A Two Sided Act is a Coin of a Different Toss

God RVers can be annoying – it may be due to their sense of entitlement. They paid a lot of money for their contraptions, and I did not (my tent and my cot). They are therefore entitled to more than I am. One of their entitlements is privacy which they can garner with umbilical cords – never having to venture outside of the vehicle, although you will occasionally see one walking a dog. Satellite TV, frozen diners in the microwave, air/conditioning, fellow RVers for dinks in the evening – it’s the good life. But why do they have to do it here - pick America's most scenic spots and plunk down with all thier conveniences.  If they never venture out why don't they just stay at home? I don’t get it. RVers and tenters do not get along. Once one engaged me in a conversation – oh she said RVers are such great people. And where are you parked, she asked. I pointed and said, over there. She looked at my tent and she turned and walked away without uttering another word

For what is so foolish as to be pleased with yourself? To admire yourself? On the other hand, if you have a low opinion of yourself, what can you do that is charming or graceful, what can you do that will not be indecorous and awkward – Erasmus - In Praise of Folly p34


The first view of the Alps
     From Schaffhausen
Viewed only once perfectly
     That would have been
      In 1835
Very few travelers see it at
      All
At the Col de la Faucille
The guidebooks say nothing
     About it
I saw there my true
     Home in this world

Reading scores for public school 4th graders has improved only by 1% since the beginning of No Child Left Behind

Tax-deductible travel
A medical mission to Nepal
     We’re 25 to 30 people
     Doctors and nurses
$2,800 – you make your check
      Out to the foundation
And get everything free
      That’s the way it works


Every couple of years we pick
      Some exotic place

The art of making yourself rich … is equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbor poor – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p245

I hiked up Three Rivers Canyon about a mile – about as much as I can do without an Ibuprophen. The boys in the woods are packing it in – taking down their shelter and carting their stuff back to the truck; they even brought the bedroom mattresses – their maximum stay must have expired – I don’t think that the have any place else to hurry off too.

My time of happiness had always been when nobody was thinking of me – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p513

What would it be called if we started with an apparently untrue premise and proceeding by apparently valid steps of argument arrived at a sensible conclusion? The reverse is called a paradox

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language – Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations

If we were able to resurrect a person back to life they would be incapable of deceit or collusion. The resurrected are not capable in inauthenticity and while in life they may have bored us we would now enjoy every moment of their companionship.

Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy / In Folly’s cup, still laughs the bubble joy – Alexander Pope – Essay on Man

I got my coat back – was a coat with a large black and white check pattern found? I’ll see. Something like this. Exactly like that. Thanks! That’s twice now that I have left a jacket in the library but the first time that I got it back. Last time I was unable to remember its color scheme.

The concept ‘thinking’ is categorically different from the concept ‘speaking’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Terror and counter-terror – evil begets evil

The imagination lends and the deed comes behind – William Carlos Williams – Kora in Hell

Resistance may be rational but a process of transformation is not

Unity is the shallowest, the cheapest deception of all composition – William Carlos Williams – An Essay on Virginia, 1932

The term ‘mass murder’ as defined by the UN’s concept of genocide excludes acts that eliminate social, economic or political groups

Word is a two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p86