to Constitutional Law

They have very few laws, because, with their social system, very few laws are required. Indeed, one of their great complaints against other countries is that, although they've already got books and books of laws and interpretations of laws, they never seem to have enough. For, according to the Utopians, it's quite unjust for anyone to be bound by a legal code which is too long for an ordinary person to read right through, or too difficult for him to understand.

What's more, they have no barristers to be over-ingenious about individual cases and point of law. They think it better for each man to plead his own cause, and tell the judge the same story as he'd otherwise tell his lawyer. Under such conditions, the point at issue is less likey to be obscured, and it's easier to get at the truth- for, if nobody's telling the sort of lies that one learns from lawyers, the judge can aply all his shrwedness to weighing the facts aof the case, and protecting simple-minded characters aginst the unscrupulous attacks of clever ones.

This arrangement wouldn't work very well in other countries, because there's such a mass of complicated legislation to deal with. But in Utopia everyone's a legal expert, for the simple reason that they are, as I said, very few laws, and the crudest interpretation is always assumed to be the best one. They say the only purpose of a law is to remind people what they ought to do, so the more ingenious the interpretation, the less effective the law, since proportionately fewer people will understand it- whereas the simple and obvious meaning stares everyone in the face.

Respect, respect.

Talking of respect, isn't it equally idiotic to attach such importance to a lot of empty gestures which do nobody any good? For what real pleasure can you get out of the sight of a bared head or a bent knee? Will it cure the rheumatism in you own knee, or make you any less weak in the head?

Of ourse, the great believers in this type of artificial pleasure are those who pride themselves on their 'nobility'. Nowadays that merely means tghat they happen to belong to a family which has been rich for several generations, preferably in landed property. And yet they feel every bit as 'noble' even if they've failed to inherit any of the said property, or if they have inherited it and then frittered it all away.

re: Jah?

On the other hand... it could just be the taste.

Yes, I finally sat at the other end of the car, so I could see the rest of the ad:')

Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is the application by the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, of decision theory to the belief in God.

If you care, you'll wiki it. if you don't, you'll burn:/

on History

Leonardo Bruni

First amongst such studies I place History: a subject which must not on any account be neglected by one who aspires to true cultivation. For it is our duty to understand the origins of our own history and its development; and the achievements of Peoples and of Kings.

For the careful study of the past enlarges our foresight in contemporary affairs and affords to citizens and to monarchs lessons of incitement or warning in the ordering of public policy. From History, also, we draw our store of examples of moral precepts.

In the monuments of ancient literature which have come down to us History holds a position fo great distinction. We specially prize such [Roman] authors as Livy, Sallust and Curtius*; and, prhaps even above these, Julius Caesar; teh style of wohse Commentaries, so elegant and so limpid (I love that wordddd), entitles them to our warm admiration...

*Curtius Rufus, a Roman historian and rhetorician of the mid-first century A,D., composed a biography of Alexander the Great.

on Learning and Literature

by Leonardo Bruni
a Florentine Humanist

The foundation osf all true learning must be laid in the sound and thorough knowledge of Latin, which implies study marked by a broad spirt, accurate scholarship, and careful attention to details.

To attain this essential knowledge we must never relax our carful attenion to teh grammar of the language, but perpetually confirm and extend our acquaintance with it until it is thorughly our own...to this end we must be supremely careful in our choice of authors, lest an inartistic and debased style infect our own writing and degrade our taste...

An actuary can tell you how many people will die from a certain disease in a certain amount of time. Italian actuaries can tell you which ones.

hulking behemoth

"Questions? Comment? Hysteria?"
Professor History

"... just as the curses of well-spoken persons count for more than those of the customarily foul-mouthed do."
Writer's Handbook

"You are not post modern. You need to write things in order, first things first, then second, then third, then fourth."
Professor English

Skates.

One thing about packing depressed me a little. I had to pack these brand-new ice skates my mother had practcially just sent me a couple of days before. That depressed me. I could see my mother going in Spaulding's and asking the salesman a million dopy questions- and here I was getting the ax again. It made me feel pretty sad. She bought me the wrong kind of skates- I wanted racing skates and she bought me hockey- but it made me sad anyways.

Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.

who's this GOD again?

Two little OT kids got a playful smirk from me when they realized that I noticed one was trying to keep the other from ripping leaves of the barely green bushes on Crown. The do gooder looked up at me with the hugest eyes and said, "God's looking, right?"

