"Give a guy enough rope and he'll hang himself"

I worked with an old man a long time ago, he must be 100 by now. He was in his 80’s when I worked with him, and sharp as could be. Strong looking too…he had been a boxer as a young man, and he said that boxing put him in such shape back then there was no way he could ever not be in good shape. Whatever he had done for the OSS during WWII, he wouldn’t talk about it much, except to say he had had a German name.
Either that or he was just full of shit.
Which he wasn’t.
Anyway, I remember him telling me one time that "in public or in private, every day we write our own epitaph."
I know I’ve written mine a few times.

LIKE JONAH

Every time I been to jail there is always one guy in there repeating the same thing over and over...
"They had NO RIGHT to pull me over! This is bull-shit!" and he is constantly trying to ring his lawyer, his lawyer who will have him out in no time because he's such a big shot.
But after 24 hours its apparent that his lawyer wont be coming, and now he has finally gotten a family member to pick up the phone. This is when the weeping wailing really begins, because the family member is going to let him rot too. Everyone is tired of saving this guy, and now he has his poor mother on the phone on a ten dollar a minute collect call and all he can say is "Don't do me this, momma, don't make me stay in here. dont do me this" over and over and over.
The only wonder to me is why he doesn't have sense enough to do what I'm doing, which is making like Jonah in the belly of the whale, fully understanding that I DESERVE to be here, and having come to that understanding, its just a matter of time before the whale vomits me back onto dry land.



I was in one time and they brought in a couple young punks. They were smiling, cutting it up, just being knuckleheads.
I asked them "What are you in for?"
"We called in a pizza, and beat up the delivery guy for his money"
I said 'That's the most chicken shit thing I ever heard. How much did you get?"
"About 16.50"
"Okee-dokee. You guys cant sit at my table anymore"
I got the feeling it wasn't their first time.

THE SHEEP LOOK UP

By John Brunner

Recommended reading for Earth Day.
SPOILER ALERT!

With the rise of a corporation-sponsored government, pollution in big cities has reached extreme levels and most (if not all) people's health has been affected in some way. The public (and scientists) are starting to stand up and revolt. For anyone who enjoys dystopian science fiction, it is a fun read. I re-read it every few years.

From the book:

"At the big Georgia paper mill the saboteur was obviously a chemist. Some kind of catalyst was substituted for a drum of regular sizing solution and vast billowing waves of corrosive fumes ruined the plant. Anonymous calls to a local TV station claimed it had been done to preserve trees. The same day, in northern California, signs were posted on a stand of redwoods that the governor had authorized for lumbering: about two hundred of the last six hundred in the state. The signs said: FOR EVERY TREE YOU KILL ONE OF YOU WILL DIE TOO. The promise was carried out with Schmiesser machine-pistols. The actual score was eighteen people for seventeen trees.

Close enough."

That’s fun, yes?

The book takes its title from a John Milton poem;

‘The hungry sheep look up, but are not fed..”

By the end of the book, rioting and civil unrest sweep the United States, due to a combination of poor health, poor sanitation, lack of food, lack of services, ineffectiveness of services (medical, policing), disillusionment with government/companies, oppressive government, civil unrest, high incidence of birth defects (pollution-induced), and other factors; all services (military, government, private, infrastructure) break down.

The book closes with a woman in England, drawing water from a well as clouds of smoke billow by.

“What’s all this?” she asks.

“America” says her husband “America is on fire”.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

For the youngsters…

Why do they call it “unleaded” gasoline? Because gasoline used to have lead in it, and scientists in the 60’s found that lead concentrations had become very high in the environment and also in human bodies. Of course, the petroleum companies had a some scientists come in and say that the concentrations were NOT high, and we had nothing to worry about.

This may sound familiar to you concerning some things that are going on now a days..
It took 20 years, but the preponderance of evidence eventually led to legislation that eliminated lead from gasoline.

Protect Yourself! 

Happy Earth Day!

TARRAGON

From my new favorite poet~


""When I was a diplomat in BritainThirty years ago
My mother would send letters at the beginning of Spring
Inside each letter . . .
A bundle of tarragon . . .
And when the English suspected my letters
They took them to the laboratory
And turned them over to Scotland Yard
And explosives experts.
And when they grew weary of me . . . and my tarragon
They would ask: Tell us, by god . . .
What is the name of this magical herb that has made us dizzy?
Is it a talisman?
Medicine?
A secret code?
What is it called in English?
I said to them: It’s difficult for me to explain…
For tarragon is a language that only the gardens of Sham speak
It is our sacred herb . . .
Our perfumed eloquence
And if your great poet Shakespeare had known of tarragon
His plays would have been better . . .
In brief . . .
My mother is a wonderful woman . . . she loves me greatly . . .
And whenever she missed me
She would send me a bunch of tarragon . . .
Because for her, tarragon is the emotional equivalent
To the words: my darling . . .
And when the English didn’t understand one word of my poetic argument . . .
They gave me back my tarragon and closed the investigation . . ."
Nizar Qabbani
from his larger work "Damascus, what are you doing to me?"

He reminds me of Walt Whitman.

"And I don’t see myself here"

 

أدمنت احزاني
فصرت اخاف ان لا احزنا
I got addicted to my sorrows,
Until I have gotten scared of not being sorrowed.

وطعنت آلافا من المرات
حتى صار يوجعني بان لا اطعنا
And I was stabbed thousands of times,
Until it felt painful not to be stabbed.

ولعنت في كل اللغات
حتى صار يقلقني بان لا العنا
And I was cursed in all the languages,
Until I started being nervous of not being cursed.

ولقد تشابهت كل البلاد
فلا ارى نفسي هناك، ولا ارى نفسي هنا
And all the countries seemed the same,
That I don’t see myself there, And I don’t see myself here.

 

Nizar Qabbani (via ruby-moon)