Monday, July 28, 2008

Baltasar Gracian

Do pleasant things yourself, but unpleasant things through others.

Author's Note:
Please don't confuse my posting this quote as my support for its sentiment.

What if every citizen were this brave?

I have to express some amount of solidarity with the four folks in Iowa who attempted to perform a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove last week.  The four accuse him of "election fraud; conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States in the time before the Iraq war; and treason, sedition and subversive activities for fraudulent acts leading to the deaths of 300,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,000 U.S. Military personnel".  These principled folks are awefully brave and have in effect opened them selves up to potential kidnapping charges.  It is a litmus test of the health of our nation who will be brought to justice, the cynical apparatchik or the principled individuals who took a stand against him.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Why fight fair when you can use nunchucks?

Guernica in 3D

I just ran across this 3D rendering of Picasso's Guernica. I've seen this piece of art hundreds of times, but it is interesting how adding the third dimension has changed my perception. Maybe it is just the fact that I'd never been able to see it this close up.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The Cider House Rules

The free time that I once had available for reading is now much smaller and perilously close to the time when I fall over into bed, so I've taken to listening to books from Audible while at work. For the past week or so I've been listening to The Cider House Rules. I have a membership and get two new books a month for a fairly reasonable price. Unfortunately this rate is slightly faster than I can listen to them. The reason for that is that I refuse to get the abridged version of books. Most books come in abridged and unabridged versions. I feel guilty enough for not actually reading the book that I at least want to hear the whole thing.

So here I am, sitting at work, choked up by this silly audio book.

Henry S. Haskins

The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.