As you are (mostly) among friends, you can try an extreme educational tactic on yourself, and we’ll tell you if we got the point. Limit yourself to three sentences, then post.

Think of it as having a brilliant but harsh editor – I think the comment section here qualifies on both counts.

and since i am big on balthazar, here is a plum for thought about obama

Distinguish the Man of Words from the Man of Deeds.

Discrimination here is as important as in the case of friends, persons, and employments, which have all many varieties. Bad words even without bad deeds are bad enough: good words with bad deeds are worse. One cannot dine off words, which are wind, nor off politeness, whichis but polite deceit. To catch birds with a mirror is the ideal snare. It is the vain alone who take their wages in windy words. Words should be the pledges of work, and, like pawn-tickets, have their market price. Trees that bear leaves but not fruit have usually no pith. Know them for what they are, of no use except for shade.

Do not indulge in the Eccentricities of Folly.

Like vain, presumptuous, egotistical, untrustworthy, capricious, obstinate, fanciful, theatrical,whimsical, inquisitive, paradoxical, sectarian people and all kinds of one-sided persons: they are all monstrosities of impertinence. All deformity of mind is more obnoxious than that of the body, because it contravenes a higher beauty. Yet who can assist such a complete confusion of mind? Where self-control is wanting, there is no room for others’ guidance. Instead of paying attention to other people’s real derision, men of this kind blind themselves with the unfounded assumption of their imaginary applause.

and finally…

Do not die of the Fools’ Disease.

The wise generally die after they have lost their reason: fools before they have found it. To die of the fools’ disease is to die of too much thought. Some die because they think and feel too much: others live because they do not think and feel: these are fools because they do not die of sorrow, the others because they do. A fool is he that dies of too much knowledge: thus some die because they are tooknowing, others because they are not knowing enough. Yet though many die like fools, few die fools.

there is much wisdom from those dead guys…
i like to go back to them… they are an anchor in a sea of chaotic thoughts.

thanks for the compliment neo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neo edits my posts well.. she realizes that i tend to start well, make a great point, then try to drive the nail thorugh the other side of the wood. (sorry bronx sci debating team was brutal 🙂 )

I have more than one time seen the size of my posts, and have asked her to slice em.

this is something that comes from me recognizing that on some level the complainers are correct, but not to the degree that i should leave, stop writing, make soundbites, etc.

brevity that does not cost is always welcome.

but its actually people like you that help me put up with the snarky ones to which i think your mostly focusing on. a percentage of them who really dont care either way but realize if i am TOO polite, they can get me to abandon my own interests..

since the ones interested in what i write, like erudition of a substance kind (even if too substantial in volume), then maybe i might direct them to some really pleasurable, and pertinent writing..

pick up a copy of “the art of worldly wisdom”, written in 1637 by Balthasar Gracian.. (translated to english by joseph jacobs in 1882)..

you can imagine that the whole text is what a good father would teach his son or daughter when they are about to go out into the world.

and just so you realize that these fools you speak of (not neo the others), have little effect on me given that i know a lot more and understand a lot more than they..

for your enjoyment i leave you with three quotes from that writing that should (i hope) make you grin.

Go armed against Discourtesy,

and against perfidy, presumption, and all other kinds of folly. There is much of it in the world, and prudence lies in avoiding a meeting with it. Arm yourself each day before the mirror of attention with the weapons of defence. Thus you will beat down the attacks of folly. Be prepared for the occasion, and do not expose your reputationto vulgar contingencies. Armed with prudence, a man cannot be disarmed by impertinence. The road of human intercourse is difficult, for it is full of ruts which may jolt our credit. Best to take a byway, taking Ulysses as a model of shrewdness. Feigned misunderstanding is of great value in such matters. Aided by politeness it helps us over all, and is often the only way out of difficulties.

Keep a Store of Sarcasms, and know how to use them.

This is the point of greatest tact in human intercourse. Such sarcasms are often thrown out to test men’s moods, and by their means one often obtains the most subtle and penetrating touchstone of the heart. Other sarcasms are malicious, insolent, poisoned by envy or envenomed by passion, unexpected flashes which destroy at once all favour and esteem. Struck by the slightest word of this kind, many fall away from the closest intimacy with superiors or inferiors which could not be the slightest shaken by a whole conspiracy of popular insinuation or private malevolence. Other sarcasms, on the other hand, work favourably, confirming and assisting one’s reputation. But the greater the skill with which they are launched, the greater the caution with which they should be received and the foresight with which they should he foreseen. For here a knowledge of the evil is in itself a means of defence, and a shot foreseen always misses its mark.

and on the subject of those that do what you report… and see properly as an injustice..

Know that there are vulgar Natures everywhere,

🙂

I actually rather assume that they are getting ready to turn back into what they were initially created to fight.

First off they are highly used to getting their way and their members following along blindly. I’m sure they see no reason why this will not continue.

