but it’s a lousy beautician.


It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.

-Ursula K. LeGuin


"Cheshire Puss," she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

"Come, it's pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where---" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

-- Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland


STANDARD DISCLAIMER: THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS PUBLICATION COULD INCLUDE TECHNICAL INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. CHANGES ARE PERIODICALLY ADDED TO THE INFORMATION HEREIN; THESE CHANGES WILL BE INCORPORATED IN NEW EDITIONS OF THE PUBLICATION. THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION MAY MAKE IMPROVEMENTS AND/OR CHANGES TO THIS PUBLICATION AT ANY TIME.


If something goes wrong, it is more important to talk about who is going to fix it, than who is to blame.

-- Francis J. Gable


We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always-

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

-- t.s. eliot


Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Because, if you do it today and like it, you can do it again tomorrow.


As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device. It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.

Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.

-- New York Times Editorial, 1920


Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 1024 x 1024 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What's the first question that the computer community asks?

"Is it PC compatible?"


Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last,

"I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said,

"Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,

"See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said,

"I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more,

"Saviour!" all the while clinging to the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.

                                                                                                                          R. Bach


"A witty saying proves nothing."

-- Voltaire


"The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"

--John Gilmore.


Never be afraid to try something new.

Remember, amateurs built the ark.

Professionals built the Titanic.

 


HEALTH: To eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like and do what you'd rather not.

--Mark Twain


In our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.

 

-- Aeschylus


Let's see: so far, we've gotten 15K from Kapor, $15K from Mandel's estate (the famed Mandelsdick Park,) 15K from the CIA, 15K from the National Security Agency, 15K from the NEA, 15K from the Trilateral Commission, 15K from the Securities and Exchange Commission, 15K that we raised by hacking the FedWire, 15K from FedEx, 15K from the FBI, 15K from Fannie Mae, 15K from Sallie Mae, 15K from Ellie Mae Clampett, 15K from Al Capp, 15K from Andy Capp, 15K that we've siphoned from Katz's account, 15K that he _knew_ he put up, 15K from Bill Gates, 15K from Paul Allen, 15K from John Sculley, 15K from Vin Scully, 15K from Barry Bonds, 15K from Gary and the US Bonds, 15K from Nancy Kerrigan, 15K from the Mitnik Defense Fund, 15K from Fidel, 15K from Gorby, 15K from OJ, 15 K from the Enquirer, 15K from the space aliens who ate my baby, 15K from the bizarre hermaphrodite tribe in the Amazon, 15K from Rupert Murdock, 15K from Abbie (who's not dead,) 15K from Patty Hearst (who's also not dead) 15K from Walt Disney (who is dead, but who thawed some frozen assets,) 15K from Steven Spielberg, 15K from ET (the show, not the character,) 15K from Rush, 15K jointly from Hitler and Elvis (both alive,) and hundreds more.


A quote from Joseph Campbell:

The purpose is to identify not with the body which is falling away, but with the consciousness of which it is a vehicle. This is something I learned from my myths. Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is the vehicle?

If you can identify with consciousness, you can watch this thing go like an old car. There goes a fender, etc. But it's expected; and then gradually the whole thing drops off and conscious- ness rejoins consciousness.

I live with these myths -- and they tell me to do this, to identify with the Christ or the Shiva in me. And that doesn't die, it resurrects. It is an essential experience of any mystical realization that you die in your flesh and are born to your spirit. You identify with the consciousness in life -- and that is the god.


Think of the Web as the ultimate file cabinet, library, jukebox, university, amusement park, database, copying machine, reference librarian, expert system, bookstore, newsstand, video store, record store, BBS, artificial intelligence, encyclopedia, post office, mail order catalog, museum, telephone answering machine, casino, intelligence system, cable TV provider, art gallery, reference work, videogame arcade, telephone directory, mall, index, knowledgebase and computer network all rolled into one and instantly at your fingertips.

-- wmcguire@world.std.com (Wayne McGuire)  ~1994 (approx.)


Sorry..had to say this. The best use of pickle juice that I heard came from our (my wife and I) childbirth classes. The teacher said that near the end of your pregnancy that you shouldn't go out much, lest your water break in public. But, she conceded, you *do* have to go shopping for food!

She continued along that line to explain that the proper way to go shopping when you are near term is to head straight for the pickle jars and put one in your basket straight away. If your water should break while you are in the market, immediately drop your pickle jar on the floor and announce "Ooops! I've dropped my pickles and it's splashed all over me!"

Then rush out and take care of matters as you should.


The Wright Brothers weren't the first to fly. They were just the first not to crash.


Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Dirge Without Music"


Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

-- Susan Ertz


Here's the mission statement proposed to the members of the Union pour l'Action morale, in April 1894. Pass it along fwiw and for whatever millenial parallels there may be between fin de siecle socities like the Union and the River:

We forbid ourselves all seeking after popularity, all ambition to appear important. We pledge ourselves to abstain from falsehood, in all its degrees. We promise not to create or encourage illusions as to what is possible, by what we say or write. We promise to one another active sincerity, which strives to see truth clearly, and which never fears to declare what it sees. We promise deliberate resistance to the tidal waves of fashion, to the booms and panics of the public mind, to all the forms of weakness and of fear. We forbid ourselves the use of sarcasm. [Yikes!] Of serious things we will speak seriously and unsmilingly, without banter and without the appearance of banter;--and even so of all things, for there are serious ways of being light of heart. We will put ourselves forward always for what we are, simply and without false humility, as well as without pedantry, affectation, or pride."


