Posted by at October 31, 2000 12:53 PM

Posted by at October 31, 2000 09:10 AM

Posted by at October 31, 2000 08:57 AM

Indeed.

Posted by at October 30, 2000 02:33 PM

!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by at October 30, 2000 02:27 PM

"We need to start with the awareness that our creativity will go askew," says Leonard Sweet. And here I thought Xtianity was about faith in humanity, and improving ourselves, and trying to be more than we were.

Posted by at October 30, 2000 12:37 PM

Election will test support for sovereignty: Parizeau

Five years ago today, the sovereigntists lost the referendum by little more than 50,000 votes -- bringing the political career of Mr. Parizeau, who turned 70 last August, to a sudden halt.

...

Fifty THOUSAND votes sounds like quite a lot to me.

Posted by at October 30, 2000 06:54 AM

From the A Word A Day monthly mailing:

Thought this might interest you about Newton's quotation, "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."(From "An Underground Education" by Richard Zacks, p.37)"Pundits use this quote as the ultimate expression of humility in genius, but what they miss (and almost everyone else does too) is that Newton wrote that line to a very, very, short man, a hunchbacked fellow scientist with whom he was having a bitter feud."Newton (1642-1727) was furious that Robert Hooke (1635-1703) was staking claim to many key discoveries in optics and calculus. (Hooke did in fact build the first reflecting telescope). [...]"Newton wrote a long letter to Hooke on February 5, 1675, defending himself from charges of intellectual piracy, praising Hooke for trifles, and then Newton built to the famous `standing on the shoulders of giants' line. (Newton, by the way, adapted it from a line about pygmies in a then-famous book called Anatomy of Melancholy.)"You might translate Newton's sentiments: `While I admit to building on the work of my scientific predecessors, I certainly didn't learn anything from a dwarf like you.'" 

Posted by at October 29, 2000 09:20 PM

Epitaph on a Jacobite

To my true king I offer'd free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languish'd in a foreign clime,
Gray-hair'd with sorrow in my manhood's prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill's whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fever'd sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I ask'd, an early grave.
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I spake like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

Thomas Macaulay

Posted by at October 25, 2000 05:53 PM

Posted by at October 25, 2000 07:16 AM

Posted by at October 20, 2000 04:52 PM

Posted by at October 19, 2000 08:34 PM

Winter Fete

The cascade resounds behind operetta huts. Fireworks prolong, through the
orchards and avenues near the Meander,-- the greens and reds of the
setting sun. Horace nymphs with First Empire headdresses,-- Siberian
rounds and Boucher's Chinese ladies.

Arthur Rimbaud

Posted by at October 19, 2000 08:32 PM

17 hours!

Posted by at October 18, 2000 10:13 PM

Posted by at October 17, 2000 09:56 AM

81 years ago (1919),

Forbidden by _Vanity Fair_ to discuss their pay, Robert Benchley, Robert Sherwood, and Dorothy Parker wear signs around their necks that reveal their salaries.

Literary Calendar

Posted by at October 13, 2000 09:59 PM

TheStandard.com: Carl Steadman: Click Here to Protest

Is it that Carl Steadman? Then again, how many can there be?

Posted by at October 13, 2000 12:07 AM

Posted by at October 12, 2000 11:33 PM

Posted by at October 11, 2000 09:08 PM

Posted by at October 11, 2000 03:29 PM

(I've been getting this spam 6-10 times a year since early 1998. Someday I'm going to break down and answer it.)

Posted by at October 11, 2000 03:00 PM

New York Daily News Online | News and Views | Daily Dish | Hellhound on Mother's Trail

Christopher Hitchens says Mother Teresa was "a lap dog to dictators all over the world" and other interesting things.

Posted by at October 10, 2000 09:52 AM

The Christopher Hitchens Web

I don't know how much people like this -- and bearing in mind that he's got an advanced case of whatever I have -- I don't know how much use there is. If, say, this were true -- how could we get from there to something that makes sense without an awful lot of bloodshed? Not that I'm so much opposed to bloodshed, except that I personally might get killed. And the world would be impoverished.

Posted by at October 10, 2000 08:39 AM

The pink door opened again and inside their were flashes of beauty, talking of truths, and flying darts. Beauty resides inside some place near the gut, and probably under the belly button. I will have to ask the no-longer kinky haired Jennifer the exact location next time. Yackity Yack, Don't Ask Why...

Posted by at October 10, 2000 07:33 AM

Posted by at October 07, 2000 12:48 PM

Posted by at October 06, 2000 11:23 PM

Posted by at October 06, 2000 05:46 PM

Posted by at October 06, 2000 01:56 PM

Posted by at October 06, 2000 01:47 PM

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Posted by at October 05, 2000 10:02 PM

It is now double-digit hours over fifteen years since my father's death.

"Goddamnit, I never guessed that bastard could die. So now what?"

Hate him? For sure. Never home, constantly drunk, violent, humiliating, mean, argumentative. Love him? Probably. Intelligent, creative, funny... need three more positive adjectives. Would that it were as simple as that.

Posted by at October 05, 2000 09:41 PM

Posted by at October 05, 2000 06:04 AM

Posted by at October 05, 2000 05:56 AM

From the "I was starting to feel better, but then I remembered what planet I was on" department

"Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read." -- Frank Zappa

Posted by at October 04, 2000 09:55 AM

Posted by at October 03, 2000 04:55 PM

Posted by at October 02, 2000 12:06 PM

Posted by at October 02, 2000 11:38 AM