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Topic: Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought (Read 1774 times) |
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
« on: 2006-04-15 16:21:45 » |
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From the depths of the Cold War but charming, and still relevant, for all that.
Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
If you thirst to know who said, “I think, therefore I
am,” your thirst I will quench;
It was Rene Descartes, only what he actually said was,
“Je pense, donc je suis,” because he was French.
He also said it in Latin, “Cogito, ergo sum,”
Just to show that he was a man of culture and not a
tennis tramp or a cracker barrel philosophy bum.
Descartes was one of the few who think, therefore they
are,
Because those who don’t think but are anyhow, out-
number them by far.
If of chaos we are on the brink
It is because so many people only think that they think.
In truth, of anything other than thinking they are fonder,
Because thought requires the time and effort to reflect,
Cogitate, contemplate, meditate, ruminate and ponder.
Their minds are exposed to events and ideas but they
have never pondered or reflected upon them
Any more than motion picture screens meditate on the
images that are projected on them.
Hence, our universal confusion,
The result of the unreasoned, or jumped at, conclusion.
People who just think that they think, they secretly think
that thinking is grim,
And they excuse themselves with signs reading THIMK,
or as Descartes would have said, PEMSEZ, and
THINK OR THWIM.
Instead of thoughts, they act on hunches and inklings,
Which are not thoughts at all, only thinklings.
Can it be because we leave to the Russians such dull
pursuits as thinking that the red star continues to
twinkle so?
I thinkle so.
Ogden Nash (From “Everyone but Thee and Me” Aldine Paperback 1962)
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Hermit
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Re:Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
« Reply #1 on: 2006-04-15 16:26:47 » |
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An old favorite of mine. Thank-you for reminding me of it.
Kind Regards
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
« Reply #2 on: 2006-04-15 18:59:40 » |
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Quote from: Hermit on 2006-04-15 16:26:47 An old favorite of mine. Thank-you for reminding me of it.
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You are very welcome. The Politburo unearthed it in a bookshop this morning has been chortling away ever since. Perhaps Hypatia will enjoy it soon? I hope she and the Hermitess are flourishing.
Here’s something with a distinct local flavour; 'Muti Media' by the Kalahari Surfers.
(The site has convenient buttons which allow two tracks to be loaded straight into your playlist.
Ping Jonathan and anyone who enjoys Trip Hop. Highly recommended.)
http://music.download.com/kalaharisurfers/3600-8835_32-100893691.html
"In the 1980's, Kalahari Surfers were not very popular with the Apartheid government; all 4 albums banned for the politically charged blend of African, punk and early tape-loop electronica, spiced with samples of SA political leaders and Soweto beat-poets. Only Warrick Sony remains of the original line-up; and after a decade of soundtrack work and collaborations with the likes of Melt2000 and Greg Hunter(The Orb), African Dope persuaded him to release a brand new Kalahari Surfers album.
...is best described as 'Future- afro'. The album takes such diverse elements as live African percussion, sitar & tabla, turntablism, Xhosa rapping, dub, digital production technology, and traditional music and chants of the Khoisan and Himba tribes; and creates a blueprint for 21st century downtempo African music."
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
« Reply #3 on: 2006-04-16 04:29:49 » |
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[Blunderov] Here's another from the same volume.
Is there an oculist in the house?
How often I would that I were one of those homely
philosophical old codgers
Like, say, Mr Dooley or Will Rodgers
Because I could then homelily call peoples attention to
the fact that we didn't see eye to eye with the
Italians so we had a war with them, after which,
to put it succinkly,
We and the Italians became as close as Goodson and
Todman or Huntly and Brinkly,
And we didn't see eye to eye with the Germans and we
had to either fight or bootlick,
So we fought, and now everything between us and the
Germans is gemutlich,
And the Japanese didn't see eye to eye with us, so they
fought us the soonest,
And today we and the Japanese are of companions the
boonest.
Now on the daily boasts of "My retaliation can lick your
retaliation " I am with apprehension stricken,
As one who watches two adolescent hot-rodders careening
headlong toward each other, each determined to die
rather than chicken.
Once again there is someone we don't see eye to eye with,
and maybe I couldn't be dafter,
But I keep wondering if this time we couldn't settle our
differences before a war instead of after.
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Hermit
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Re:Lines Fraught with Naught but Thought
« Reply #4 on: 2006-05-05 13:36:29 » |
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Another old favorite, that if one thinks of the many scimitars dangling in the vicinity of the neck of Our Dear Misleadertm may also seem somewhat topical :-)
A Ballade Of Suicide
The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall —
Are drawing a long breath to shout ‘Hurray!’
The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself today.
Tomorrow is the time I get my pay —
My uncle’s sword is hanging in the hall —
I see a little cloud all pink and grey —
Perhaps the Rector’s mother will not call —
I fancy that I heard from Mr Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way —
I never read the works of Juvenal —
I think I will not hang myself today.
The world will have another washing day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational —
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small —
I think I will not hang myself today.
Envoi
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even today your royal head may fall —
I think I will not hang myself today.
G. K. Chesterton (Poems, 1915)
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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