The Quack Frog

A FROG once upon a time came forth from his home in the marsh and proclaimed to all the beasts that he was a learned physician, skilled in the use of drugs and able to heal all diseases.

A Fox asked him, "How can you pretend to prescribe for others, when you are unable to heal your own lame gait and wrinkled skin?'


You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.


Remember the old klingon saying "only a fool fights in a burning building."


 

Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.

 


If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing.

--a saying from Zimbabwe


"In a fight between you and the world, bet on the world."

--Franz Kafka


"Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.".....Ogden Nash


Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

n      Indian proverb

n       


 

Ø    Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

 


 

"Writing is like prostitution: first you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, then you do it for money."

-- Moliere (thanks to fsquared@well.com)


The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
But those that will not break it kills.
It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.
If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

-- A Farewell to Arms [1929] ch. 34


" Everyone gets a cramp, physical or mental, when playing roles. Cramps of the soul, cramps of the body, arthritis of the emotions."

--The Diary of Anais Nin, November, 1934


  • I will choose what enters me, what becomes flesh of my flesh.
  • Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives.
  • I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory.
  • Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind.
  • This is my body. If I give it to you I want it back.
  • My life is a non-negotiable demand.

-- Marge Piercy


Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.

-- James F. Byrnes


You can't think your way into a new way of living:
you live your way into a new way of thinking.


Again, Again!

Again, again, even if we know the countryside of love,
and the tiny churchyard with its names mourning,
and the chasm, more and more silent, terrifying, into which the others
dropped: we walk out together anyway
beneath the ancient trees, we lie down again,
again, among the flowers, and face the sky.

-- from _Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke_, translated by Robert Bly


"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun."

-- Jeff Berner


On your deathbed, it is highly unlikely you will regret not spending more time at the office. . .


"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."

-- Cicero


The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-- George Bernard Shaw


 Even if you are on the right track,

you'll get run over if you just sit there.


Ten of Thomas Moore's recommendations for caring for your soul -

  • Nourish and educate your imagination.
  • Respond to what asks to be dealt with.
  • Listen to your heart.
  • Learn to live with complexity.
  • Live an individual life.
  • Choose work that suits the soul, as well as the budget.
  • Be of service to others.
  • Learn that the soul speaks through simple things.
  • Know your own mythology.
  • Be exposed to spirituality in a soulful way.

Compiled by Caren Goldman Yoga Journal May/June 1993


My favorite toast is:

-- Here's champagne to my real friends, and real pain to my sham friends.

-- May they live as long as they want to, and want to as long as they live.


"The way I keep stating it is: 'Information wants to be free,' because it's so easy to transmit; 'information wants to be expensive,' because it's so valuable."

--Stewart Brand, Whole Earth Review, Winter '86


WEIRDNUZ.345 (News of the Weird, September 16, 1994) by Chuck Shepherd Lead Story *

Desmond Morris's latest documentary, "The Human Animal: The Biology of Love," now on TV in England, will appear on U. S. cable TV in January and picture a human orgasm--from inside the vagina.

A tiny camera, similar to those used for diagnosis of the colon, was placed inside Wendy Duffield, 31, and another was strapped onto her husband's penis.

The couple reportedly had sex about 60 times to assure sufficient footage.

--[Chicago Tribune-Reuters, 8-18-94]


If people who eat vegetables are called vegetarians, then shouldn't cannibals be called humanitarians?


A doctor can always bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines. -Frank Lloyd Wright


What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.


The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth,
The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.

--Emily Dickinson


POEM FOR THE LIVING

When I am dead

Cry for me a little

Think of me sometimes

But not too much.

It is not good for you

Or your wife or your husband

Or your children

To allow your thoughts to dwell

Too long on the dead

Think of me now and again

As I Was in life

At some moment it is pleasant to recall

But not for long. Leave me in peace

As I shall leave you, too, in peace.

While you live

Let your thoughts be with the living.

--Theodora Kroeber


"Digital is like pornography; analog is like actual sex"

-- Herb Belkin, sound expert, quoted in the San Jose Mercury News


Experience is the comb that Nature gives us after we are bald

--belgian proverb


When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting.
When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished.
I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights,
and lock the universe behind me when I leave.

-- Death


G.K. Chesterton on suicide:

"Not only is suicide a sin, it is *the* sin.
It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life.
The man who kills a man, kills a man. As far as he is concerned, he values life, but he simply values his own life, as he sees it, more than his victim's life.
But the man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. . .
When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall of in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. . . .
There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes -- for it makes even crimes impossible."


The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far ahead the road has gone
And I must follow if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say...


Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.


Mekka Lekka Hi, Mekka Hiney Ho


I'm going to Iowa for an award.
Then I'm appearing at Carnegie Hall, it's sold out.
Then I'm sailing to France to be honored by the French government
-- I'd give it all up for one erection.

