Space Wars
posted by Zakintosh at 8/02/2006 01:05:00 AM
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
About Me
- Name: Zakintosh
- Location: Karachi, Pakistan
They laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at them because they are all the same.
recommended links
- Wanna Indulge?
- School Horror Stories
- The Second Floor
- Meanderings
- In The Line of Wire
- Cherry, we miss you
- Tarun's Baby
- Tehelka Special
-
- 3QD
- Blogging the Bible
- Beat the Blogbans
- YaGooHoogle!
- DogPile
- Literary Treasure-Chest
- Change This
- Understanding Evolution
- Centre for Science Education
- And Darkness was upon the Face of the Earth
words of wisdom
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Bertrand Russell
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.
Noam Chomsky
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein
Each century seems to take on a particular character as we view it in retrospect. How will the 20th Century be remembered? My guess is that this dramatic span of 100 years will ultimately be marked not by computers or the Internet, but by the drive toward individual freedom, the breaking of human barriers of prejudice, and the opening of society to include all people.
John S. Spong
DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Max Ehrmann
3 Comments:
I can only sum up the concept of “Sharing is Caring” by quoting verbatim from Vijay Prashad’s column – Cry Havoc, Anyone who opposes Israel is considered a Terrorist. And I quote
The illusion is well-fed, that the U. S. government is outside this current conflict and that pressure from Washington, D. C. could force the Israeli army to the barracks. The plea that we should put pressure on the White House to act is misguided. The White House is deaf to these calls; it already has a dog in this fight. The call for the U. S. government to restrain Israel relies upon at least two premises:
(1) That the U. S. government and ruling class do not share a foreign policy with the Israeli ruling establishment.
(2) That the U. S. government is capable of telling the Israelis to back off.
The second point is mooted by the first. The U. S. government is not prepared to tell Israel to back off. Indeed Bush's enthusiastic statements and the fresh shipments of U. S. armaments to Tel Aviv egg on the Israelis to prosecute this assault. Even if the U. S. government did ask Israel to slow down or shutdown the assault, history shows us that Israel will not listen. One might recall the visit by the "man of peace," Ehud Barak, to Washington, D. C. shortly after his election victory (enabled by Clinton pal James Carville). After he signed a $2.5 billion deal to get fifty F-16E bombers, Barak hit Clinton hard for being "patronizing" and reminded the U. S. never to become the "policeman, judge and arbitrator" of Israeli relations with the Arab world. It is with some irony that I recall reading Clinton's carp over the July 2000 Camp David fiasco, when he told Barak that he could no longer countenance being treated "like a wooden Indian doing your bidding."
End of quote.
And Robert Fisk has more to say on this –Israel kills 34kids in Qana
Qana, of all places. For only 10 years ago, this was the scene of another Israeli massacre, the slaughter of 106 Lebanese refugees by an Israeli artillery battery as they sheltered in a UN base in the town. More than half of those 106 were children. Israel later said it had no live-time pilotless photo-reconnaissance aircraft over the scene of that killing -- a statement that turned out to be untrue when The Independent discovered videotape showing just such an aircraft over the burning camp. It is as if Qana, whose inhabitants claim that this was the village in which Jesus turned water into wine, has been damned by the world, doomed forever to receive tragedy.
And there was no doubt of the missile which killed all those children yesterday. It came from the United States, and upon a fragment of it was written: "For use on MK-84 Guided Bomb BSU-37-B". No doubt the manufacturers can call it "combat-proven" because it destroyed the entire three-storey house in which the Shalhoub and Hashim families lived. They had taken refuge in the basement from an enormous Israeli bombardment, and that is where most of them died.
Both columns quoted from Counterpunch.
These 2 columns came to mind when I saw your new post.
- Yes, Sometimes it Can get Ridiculous!!!!!
02 August, 2006 05:50
@zakintosh: The dual-mug is LOL and thought-provokingly clever, like the title of the posting which took me a second to grasp.
@ghazala: Sad as all what you say may be, and it was sad enough to ruin the pleasure of seeing the post itself, what has this comment to do with sharing (unless you just wanted to share whatever you had in mind)? You ought to post it as a comment on on suspect paki's heart-rending post http://tinyurl.com/eq5bl
02 August, 2006 10:58
@anonymous, you're absolutely right, I did miss the point of the dual mug, and yes it was the first thing that came to mind - as in - eik hi piyalay kay chattay battay - apologies for ruining the pleasure of seeing the post itself.
03 August, 2006 06:31
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