Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions.
All of morality’s laws – poorly understood and applied – are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.
Do not permit any shadowy virtue to hold you back. Do not believe that any obligation binds you. Your duty is to give in, to always give in to Desires, these most perfect creatures of the perfect gods. Your duty is to enlist as a faithful footman, with simplicity of heart, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.
Do not confine yourself at home, misleading yourself with theories of justice, with the preconceptions of reward, held by an imperfect society. Do not say, Such is my toil’s worth and such is my due to savor. Just as life is an inheritance, and you did nothing to earn it as a recompense, so should Sensual Pleasure be. Do not shut yourself at home; but keep the windows open, open wide, so as to hear the first sound of the passing of the soldiers, when the Regiment of the Senses arrives, with music, and with banners.
Do not be deceived by the blasphemers who tell you that the service is dangerous and laborious. The service of sensual pleasure is a constant joy. It does exhaust you, but it exhausts you with inebriations sublime. And finally, when you collapse in the street, even then your fortune is enviable. When your funeral will pass by, the Forms to which your desires gave shape will shower lilacs and white roses upon your coffin, young Olympian Gods will bear you on their shoulders, and you will be buried in the Cemetery of the Ideal, where the mausoleums of poetry gleam conspicuously white.
~~ C.P Cavafy
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
In the same vein as Frank....
Michael Parenti writes this article: Capitalism’s Self-inflicted Apocalypse
To give you a taste, he concludes with these words,
"In sum, free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen. Its essence is the transformation of living nature into mountains of commodities and commodities into heaps of dead capital. When left entirely to its own devices, capitalism foists its diseconomies and toxicity upon the general public and upon the natural environment--and eventually begins to devour itself.
The immense inequality in economic power that exists in our capitalist society translates into a formidable inequality of political power, which makes it all the more difficult to impose democratic regulations.
If the paladins of Corporate America want to know what really threatens “our way of life,” it is their way of life, their boundless way of pilfering their own system, destroying the very foundation on which they stand, the very community on which they so lavishly feed"
http://www.michaelparenti.org/capitalism%20apocalypse.html
To give you a taste, he concludes with these words,
"In sum, free-market corporate capitalism is by its nature a disaster waiting to happen. Its essence is the transformation of living nature into mountains of commodities and commodities into heaps of dead capital. When left entirely to its own devices, capitalism foists its diseconomies and toxicity upon the general public and upon the natural environment--and eventually begins to devour itself.
The immense inequality in economic power that exists in our capitalist society translates into a formidable inequality of political power, which makes it all the more difficult to impose democratic regulations.
If the paladins of Corporate America want to know what really threatens “our way of life,” it is their way of life, their boundless way of pilfering their own system, destroying the very foundation on which they stand, the very community on which they so lavishly feed"
http://www.michaelparenti.org/capitalism%20apocalypse.html
Friday, March 6, 2009
Arianna Huffington
Reporting on the economy Arianna Huffington writes today,
"1.1 million people received food stamps in November, an increase of 13 percent from a year earlier.
In Arizona, there's been a 100-percent increase in the number of people seeking social services from the state.
In Contra Costa, California, 40,000 families applied for 350 available affordable-housing vouchers.
In San Francisco, food banks report a 30-percent rise in demand for emergency food assistance. In Lehigh Acres, Florida demand is up 75 percent.
If, as it now seems likely, unemployment hits 9 percent, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the number of Americans driven into poverty will rise by 7 to 10 million -- on top of the 37.3 million currently living below the poverty line (and while that number is the latest from the Census Bureau, it's from 2007, before the worst of the downturn).
Making matters worse -- much worse -- is the fact that the growing need is being met by a decrease in government programs and charitable services.
18 states cut their welfare rolls last year.
The number of families receiving government financial assistance is at a 40-year low.
In South Carolina, low-income women under 40 with breast or cervical cancer have had their treatment cut.
In Nevada, the state's largest public hospital has stopped providing outpatient oncology services.
In Arizona, programs to prevent child abuse and lower the number of children in foster care were slashed.
In Florida, home services for poor seniors are on the budget chopping block.
In Utah, 20,000 poor people face being removed from the state's primary care health network."
I don't think it's even necessary to comment, the stats say it all. But I will say, perhaps redundantly, that our government has committed a crime against us. Their policies have benefited the rich and powerful, meanwhile they work like robber barons against the poor. Every safety net has been stripped. It's sad---
see the full article at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/darkening-clouds-silver-l_b_172339.html3
"1.1 million people received food stamps in November, an increase of 13 percent from a year earlier.