-- Groucho Marx


I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worthwhile.

--GEORGE BERNARD SHAW


Health is a precious thing, and the only one. in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.

--MONTAIGNE


The diseases which destroy a man are no less natural than the instincts which preserve him.

--GEORGE SANTAYANA


One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is the assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.

-JEAN KERR


When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

--TERENCE


There is a certain state of health that does not allow us to understand everything;
and perhaps illness shuts us off from certain truths;
but health shuts us off just as effectively from others.

--ANDRE GIDE


Disease makes men more physical; it leaves them with nothing but body - THOMAS MANN


We forget ourselves and our destinies in health; and the chief use of temporary sickness is to remind us of these concerns

--RALPH WALDO EMERSON


Sickness comes on horseback and departs on foot

--DUTCH PROVERB


How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to himself! Supreme selfishness is inculcated upon him as his only duty

--CHARLES LAMB


Keep a watch also upon the faults of the patients which also make them lie about the taking of things prescribed.

--H1PPOCRATES


I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.

--SAMUEL BUTLER


We are all prisoners of cell biology

-H B PEARL


Geriatric Logic:

Take one good breath while still in bed
One cautious stretch from toe to head
If nothing hurts "I must be dead!"

--HOSPITAL RHYME


Only the shallow know themselves.

-- Oscar Wilde


In a community regulated by laws of demand and supply, but protected from open violence, the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, industrious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant.

The persons who remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise, the idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person.


Whereas it has been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.


Life without industry is guilt; industry without art is brutality.


Change From Ugly Language To Change Your Ugly Life? . . .

"Junkies" is an unsuitable term for intravenously challenged persons, who should be referred to as "the epidermally accessible" so as not to degrade their lifestyle. In addition, I do not like the word "dope" for the pharmaceutically liberated substances in question because it both devalues the laboratory technicians who create it and insults the intellectually original persons whose derogatory name it perpetuates. Addictive drugs of this sort should be called "non-prescription chemicals of long-term commitment potential."

--Doktor Kultur responding to a letter charging that "Junkie" is a degrading term used to describe people who sell their babies for drugs as well as injecting themselves in the spaces between their toes because they run out of room in their arms.


If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse.


"UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It's not."

-- Dr. Seuss


The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.


Keep away from sharp swords,
Don't go near a lovely woman.
A sharp sword too close will wound your hand,
Woman's beauty too close will wound your life.
The danger of the road is not in the distance,
Ten yards is far enough to break a wheel.
The peril of love is not in loving too often,
A single evening can leave its wound in the soul.

--Meng Chiao


Hindsight is an exact science.


Reminds me of the therapist who said,

"Most people act as though they're hanging by their fingernails on the face of high cliff.
What they don't realize is that they're about six inches off the valley floor."


Part of the reason confident men tend to get what they want is that they're not afraid to ask for it, even if they risk being turned down.


Witzelsucht: A morbid tendency to pun, make poor jokes, and tell pointless stories, while being oneself inordinately entertained thereby.

--Stedman's Medical Dictionary.


Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best.

-- Woody Allen


HEALTH: The thing that makes you feel that now is the best time of the year.

--Franklin P. Adams


The beginning of health is to know the disease.

--Miguel de Cervantes


What are you thinking about? What are you doing? How are you living your life?

-- Yohji Yamamoto


Black holes are where God is dividing by zero...


39: 20 of 74: thanks for the pseud (flash) Sun, Jul 25, 1993 (22:49) 4 lines

what *is* a haiku?

i can't tell one from bad verse.

how do you make them?

39: 71 of 74: thanks for the pseud (flash) Fri, Oct 22, 1993 ( 14:21) 7 lines

is that a haiku?

i never could get the hang

of writing those things.

 

%^)


 

I think the best put-down line was one I saw in a movie ages ago...can't remember the film.
But this woman sizes up the guy who just made the pass she's not interested in and she says:
"If I had in mind what you have in mind I wouldn't have you in mind."

 


Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff.

-- Peter de Vries


The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

-- Emerson


 

There's little in taking or giving,

There's little in water or wine:

This living, this living, this living,

Was never a project of mine.

Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is

The gain of the one at the top,

For art is a form of catharsis,

And love is a permanent flop,

And work is the province of cattle,

And rest's for a clam in a shell,

So I'm thinking of throwing the battle

-- Would you kindly direct me to hell?

-- Dorothy Parker


"You know how stupid the average person seems to be?
Well, just keep in mind that by definition, 50% of the people are even dumber than that."


If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all.

- Rodney Dangerfield


The good thing about masturbation is you don't have to dress up for it.

- Truman Capote


Sex is one of the nine reasons for re-incarnation ... ... the other eight aren't important.

- Henry Miller


Sex is like a game of bridge: You need either a great partner or a good hand.


THE POPE'S PENIS

It hangs deep in his robes,
a delicate clapper at the center of a bell.
It moves when he moves,
a ghostly fish in a halo of silver seaweed,
the hair swaying in the dark and the heat
--and at night,
while his eyes sleep,
it stands up in praise of God.

