More Wisdom from Merton

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life's leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succed in producing hell on earth.

One of my '70's Soft Rock favorites has died

Dan Fogelberg succumbed to prostate cancer yesterday morning. He was 56.

Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like I've been following his career all these years. No. Actually, I just happened to see the notice on the entertainment page of The State newspaper website...on my way to read Dilbert, Arlo and Janice, and my most favorite strip of all, Zits.

Though I haven't thought of him in a long time, I felt sadness.

Fogelberg's music was biggest in the late 70's and early 80's, my late teens and early 20's...the period of the most exciting flux and greatest potential. His music was fantastic because of it's simplicity. Acoustic soft rock in the great tradition of James Taylor and Jackson Browne.

For me, he'll remain a "legacy to the leader of the band."

Power and Corruption

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
David Brin US engineer and science fiction author (1950 - )

I Wish I Had Time to Comment on This Truth Today

Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.
Thomas Szasz

A Worthy Successor to Edward R. Murrow

Amen

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed. Herman Melville

T. S. Eliot: The Hippopotomus

And when this epistle is read among you, cause that
it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans.

The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.

The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.

The ‘potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.

At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.

The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.

I saw the ‘potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.

Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.

He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.