In Arizona, there's been a 100-percent increase in the number of people seeking social services from the state.
In Contra Costa, California, 40,000 families applied for 350 available affordable-housing vouchers.
In San Francisco, food banks report a 30-percent rise in demand for emergency food assistance. In Lehigh Acres, Florida demand is up 75 percent.
If, as it now seems likely, unemployment hits 9 percent, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the number of Americans driven into poverty will rise by 7 to 10 million -- on top of the 37.3 million currently living below the poverty line (and while that number is the latest from the Census Bureau, it's from 2007, before the worst of the downturn).
Making matters worse -- much worse -- is the fact that the growing need is being met by a decrease in government programs and charitable services.
18 states cut their welfare rolls last year.
The number of families receiving government financial assistance is at a 40-year low.
In South Carolina, low-income women under 40 with breast or cervical cancer have had their treatment cut.
In Nevada, the state's largest public hospital has stopped providing outpatient oncology services.
In Arizona, programs to prevent child abuse and lower the number of children in foster care were slashed.
In Florida, home services for poor seniors are on the budget chopping block.
In Utah, 20,000 poor people face being removed from the state's primary care health network."
I don't think it's even necessary to comment, the stats say it all. But I will say, perhaps redundantly, that our government has committed a crime against us. Their policies have benefited the rich and powerful, meanwhile they work like robber barons against the poor. Every safety net has been stripped. It's sad---
see the full article at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/darkening-clouds-silver-l_b_172339.html3
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Superstition
Book reviewing might be subtitled "the good, the bad and the ugly"
On the other side of the spectrum from the one that Mr. Crossley-Holland has set forth (below), comes Robert L. Park's...
I have just begun it and am not reading it exclusively but at the beginning of the book he discusses the current movement among religious sects to try and unite science with religion.
In the first few pages (after revealing the mounds of money available to scientists who support and argue for intelligent design) he goes on to address the "Anthropic Principle", the principle which claims that "The fundamental parameters of the universe are such as to permit the creation of observers within it." or as he paraphrases so well... "If things were different, things would not be the way things are."
He addresses more directly a 2001 analysis of the anthropic principle "Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument: a Skeptical View" by Timothy McGrew, Lydia McGrew, and Eric Vestrup. They wrote, "The Principle of Indifference: it is unreasonable to suggest that any one range of values for the constants is more probable a priori than any other similar range." Taking the author's claim on from a slightly different angle than is generally heard, Park brilliantly responds, "If the universe is designed for life, it must be said that it is a shockingly inefficient design. There are vast reaches of the universe in which life as we know it is clearly impossible: gravitational forces would be crushing, or radiation levels are too high for complex molecules to exist, or temperatures would make the formation of stable chemical bonds impossible. Even in our own solar system it seems increasingly likely that Earth is the only outpost of life. The search for life to which we are not related-- exterrestrial life-- is perhaps the greatest quest of science, but so far it has been disappointing. Fine-tuned for life? It would make more sense to ask why God designed a universe so inhospitable to life."
On the other side of the spectrum from the one that Mr. Crossley-Holland has set forth (below), comes Robert L. Park's...
I have just begun it and am not reading it exclusively but at the beginning of the book he discusses the current movement among religious sects to try and unite science with religion.
In the first few pages (after revealing the mounds of money available to scientists who support and argue for intelligent design) he goes on to address the "Anthropic Principle", the principle which claims that "The fundamental parameters of the universe are such as to permit the creation of observers within it." or as he paraphrases so well... "If things were different, things would not be the way things are."
He addresses more directly a 2001 analysis of the anthropic principle "Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument: a Skeptical View" by Timothy McGrew, Lydia McGrew, and Eric Vestrup. They wrote, "The Principle of Indifference: it is unreasonable to suggest that any one range of values for the constants is more probable a priori than any other similar range." Taking the author's claim on from a slightly different angle than is generally heard, Park brilliantly responds, "If the universe is designed for life, it must be said that it is a shockingly inefficient design. There are vast reaches of the universe in which life as we know it is clearly impossible: gravitational forces would be crushing, or radiation levels are too high for complex molecules to exist, or temperatures would make the formation of stable chemical bonds impossible. Even in our own solar system it seems increasingly likely that Earth is the only outpost of life. The search for life to which we are not related-- exterrestrial life-- is perhaps the greatest quest of science, but so far it has been disappointing. Fine-tuned for life? It would make more sense to ask why God designed a universe so inhospitable to life."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
LinkWithin