--Sharon Olds _The Gold Cell_, Knopf, 1987)


Remember when you were a kid and the boys didn't like the girls? Only sissies liked girls?
What I'm trying to tell you is that nothing's changed.
You think boys grow out of not liking girls, but we don't grow out of it.
We just grow horny.
That's the problem.
We mix up liking pussy for liking girls.
Believe me, one couldn't have less to do with the other.

-- Jules Feiffer


What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere.
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

-- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"


:w
:q
:wq
:wq

!^d
X
exit
X Q
:quitbye
CtrlAltDel
~q
:~q
logout
save/quit
:!QUIT
^[
zz
ZZ
ZZZZ
^H
^@
^L
^E
^X
^I
^T
? help
helpquit
^D
^d
^C
^c
helpexit
?Quit
?q
?x
ZZ
bye

I think I've got the hang of it now .... 

--Ed Wright


Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on.


EXPRESSIONS FOR STUPIDITY

"Body by Fisher -- brains by Mattel."
$HOME = /dev/null.
A 10K brain attached to a 9600 baud mouth.
A bun short of a dozen.
A couple of open splices.
A couple of revisions behind.
A couple of volts below threshold.
A couple sandwiches short of a picnic.
A few beers short of a six-pack.
A few bits short of a byte.
A few bombs short of a full load.
A few bricks shy of a load.
A few clowns short of a circus.
A few french fries short of a Happy Meal.
A few peas short of a casserole.
A few pickles short of a jar.
A few planes short of an Air Force.
A few tiles short of a successful re-entry.
A few yards short of the hole.
A fool's fool.


"Now is the time for all good men to come to."

-- Walt Kelly


Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery:

Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer.


Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.


This week's issue of the National Enquirer has the winners of their "favorite prayer" contest.

The one that sticks in my mind is,
"Dear God, help me become the kind of person my dog thinks I am."


They also surf who only stand on waves.


To err is human, to forgive divine.

Unless they're in a Volvo, using a car phone, wearing a baseball cap backwards, reversing on the M4 or delivering pizzas.

In which case they can rot in hell.

--from a british motorcyclists mailing list.


When the sea was calm

All ships alike

Showed mastership in floating

--William Shakespeare


Troubleshooting Rule #1: Check the cables.

Troubleshooting Rule #2: Change one thing at a time.

Troubleshooting Rule #3: Assume nothing.

--Steven Mansee

Troubleshooting Rule #4: It probably still won't work anyway.

--Josh Gordon

Troubleshooting Rule #5: beware of Tuttlefields. Tuttle's Law (a corollary to Murphy's) states that for every piece of machinery that suddenly and for no reason ceases to function, another irretrievable broken unit within an area of unknown circumference, known as a tuttlefield, will just as suddenly and inexplicably begin to work again.

Assume that this will happen.

--Scott Alan Spanbauer


Az men velt nit alt vern, zol men zikh yungerheit oyfhangen.

If you don't want to grow old, better hang yourself while you're still young.


I have revised some folk wisdom lately; one of my edited proverbs is "Nothing fails like success," because you do not learn anything from it.
The only thing we ever learn from is failure. Success only confirms our superstitions.
For some strange reason which I do not understand at all a small subculture arose in Western Europe which legitimated failure.
Science is the only subculture in which failure is legitimate.

--Kenneth Boulding, 1970


not tonite, dear. i have a modem.

--flash gordon md


"If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket
would be elected swineherd every time,
no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side."

-- Orson Scott Card                                                                        


Colvard's Logical Premises: All probabilities are 50%. Either a thing will happen or it won't.

Colvard's Unconscionable Commentary: This is especially true when dealing with someone you're attracted to.

 

Grelb's Commentary: Likelihoods, however, are 90% against you.

 


Fifth Law of Procrastination:

Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.


"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." - attributed to Mark Twain


Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

-- E. B. White


People love chopping wood. In this activity one immediately sees results.

--Albert Einstein


Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

-- George Bernard Shaw


In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


Let us live!!!

Let us love!!!

Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!!

 

You first.


Two zen monks were walking over a bridge, when the older one looks over the edge into the water.

"Ahh," says he, "look at those fish. How happy it is to be a fish!"

"How can you say that," says the younger.

"You are not that fish, and cannot know what it is like to be that fish!"

"How can *you* say that," replies the elder,

"You are not me, and cannot know what it is like to be me."

--from *Zen Flesh, Zen Bones*


Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's awfully hard to get it back in.


Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters.


"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."

--Bob Seger


Two wrongs do not make a right -- but they do make a point. . . --shauna farr-jones


·         Honesty becomes national policy

·         The dollar gets stronger

·         Knees get weaker

·         Love conquers all

·         Headway is made

·         The hatchet is buried

·         Pleasure overthrows business

·         Johnny comes back

·         We become color blind

·         The winds are good

·         Stocks rise

·         Defenses are dropped

·         Roads are rebuilt

·         Bridges are crossed

·         Recycling becomes second nature

·         There is a chicken in every pot

·         What comes around goes around

·         One month summer vacation is mandated

·         An agreement is reached

·         Inner beauty wins a contest

·         A cure for all ills is discovered

·         Losses are recovered

·         The meek shall inherit the earth

·         Good triumphs over all

·         To a new year

--{Moet & Chandon - 250 anniversaire}


All the knowledge in the world is not wisdom.