Listen, at this point, I just hope He is.

in Ode to a reader

by Camus
excerpt from The Plague that struck a chord:)

"...None of us was capable any longer of an exalted emotion; all had trite monotonous feelings. "It's high time it stopped," people would say, because in time of calamity the obvious thing is to desire its end. But when making such remarks, we felt none of the passionate yearning or fierce resentment of the early phase; we merely voiced one of the few clear ideas that lingered in the twilight of our minds. The furious revolt of the first weeks had given place to a vast despondency, not to be taken for resignation, though it was none the less a sort of passive and provisional acquiescence.

"Our fellow citizens had fallen into line, adapted themselves, as people say, to the situation, because there was no way of doing otherwise. Naturally they retained the attitudes of sadness and suffering, but they had ceased to feel their sting. Indeed, to some, Dr, Rieux among them, this precisely was the most disheartening thing: that the habit of despair is worse than despair itself."

-The Plague

obedience.

"[I]t is only the person dwelling in isolation who is not forced to respond with defiance or submission, to the commands of others."

-Stanley Milgram
The Milgrim Experiment

The Destruction of Tenochtitlan

"...so great was the bloodshed that rivers of blood ran through the courtyard like water in a heavy rain. So great was the slime of blood and entrails in the courtyard and so great was the stench that it was both terrifying and heartrending. Now that nearly all were fallen and dead, the Spaniards went searching for those who had climbed up the temple and thos who had hidden among the dead, killing all those they found alive..."

excerpt from an account of the brutal destruction of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan from the native perspective.
by Bernardino de Sahagun

Jah?

Maybe people like Jameson because the ads give you something to stare at on the train whn you don't know where to look.

Maybe because whiskey is the nectar of the gods. Right after wine and milk and maybe honey.

Maybe because "nextroundonme" is easier to understand than "standclearclosindoorsplease."

say wha?

When is G-d?

G-d is found at two poles of Time. He is found outside Time and beyond. And He is found here within the moment now.

From that point beyond, G-d looks within and says, "From this, I will have delight." And from that choice, all things, past and future, are made.

Here's what I want to know:





.

occupied

like octupus?

An Ode to the Unemployed:

V”dal :)

But here’s a point that requires special attention, or you’re liable to get the wrong idea. Since they (the Utopians in The Utopia book) only work a six-hour day, you may think there must be a shortage of essential goods. On the contrary, those six hours are enough, and more than enough to produce plenty of everything that’s needed for a comfortable life. And you’ll understand why it is, if you reckon up how large a proportion of the population in other countries in totally unemployed. First you have practically all the women- that gives you nearly fifty per cent for a start. And in countries where they do work, the men tend to lounge about instead (:D totally made me smile). Then there are all the priests, and members of so-called religious orders- how much work do they do? Add all the rich, especially the landowners, popularly known as nobles and gentlemen. Include their domestic staffs- I mean those gangs of armed ruffians that I mentioned before. Finally, throw in all the beggars who are perfectly hale and hearty, but pretend to be ill as an excuse for being lazy. When you’ve counted them up, you’ll be surprised to find how few people actually produce what the human race consumes.

Takeh, maybe we shouldn’t feel so bad, eh?

When you intervene, big man, and try to change our world…

No, do the best you can to make the present production a success- don’t spoil the entire play just because you happen to think of another one that you’d enjoy rather more.

The same rule applies to politics and life at Court. If you can’t completely eradicate wrong ideas, or deal with inveterate vices as effectively as you could wish, that’s no reason for turning your back on public life altogether. You wouldn’t abandon ship in a storm just because you couldn’t control the winds.

On the other hand, it’s no use attempting to put across entirely new ideas, which will obviously carry no weight with people who are prejudiced against them. You must go to work indirectly. You must handle everything as tactfully as you can, and what you can’t put right you must try to make as little wrong as possible. For things will never be perfect, until human beings are perfect- which I don’t expect them to be for quite a number of years!

-Thomas More

do you Bulleeb?

Today I learned that no matter if I'm a practicing Orthodox Grampa Jew from Crown St, or a non-practicing, full preaching Catholic home nurse from the Dominican Republic, I could still bulleeb. or b'lieve. And that in whatever language we say it, we all do want the Moshiak now.

Zitzengelenterheit

Happy Passover!