John
I've been thinking of you this past crazy week, hoping that your boat business was OK.
I started off the week having to write a microsite, for an august accountancy body, called Leading in a Downturn. By the end of the week, with CNN permanently on in front of us as we watched shares all over the world tumbling, the gallows humour had well and truly set in --- and we were calling it Leading in a Bloodbath or Leading in Armageddon.
The most disappointing thing, I have to say, is that I'd always thought Armageddon would be more exciting, with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Beast and the Whore of Babylon drunk on the blood of martyrs and the Holy City of Jerusalem descending from the skies.
Instead, I've been subjected to rolling news coverage where everyone's using the same words continually like 'leverage' and 'balance sheets' and 'liquidity' and 'interbank borrowing'. It's so boring! It's apocalypse by accountancy.
.
Democracy today
Moderators: MichelleH, Minimalist, JPeters
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Ishtar -Ishtar wrote:John
I've been thinking of you this past crazy week, hoping that your boat business was OK.
I started off the week having to write a microsite for that august body, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, called Leading in a Downturn. By the end of the week, wtih CNN permanently on in front of us as we watched shares all over the world tumbling, the gallows humour had well and truly set in and we were calling it Leading in a Bloodbath or Leading in Armageddon.
The most disappointing thing, I have to say, is that I'd always thought Armageddon would be more exciting, with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Beast and the Whore of Babylon drunk on the blood of martyrs and the Holy City of Jerusalem descending from the skies.
Instead, all I'm continually hearing are words like 'leverage' and 'balance sheets' and 'liquidity' and 'interbank borrowing'. It's so boring! It's death by accountancy.
To Das Klub I will add Das Machine.
Check out my last post re: Dreams,
In re:
(This was to Minimalist),
I questioned his assumption that
Dreams were separate from reality, or
Of course, vice versa.
For any methodological hairsplitters out there.
I edited it to
Add a Koan
Which you might find appropriate to
The present panic.
hoka hey
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Ishtar -
A blast from the past, i.e.
"Requiem for an Economy",
From good ol' ts eliot, no less -
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper".
Yes?
hoka hey
john
A blast from the past, i.e.
"Requiem for an Economy",
From good ol' ts eliot, no less -
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper".
Yes?
hoka hey
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
-
Minimalist
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 16036
- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:09 pm
- Location: Arizona
I got that line from George Carlin, John.
I still agree with him.
I still agree with him.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
"Aboriginals believe in two forms of time; two parallel streams of activity. One is the daily objective activity, the other is an infinite spiritual cycle called the "dreamtime", more real than reality itself. Whatever happens in the dreamtime establishes the values, symbols, and laws of Aboriginal society. It was believed that some people of unusual spiritual powers had contact with the dreamtime."
The Dreaming Universe, Fred Alan Wolf.
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
WB Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloth of Heaven
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Prospero from The Tempest.
.
The Dreaming Universe, Fred Alan Wolf.
HAD I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
WB Yeats, He Wishes for the Cloth of Heaven
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Prospero from The Tempest.
.
Ishtar of Ishtar's Gate and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
I first became aware of this clock a week ago in a news item on TV and it scared the shit out of me. Either money means something or it doesn't. This figure suggests to me the latter. In other words, who gives a damn? I just don't believe that the current crisis will be a wake-up call to a system that doesn't give a damn.
To try and be fair about this does anyone know what the US GDP is?
To try and be fair about this does anyone know what the US GDP is?
Und so, Grumpage, I will quote Mr. Samuel Clemens -Grumpage wrote:That makes the National Debt 73% of GDP...and counting...
China is watching.
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people
Who are putting us on
Or by imbeciles who really mean it".
Right there we have
The chicken or egg hypostasis in a nutshell.
The Grand Rothschildean Conspiracy, or,
The Heavily Armed Zealot?
And.....drumroll...... the apparent answer is
Both!
And I will say that both are frauds perpetrated
On the genuine hypostasis
By those who are infatuated with apparent power,
Be it religious, political, or economic.
hoka hey
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Confession time.
After having a pop at the US National Debt (then 73% of GDP) I checked it out (after a fashion) and discovered that the UK ND (about 43%) may not be all it’s cracked up to be - the items included seemed different to those of the US and they favoured a low estimate.
Also, Japan’s ND at one time rose to almost 130% and they survived.
Also, a UK conservative MP was on the radio this morning criticising the government for excluding great wadges of money that would bring the UK figure to about 120%.
Also, this issue is so damn complicated that the Gordian Knot seems like kid's stuff.
What have I learned from all this?
1. International comparisons are not to be trusted.
2. UK figures are not to be trusted and so by extension are anybody else’s.
3. I don’t understand any of it.
4. Because of 1 - 3 I no longer care much or worry about it.
5. I shouldn’t have had a go at the US. Sorry guys.
After having a pop at the US National Debt (then 73% of GDP) I checked it out (after a fashion) and discovered that the UK ND (about 43%) may not be all it’s cracked up to be - the items included seemed different to those of the US and they favoured a low estimate.
Also, Japan’s ND at one time rose to almost 130% and they survived.
Also, a UK conservative MP was on the radio this morning criticising the government for excluding great wadges of money that would bring the UK figure to about 120%.
Also, this issue is so damn complicated that the Gordian Knot seems like kid's stuff.
What have I learned from all this?
1. International comparisons are not to be trusted.
2. UK figures are not to be trusted and so by extension are anybody else’s.
3. I don’t understand any of it.
4. Because of 1 - 3 I no longer care much or worry about it.
5. I shouldn’t have had a go at the US. Sorry guys.
-
Minimalist
- Forum Moderator
- Posts: 16036
- Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:09 pm
- Location: Arizona
1. Statistics issued by any government are lies.
2. See #1.
2. See #1.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
Grumpage wrote:Confession time.
After having a pop at the US National Debt (then 73% of GDP) I checked it out (after a fashion) and discovered that the UK ND (about 43%) may not be all it’s cracked up to be - the items included seemed different to those of the US and they favoured a low estimate.
Also, Japan’s ND at one time rose to almost 130% and they survived.
Also, a UK conservative MP was on the radio this morning criticising the government for excluding great wadges of money that would bring the UK figure to about 120%.
Also, this issue is so damn complicated that the Gordian Knot seems like kid's stuff.
What have I learned from all this?
1. International comparisons are not to be trusted.
2. UK figures are not to be trusted and so by extension are anybody else’s.
3. I don’t understand any of it.
4. Because of 1 - 3 I no longer care much or worry about it.
5. I shouldn’t have had a go at the US. Sorry guys.
Grumpage -
An aphorism:
"Figures lie
And liars figure"
No harm, no foul.
hoka hey
john
"Man is a marvellous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is sort of a low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm."
Mark Twain
Mark Twain