--Albert Einstein


From the Univ of Wisconsin Microelectronics bulletin, Prof. F Cerrina as the author:

"After the Microlithography '92 conference in Japan, we toured some of the leading electronics laboratories. Our visit to Hitachi's Central Research Lab included an amusing demonstration of the resolution of current lithography. On a four-inch wafer, they printed a map of the world that included the streets of London down to the smallest alleys. It's now possible to put a fully detailed map of the world on a six-inch wafer."

Food for thought...

Submitted by Gary Delp


"Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware; those program instructions that you can only curse at are called software."

From "Levitating Trains and Kamikaze Genes: Technological Literacy for the 1990's" describing the difference between computer hardware and software:


1. A logician saves the life of a space alien and is rewarded with an offer to answer any question.

After a thought he asks:

"What is the best question to ask and the correct answer to it? "

After a brief panic the alien consults her computer and says:

"The best question to ask is the one you just did and the correct answer to it is the one I gave."

2. In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.

3. Profound Truth differs from simple truth in that the negation of a simple truth is a simple falsehood, while the negation of a Profound Truth may be another Profound Truth. E.g. a button with "Life is just as simple as it seems" on one side and "Life is not as simple as it seems" on the other.

Heard at 1992 Europ. Summer Meeting of Assn. of Symb. Logic. Author unknown.


the four great lies of computing

Ø      the project is on schedule

Ø      i just fixed the last bug

Ø      i only changed one little thing

Ø      this will take just a minute


There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy ...

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


(The Rocky Horror Picture Show [RHPS] - Questions)

Have you:

seen Rocky Horror Picture Show (video or wherever)?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show in the theatre?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show more than 69 times in the theatre?
more than 100 times?
more than 500 times?
more than 1000 times?
more than 1500 times?
are you Sal Piro?
joined the national Rocky Horror Picture Show fan club?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show with a live cast?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show while drunk or stoned?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show while on acid?
seen Rocky Horror Picture Show while on any other drug?
seen The Rocky Horror Show (the musical play)?
dressed in costume for an RHPS?
do you know the entire movie by heart (lyrics and dialogue without any soundtracks playing. Basically, could you recite the movie right now for us?)?
done the Time Warp in the nude?
done the Time Warp in the nude in mixed company?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show production?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show as a character of the opposite sex?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show as more than one character in one show?
while you were participating, had "prop failure" (costume falling off revealing more than intended)?
caused someone else to have prop failure?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show production while stoned or drunk?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show production while on acid?
participated in an Rocky Horror Picture Show production while on any other drug?
during an RHPS, necked/petted?
during an RHPS, had oral sex?
during an RHPS, fucked (that's what the back row is for)?
been kicked out of an RHPS?
been a member of an Rocky Horror Picture Show cast?
Have you performed, for an entire show, the part of:
Frank-N-Furter (a scientist)?
Janet Weiss (a heroine)?
Brad Majors (a hero)
Riff Raff (a handyman)?
Magenta (a domestic)?
Columbia (a groupie)?
Dr. Everett V. Scott (a rival scientist)?
Rocky Horror (a creation)?
Eddie (ex delivery boy)?
The Criminologist (an expert)?
A Transylvanian (a transylvanian)?


Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

--T.S. Eliot


Slick's Three Laws of the Universe:

1.      Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check.

2.      A quarter-ounce of chocolate = four pounds of fat.

3.      There are two types of dirt: the dark kind, which is attracted to light objects, and the light kind, which is attracted to dark objects.


"Mars is essentially in the same orbit...somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, that means we can breathe."

-Vice President Dan Quayle


"A woman was awarded $18,000 by a Minot, North Dakota, court for injuries suffered when a bull at an indoor rodeo threw its rider, jumped three 5.5-foot-high restraining fences, stampeded down a hall, burst into the ladies' room, and pinned her against a wall"

Scandal Annual 1990


Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way.

- fortune cookie


As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs.

-- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

-- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953


George Herbert Walker Bush ==> Huge Berserk Rebel Warthog


I have twelve gerbils that I have shaved naked. They are taped to a brick wall with strips of duct tape. I have a large wooden mallet. Every time I find my mailbox empty, another gerbil leaves the three-dimensional universe. Either somebody writes me, or these gerbils are TERRAZZO.


Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock.


One of the questions that comes up all the time is: How enthusiastic is our support for UNIX? Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s. It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming. With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.

-- Ken Olsen, President of DEC, 1984


Political Poetry from Roger Simons colum in the Baltimore Sun October 28, 1992

Bill Clinton's excuses run hollow.
With logic that's quite hard to follow.
When asked about beer,
He said with a leer,
"I tasted, but I didn't swallow."

A tycoon made us swoon in the spring
Not a pol! Just clear answers he'd bring.
Though once in absentia,
He's back with dementia!
Thinks we're calling for him to be king!

There's been trouble ever since he began.
Iran-contra... S&Ls ... and there's Dan!
But the biggest non-winner
Was when George left his dinner
On the prime minister of Japan

 


 

If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same?

 


 

The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.

-- Woody Allen


If ease of use was the only criterion, we'd all be riding tricycles.

