Thursday, January 25, 2007

by Oscar Wilde

an excerpt from The Ballad of Reading Gaol

I.
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

___
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Full text at:
http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/rgaol10.htm

Sunday, January 21, 2007

CARMINA 1.11

Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Vt melius quicquid erit pati!
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, uina liques et spatio breui
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit inuida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

I'd Walk a Mile for a Radman.

Need to advertise yourself? The Slogan Generator can help. You're supposed to stick with the first one you get, but I cheated and tried twice:

http://www.thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi

1st attempt:
I'd Walk a Mile for a Radman.

2nd attempt:
Promise Her Anything,
But Give Her Radman.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

MUST READ!!

The Privatization of Victory:
A corporal can destroy all that a battalion creates
by Sgt Roger D. Huffstetler, Jr.

http://www.marinecorpsgazette-digital.com/marinecorpsgazette/200701/?pg=20&pm=2&u1=friend


For those who need a teaser: "The permanence of the mission and, therefore, its accomplishment should be the basis for victory; however, limiting the number of casualties now supplants mission accomplishment as the metric for victory..."
"GEN Wesley Clark, USA(Ret) is often cited as winning the Kosovo conflict 'without a single casualty.' That phrase is meaningless..."
"Forget politics and for a moment put yourself in the place of the junior Marine. All he knows is that he has to follow orders and accomplish the mission because his mission, like the Marine Corps' mission, is permanent. His government owes him the knowledge that, even if he dies, the cause will go on because it is immutable, noble, and clear. Missions cannot remain permanent if we allow outside, shifting criteria to determine their importance, and disintermediation has played a role in doing just that."
"...the perceived information transparency has undermined the administration's effort to use a shifting rationale for war rather than a permanent one."

Monday, January 08, 2007

I'd rather meet your dog.

"A righteous man regards the life of his animal, But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." (Proverbs 12:10)
I'm a firm believer that there's something evil and twisted about a person who hates animals. I am equally convinced that the true character of pet owners is mirrored in the animal. Pets (and I'm talking DOGS here) are so often a accurate reflection of their owners that if I wanted a quick valuation of a person's character I'd rather meet his dog than the man himself.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Lessons from Deuteronomy

Deut. 24:1-4 God here commands a woman, once divorced and remarried, never to return to her first husband: "then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord..."
---God uses marriage to describe His relationship with His people. Because of our waywardness we are often described as adulterous and full of lust. But God is faithful, and as he pictured through Hosea's marriage to Gomer, His love pursues us to bring us back. Why then is it such an abomination for a man to take back his former wife? Because he sent her away. From this I learn that once the gates of heaven shut against us, we are lost. During the present age God's hand is extended toward us, calling us back to Him, healing our wounds, dispensing mercy and grace. But there will come a day when His face will darken and He shuts the door. No one can enter then, no matter how plaintive his cries.

Deut. 24:15 "Each day you shall give him his wages, and not let the sun go down on it, for he is poor and has set his heart on it..."
---From this I learn that when a Marine has a problem with pay, it is never too minor to merit my full attention.

Deut. 24:16 "Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers..."
---God is just, as each man is punished for his own sin, but this reminds me of another place where God promises to remember a righteous man by blessing his children to the thousandth generation. From this I learn that Aristotle was right to include a man's legacy in the definition of a happy life. A man cannot truly be said to have led a good life if his works die with him.

Deut. 26 This one got too long. I might post it separately at a later time

Deut. 27:5 "And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones; you shall not use an iron tool on them..."
---From this I learn that salvation is God's work, not man's. The building of this altar was for the giving of thanks and was an occasion for worship and rejoicing in the grace God had bestowed. The whole work was a holy project of God's. Neither is there any workmanship of ours in those livings stones with which God is building an eternal temple.

Hermeneutics is a touchy subject. It was not my intent in the above passages to pass absolute conclusions about the "true meanings" of the verses; rather, I hoped to discover something about who God is through what he commanded the Israelites. Several times in the Old Testament men of God stood up and asked the Israelites what other nation had such a God as the Lord, who gave such wise and just laws. It was in this spirit that I sought to uncover the wisdom of these OT passages. Just as Solomon astonished men with his wisdom, I hoped to marvel and be moved to worship as I discerned God's attributes more clearly. In beholding Him more clearly I hope that I may come to love Him more.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Fantastically Gruesome Motorcycle Accident

Remember the pics I put in here of the deer? I have ones just as messy from a motorcycle accident. Email me if you want me to send them to you (they're a little too pungent for the general public).

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Symbols of wealth and status

If you're filthy rich and want to show it, what do you own? A rolex, a BMW or Mercades, an indoor heated pool? Try a Kirby vacuum cleaner.

I just had a salesman demonstrate the product and was quite impressed. Sleek machine. Me like!

($1699)

*GASP*

He came down to $1,300. Oh wow, great, ONLY $1,300, what a deal! Maybe I'll buy two so I have a spare.