answer

Thursday, May 19, 2011
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ANSWERS
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The only way to make progress in one’s thinking is
by constantly questioning one’s most fundamental assumptions.
It’s because most Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians
assume their belief system to be the only true one
that they feel morally justified in massacring the competition.
*
Reality has countless layers of meaning.
By carefully selecting a handful of them
one can prove anything.
*
After we die we shall have all the answers,
provided we consider the total absence of answers
also an answer.
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Friday, May 20, 2011
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NOTES AND COMMENTS
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A fatally flawed assumption:
If God knows everything, it follows,
those who speak in His name know better.
*
All men of authority lie when they pretend to know
that which is unknowable.
If believers outnumber non-believers
it's be because crooks outnumber honest men.
*
Those who disagree with us are not always wrong.
*
To be powerless is an open invitation to abuse.
*
The more ignorant the people
the more authoritarian and blind the leadership.
*
The longer I live the more truth I see in the saying:
“Once upon a time we were slaves.
We are now slaves of former slaves.”
*
Even the Turks are ahead of us
if only because they have internationally recognized dissidents
and all we have are Turcocentric ghazetajis by the dozen
who know how to break eggs
but so far have failed to serve a single decent omelet.
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Saturday, May 21, 2011
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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The Arab Spring must be a source of dread to our leaders.
It can’t be pleasant to contemplate one's own demise.
You can’t fool all the people all the time.
No banquet under heaven is endless.
*
Speaking of funerals:
My favorite funeral marches are
the slow movement of Beethoven’s Eroica,
the first movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony,
and Siegfried’s funeral in the final act of Wagner’s RING
(which was also Hitler’s favorite) besides which
the orgasmic crescendo in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
is sentimental hogwash.
*
One of the most unforgettable lines in Italian poetry
is Ungaretti’s “Ed a subito sera”
(And suddenly it’s evening)
meaning, old age and death.
*
It has been observed that
what holds us together is the Genocide.
Does that mean on the day the Genocide is recognized
the glue that holds us together will dry up?
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