--Doug Engelbart


A new koan:

If you have some ice cream, I will give it to you.
If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you.
It is an ice cream koan.


Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while.


WELL Hexagram 48 CHING Componant trigrams:

Below: SUN, wind, wood, bland, mild.

Above: K'AN, water. a pit.

TEXT A Well. A city may be moved, but not a well.

A well suffers from no decrease and no increase;

but often, when the people come to draw water there,

the rope is too short or the pitcher gets broken

before reaching the water - misfortune!

COMMENTARY ON THE TEXT Where (the pitchers are put) into the water to draw it up -- such is a well. That a well gives the nourishment without suffering depletion and that a city may be moved, but not a well, are both implied by the firm line in the centre (of the upper trigram). The rope's being too short indicates failure to achieve results; the breaking of the pitcher presages a positive misfortune.

SYMBOL This hexagram symbolizes water over wood. The Superior Man encourages the people with advice and assistance.


THE NEW RULES

  • If you want it, ask for it.
  • If you don't want it, say so politely.
  • If you can't have it, cope gracefully without it.
  • If you like it, say so.
  • If you don't like it, say so.
  • Be as honest and open as you possibly can.
  • It's okay to be happy.
  • Share your toys.

Join when you're ready to leave the OLD rules behind.

--Produced by |++ Enterprises.


"When a punishment [is followed by the desired result] that sequence of events is very reinforcing for the punisher. The punisher then tends to sally forth confidently to punish again.

It always surprises me to witness the great faith that arises, in some individuals, in the effectiveness of punishment....

Their own punishing behavior may be maintained by a meager handful of successes in a morass of not-so-good results and can persist ..."

-- Karen Pryor, dolphin trainer


I wouldn't miss this one for the plague.


Famous last words:

1.   Don't unplug it, it will just take a moment to fix.
2.   Let's take the shortcut, he can't see us from there.
3.   What happens if you touch these two wires tog--
4.   We won't need reservations.
5.   It's always sunny there this time of the year.
6.   Don't worry, it's not loaded.
7.   They'd never (be stupid enough to) make him a manager .


I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere.


Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand.


"When choosing a path in life, you have an infinite number of options.
The key is to reduce this to a finite number to choose from.
This step is more important than the actual step of choosing."


From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts.

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne


Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

-- W. Somerset Maugham


Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt.


For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.

-- R. Clopton


Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done.


Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

-- Olivier


"Why was I born with such contemporaries?"

-- Oscar Wilde


The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

-- Abbie Hoffman


Leibowitz's Rule:

When hammering a nail, you will never hit your finger if you hold the hammer with both hands.


Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

-- Kipling


A limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
      But the good ones I've seen
      So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.


Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis.


Hall's Laws of Politics:

1)   The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
2)   Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed.
3)   Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts).


Cold, adj.:

When the politicians walk around with their hands in their own pockets.


Electrocution, n.:

Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements.


The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion.
Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.

-- T. Lehrer


You are wise, witty, and wonderful, but you spend too much time reading this sort of trash.


Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


 

Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions.


One Page Principle: A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11 inch paper cannot be understood.

-- Mark Ardis


When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly.


Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.

-- Winston Churchill


When Marriage is Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Inlaws.


Afternoon, n.:

That part of the day we spend worrying about how we wasted the morning.


Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes.


FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the ....


It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.


Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking

-- H. L. Mencken


It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.


Faith, n: That quality which enables us to believe what we know to be untrue.


Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules:

The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.


Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.


Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"


Laws of Serendipity:

1. In order to discover anything, you must be looking for something.
2. If you wish to make an improved product, you must already be engaged in making an inferior one.


The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop and take a rest.


Velilind's Laws of Experimentation:

1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once.
2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.


Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe.
For example, there are no solids in the universe.
There's not even a suggestion of a solid.
There are no absolute continuums.
There are no surfaces.
There are no straight lines.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller


Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward.


Justice is incidental to law and order.

-- J. Edgar Hoover


Crime does not pay ... as well as politics.

-- A. E. Newman


How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None: "We'll fix it in software."

How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None: "We'll document it in the manual."

How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb?
None: "The user can work it out."


Cloning is the sincerest form of flattery.


Vitamin C deficiency is apauling


better !pout

better !cry

better watchout

lpr why

santa claus town

cat /etc/passwd >list

ncheck list

ncheck list

cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist

cat list | grep nice >giftlist

santa claus town

who | grep sleeping

who | grep awake

who | egrep 'bad|good'

for (goodness sake)

{be good }


I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one.

-- James Gordon Bennett


If God had wanted you to go around nude, He would have given you bigger hands.


Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

-- Aristotle


The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.

-- Oscar Wilde


"His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice"

-- Foghorn Leghorn


It is misery enough to have once been happy.


Ogden's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.


PALINDROME:

A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, hero's rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a cat, a mane, paper, a Toyota, rep, a pen, a mat, a can, a tag, a banana bag again, or: a camel, a crepe, pins, spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal, Panama!


It is popularly supposed that between those who use the word "God" and those who do not there is some great gulf.
But the gulf lies elsewhere.
It lies between those who dogmatize, either positively or negatively, and those who recognize in great humility that something within them bears witness to realities which may be momentous in our lives, but which lie beyond the grasping net of our categories of thought.


