Saturday, August 06, 2005

Flight From Logic/One By John/ & Fun Zen

(P1) Political

Loyalty Oath To Ignorance - The Flight From Logic

Responding to a column I sent to her, a dear friend of mine asked me if I really believed that Republicans were responsible for all of the world's ills. Of course, I responded with a "No," but, after reading the following from Richard Cohen's Aug. 6th column titled When Politicians Are Delirious, I decided that, while the Republicans may not be responsible for all the world's ills, their current embrace of psychotic illogic is enough to scare the bejeebers out of anyone who thinks.

Cohen discusses 3 of the more "moderate" Republicans, who since becoming presidential "contenders, " have rendered opinions that they had previously eschewed regarding the morning after pill, Terry Schiavo, and a woman's right to choose. The offenders respectively were George Pataki, Bill Frist, and Mitt Romney.

Cohen writes:

"It has now become clear that a viable Republican presidential candidate must oppose abortion, stem cell research, the morning after pill, gay marriage and, for good measure, evolution. At the very least, you have to offer a good word for intelligent design, as the president did just the other day in the single dopiest statement of his presidency.

"These are positions that defy logic - not each and every one of them, but as a totality. Taken together, they require GOP presidential candidates to take a kind of loyalty oath to ignorance, to see virtually every issue through a religious prism."




(P2) Poetical


I'm fond of this poem by my son John in his book The New Normalcy (Boog Literature: NY, 2002)

Dedication


You can’t mean
anything

To be anything

As long as you

Break something

With something else

You exist.

You buy something

To break something

And are something



(P3) Philosophical

Now Zen, Now Zen

Here are some philosophical musings...

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me, either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tyre.

3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbour's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

4. No one is listening until you break wind.

5. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

6. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.

7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

8. Before you criticise someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticise them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat & drink beer all day.

11. If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

13. If you drink, don't park; accidents cause people.

14. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

16. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

17. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side & a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

18. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your mouth is moving.

19. We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Please give me your views by pressing "Comments" Here it is COMMENTS You can sign in as either "Blogger" or "Other" should you prefer not to register. BUT please put your name somewhere in the text! My email address is edcoletti@sbcglobal.net.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gayle writes,

Eddie, this was the best ever!!! But I still say being Republican isn't the issue, just being dualistically stupid is. these issues they so fuss over are not political, they are at best personal and at worst ethical. Ethics is not a political or therefore a legal issue, but what they are is the reflection of the values of a culture. So our values suck I guess you could say. gayle PS did you write the Now Zen piece? i just loved it.

Love,
Gayle

Anonymous said...

It has come to my attention that I stepped over the line with my comment regardiong Ed's blogging NEEDS for which I apologize. It was not intentional! You might understand where it came from if you realize that the TV series Becker, about a practicing physician in the Bronx, could very well have been based on me, a former New Yorker.