Next, even when they have opposition, they are quite good at screwing their own members – see the amount of transparency with union dues and that no one knows where that money goes (uh hu) – couple that with their members buying that hook line and sinker.

Now, they are in the position of having those dues, having the corporate profits, and being in total control of *both* ends (are they going to organize a strike against themselves?) I expect them to run it into the group within a VERY short period of time. I also fully expect the union heads to make out like thieves (though fully legal thieves) whilst letting the workers they are supposed to protect left hanging.

This is irrespective of if sales drop or not (I rather suspect that most will not care one whit who owns/manages the company – if sales drop it will be from them cutting corners and expecting everything else to stay the same). Plus after it all falls the Japanese companies will not hire the workers – they will not allow any unions to form nor do they want the type of person that would want this to occur (and if they all got together unofficially and strike then the plants just let them leave and go elsewhere – too many want those jobs for the company to allow crazy “concessions”).

Were it not for me living here I would be watching the implosion with great fascination. This will end in violence (and I mean “this” in a broad sense, not just this one incident) as things start to collapse under the strain, I do not know if we have enough collective will to stop it before that point once it is obvious to everyone – I more expect around half the population to make a panicked grab for everything they can, 1/4 to wring their hands and do nothing but whine, and 1/4 to harden up to weather the storm. Sadly I also think that McCain wouldn’t have done much better either.

One other fact in this case is that Artfldgr himself has on several occasions written in his own comments that he is trying to make them shorter, because he realizes that length is a problem.

By the way, I have sympathy with those who like to write at length. Many bloggers have very short posts, and they attract a lot of readers because their work is short and snappy and easy to assimilate. Every now and then I write something short. But my general tendency is to like to tell a more complete tale, so I’ve accepted that many of my posts will be long, and I’ll only attract people with more patience and time.

Unfortunately, I think that it is rather the case that Lies, especially lies taught in our schools, spoken and endorsed by our intellectuals, politicians, artists, entertainers and other opinion makers, and broadcast by the MSM 24/7 and, moreover, lies that are tailored to be the lies we want to hear, that allow us to take the comfortable, easy way out, are far more powerful and easily accepted and believed than the Truth.

I present two examples of choices. I have laid out the opposing choices in very stark contrast. No doubt many will see, rather, an infinite series of grays and gradations, but I think that, in each instance, one extreme captures the essence of the truth rather than the other.

Tell me, if you were presented with two radically different pictures of our current situation vis-é -vis Islam; the first picture is that Islam is not our enemy, that the current “occasional” conflicts are of no real or lasting consequence, are minor misunderstandings that can be settled by patience, understanding and negotiation, small criminal acts by fanatics that do not require any real attention by us or any extraordinary actions by us to combat them–criminal matters for the police–and that, in fact, to call attention to and get all excited about such small incidents marks us as backward and lacking in the correct attitudes toward diversity, multiculturalism and the “Other” that civilized, educated, sophisticated people should have, or, the second picture that shows Islam to be an existential threat, with a long and easily traced “backtrail” of bloody Jihad that is 14 centuries long, an Islam whose religiously sanctioned ambition is to consume, dominate, conquer and rule the world and is, thus, a mortal threat to every unbeliever and to every non-Muslim society on the face of this Earth, a Jihad and Muslims that are violently attacking and also more subtly via “stealth Jihad” intimidating and subverting unbelievers and their societies on a daily basis in every corner of the world, an existential threat that requires our closest attention and that will demand the most extraordinary investigation and knowledge, vigilance and ultimate exertions to destroy it; an attention and exertions that–to be successful–will probably have to transform our societies and each of our lives in profound ways, and require the utmost in sacrifice, concentration and exertion by many of us.

Which picture would you be more receptive to?

Or, how about one picture of Obama as the new “Messiah” a transformative “light worker” heralding and ushering in a new era of “Hope” and Change” in America and human history, a steady, knowledgeable hand at the helm, an era in which all of the mistakes, all of the injustices, all of the deficiencies of the past will be faced head on and corrected; the new era of the “free lunch,” or a picture of Obama as a manipulative, ruthless, bumbling, ill-informed con artist, a would be tyrant who is quickly “transforming” America all right, but transforming it in to an America controlled by its government, in which our freedoms are being legislated away, our free, capitalist economy destroyed, and our patrimony and that of our children is squandered as Obama and the Democrats erect a dictatorial government, a colossus, by the most benign interpretation a Socialist or quasi-Socialist “nanny state,’ by the least benign a Fascist Tyranny.

The Messiah picture requires us to just sit back, eat our “free lunch” and “feel the love,” the Tyranny picture requires us to investigate and learn, to strenuously exert ourselves, to fight for our freedom and our lives. Which picture do you think more people would be receptive to?

I’m not sure, to be honest, what my problem is with one demanding another be ‘edited”.