The Earth is our Mother. Our nine months are up.

--Harry Spencer


Suzuki Roshi once said: "I was unhappy before I was enlightened, and now that I'm enlightened I'm still unhappy. Enlightenment doesn't have anything to do with being happy or being unhappy...."


To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target.


"There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth:

                  (1)not going all the way; and
                  (2) not starting."

-- the Buddha


"He who dies with the most toys, is, nonetheless, still dead."


"Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield."

--Grim


"I called up my inner resources. I got their machine."

--Jon Carrol


There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

-- Bertrand Russell


There were in this country two very large monopolies.
The larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double-digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard.

The second was responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first communications satellite.

Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the telephone business?


Lieberman's Law:

Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens.


Farther along we'll know more about it,
Farther along we'll understand why.
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine,
We'll understand it all, by and by.


Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

-- Mark Twain


 

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at he same time, insight into and understanding of many things.

--Vincent Van Gogh


"The great end of life is not knowledge but action."

--Thomas Henry Huxley


Tom Coradeschi proposed a red button on a wall with this label:

PUSH TO TEST

which, when pressed, would change the label to read:

RELEASE TO DETONATE


Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

@@@ Alan Watts @@@


Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously?


"And the Lord God said unto Moses-- and correctly, I believe ..."

-- Field Marshal Montgomery, opening a chapel service


If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.


You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.

-- Albert Camus


The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way.

- Mark Twain -


Douglas Steere remarks very perceptively that there is a pervasive form of contempory violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs: activism and overwork.

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.

More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

-- Thomas Merton, "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander"


"If automobile technology had progressed as rapidly as computer technology, cars would get 500 miles per gallon, cost $5, and blow up once a year killing everyone in them."


Curse:

May boils bother and plague you

May corns adorn your feet

May crabs as big as manhole covers

Crawl on your balls and eat.

And when you're old and useless

And a syphillitic wreck,

May your spine drop through your asshole

And break your fucking neck.


PALINDROME A man, a plan, a caret, a ban, a myriad, a sum, a lac, a liar, a hoop, a pint, a catalpa, a gas, an oil, a bird, a yell, a vat, a caw, a pax, a wag, a tax, a nay, a ram, a cap, a yam, a gay, a tsar, a wall, a car, a luger, a ward, a bin, a woman, a vassal, a wolf, a tuna, a nit, a pall, a fret, a watt, a bay, a daub, a tan, a cab, a datum, a gall, a hat, a fag, a zap, a say, a jaw, a lay, a wet, a gallop, a tug, a trot, a trap, a tram, a torr, a caper, a top, a tonk, a toll, a ball, a fair, a sax, a minim, a tenor, a bass, a passer, a capital, a rut, an amen, a ted, a cabal, a tang, a sun, an ass, a maw, a sag, a jam, a dam, a sub, a salt, an axon, a sail, an ad, a wadi, a radian, a room, a rood, a rip, a tad, a pariah, a revel, a reel, a reed, a pool, a plug, a pin, a peek, a parabola, a dog, a pat, a cud, a nu, a fan, a pal, a rum, a nod, an eta, a lag, an eel, a batik, a mug, a mot, a nap, a maxim, a mood, a leek, a grub, a gob, a gel, a drab, a citadel, a total, a cedar, a tap, a gag, a rat, a manor, a bar, a gal, a cola, a pap, a yaw, a tab, a raj, a gab, a nag, a pagan, a bag, a jar, a bat, a way, a papa, a local, a gar, a baron, a mat, a rag, a gap, a tar, a decal, a tot, a led, a tic, a bard, a leg, a bog, a burg, a keel, a doom, a mix, a map, an atom, a gum, a kit, a baleen, a gala, a ten, a don, a mural, a pan, a faun, a ducat, a pagoda, a lob, a rap, a keep, a nip, a gulp, a loop, a deer, a leer, a lever, a hair, a pad, a tapir, a door, a moor, an aid, a raid, a wad, an alias, an ox, an atlas, a bus, a madam, a jag, a saw, a mass, an anus, a gnat, a lab, a cadet, an em, a natural, a tip, a caress, a pass, a baronet, a minimax, a sari, a fall, a ballot, a knot, a pot, a rep, a carrot, a mart, a part, a tort, a gut, a poll, a gateway, a law, a jay, a sap, a zag, a fat, a hall, a gamut, a dab, a can, a tabu, a day, a batt, a waterfall, a patina, a nut, a flow, a lass, a van, a mow, a nib, a draw, a regular, a call, a war, a stay, a gam, a yap, a cam, a ray, an ax, a tag, a wax, a paw, a cat, a valley, a drib, a lion, a saga, a plat, a catnip, a pooh, a rail, a calamus, a dairyman, a bater, a canal--Panama.


I guess the sooner we get wise
The wiser we will be
I'll be as wise as I can get
When I get wise to me

-- David Gans (c)


I realize that a man has to go through all sorts of machinations while all a reasonably attractive woman has to do is say "yes", but it doesn't make me feel any better.


  • If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you are getting.
  • What you settle for is what you end up with.
  • If you think that worrying about a problem is the same thing as solving it, then you must live in some other universe where different laws pertain.

"I saw my inner child on a milk carton."


A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry.


Sometimes it's like "Texas foreplay":

"This won't hurt, did it?"


A Cat's Prayer

Now hear this! You may live in this dwelling with me, but keep in mind your sole purpose for existing is to care for me. I pray God keeps you able to do so.

Feed me well and promptly, so that i may then find a quiet place to lie down and stare at you. If that place happens to be on top of the television set, do not keep trying to dislodge me even though my tail is hanging in the middle of the picture.

I expect full run of the premises, including the kitchen table. I sniff your food only to see if I would prefer it to mine.

Brush me twice a week. Pet me as often as you wish, but I can do without the idiotic statements you utter as you do so.

When I bump my head against your leg or cheek, it means I accept you as part of my environment.

Keep in mind that if I thought the lady next door would feed me better, I'd be out of here in a minute. If you're looking for loyalty, get a dog.


"The serious problems in life, however, are never fully solved. If they ever appear to be so it is a sure sign that something has been lost."

--Jung


Teamwork is essential -- it allows you to blame someone else.


A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"

"However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."

-- Stephen Crane


If God had intended Man to Smoke,

He would have set him on Fire.


If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane.


Language is a cracked kettle on which we tap out crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

-- Gustave Flaubert, "Madame Bovary"


If you don't change your direction, you'll get where you're headed.


"You can always spot the pioneers by the arrows in their backs."

--William Calvin


"She lacked only one thing to be perfect--a flaw!"

--Karl Kraus


"When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."

-- Winston Curchill, On formal declarations of war


"Perhaps coincidence is just God's way of remaining anonymous."

--Dr. Bernie Siegel, quoted by Joan Borysenko


For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.

-- H. L. Mencken


Through a bureaucratic error, you are made county coroner.
You seriously consider the job because it gives you:

  1. Lots of unclaimed wedding rings and watches.
  2. Lots of gold fillings and bridges.
  3. Free blood.
  4. A constantly changing array of new friends who aren't at all stuffy about what happens to their genitalia.

Madam, there's no such thing as a tough child -- if you parboil them first for seven hours, they always come out tender.

--W. C. Fields


F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm!


MEN
are slowly climbing
a tipsey ladder
with attached labels
burdening each step

men need a way
to fight
recurring fear of rejection;
of non-performance

i say,
men need a way
too to love their own sex
rather than
lifetime competition

men need
a handle for their emotions
other than their genitals

men need a way
to relearn tears,
the rain of the heart

men need a way too
to find their femaleness
so my world can be yours
and yours mine

don't feel threatened
by me
a woman ...
i'm climbing too

--Tommye Cooper


Life is a disease;
and the only difference
between one man
and another
is the stage of the disease
at which he lives.

--G.B. Shaw


well I'd like to thank my mother and my loving sweetheart and my wonderful children, my producer, my hairdresser, my astrologist, my brothers and sisters, all my relations, all sentient beings, John Lennon, T. H. Lawrence, Jasha Heifitz, Pete Townsend, George Orwell, Henry Miller, the Children of Paradise, Ken Kesey, Suzuki Roshi, Joseph Campbell, Mother Teresa, Judy Mowitt, Judith Obert, Gary Peterson, Kay Marie Wheeler, Anthony Knoop, Harpo Marx, Sviatoslav Richter, Denis Pawlik, Tom Cook, Loretta Cook, Katsi Cook, Jose Barrero, WA Mozart, Rembrandt van Rijn, Eugene Debs, Jerry Garcia, Dean Moriarty, Japhy Ryder, John Schnick, David Anderson, Roger Kent, Phyllis Pepperell, Ann Anderson, Muriel Hanley, Jeanne Madrid, Jake Ehrilch, Claude Monet, Howard Rheingold, J Baldwin, Nora Krantzler, Peter Young, Susan Stoney and Nancy Dorsey, Robin Deen, Mezz Mezzrow, Count Basie, Matt Groening, Bill Hale, Robin Williams, Tim Leary, Steve Gaskin, Buster Keaton, Bogey, Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, The Three Initiates, Dr Bronner, Janos Starker, Cliff Figallo, Jeffrey Hergenrather, Cezanne, Thomas Jefferson, Ramon Sender, the Gunafa Twins, Matthew McClure, Paul Heavens, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Jan Vermeer, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Lilian Hellman, Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, Edward Weston, Jesus, Buddah, Milarepa, Hazrat Inyat Khan, and the Tennessee Scrap Iron Man.

--John Coate


Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.


A therapist has in her office,
propped up in the bookshelves,
a postcard size line drawing
of the Buddha.
Underneath the drawing, it says:
You Must Be Present To Win


"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

--Antoine De Saint-Exupery, _The Little Prince_


"I looked up the word politics in the dictionary and it's really a combination of two words -- poly, which means many, and tic, which means blood suckers."

--Jay Leno


Rule of Creative Research: 1) Never draw what you can copy. 2) Never copy what you can trace. 3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.


"Sex is just the beginning, not the end.
But if you miss the beginning,
you will miss the end, too."


Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

                    --Edna St. Vincent Millay


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