Philosophy Now Forum

Meaning

“The circle of an empty day is brutal and at night it tightens around your neck like a noose.” Elena Ferrante

On average?

“You know what, sometimes it seems to me we're living in a world that we fabricate for ourselves. We decide what's good and what isn't, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves... And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.” Olga Tokarczuk

See, I told you.

"To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future." Oliver Sacks

Quite the opposite for some of us.

“When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” Viktor E. Frankl

Tell that to the Nazis?

“Words, he decided, were inadequate at best, impossible at worst. They meant too many things. Or they meant nothing at all.” Patricia A. McKillip

Cue the clouds?

“Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, 'There is always a day of reckoning'.” Donald Van de Mark

On the other hand, who is doing the reckoning?

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing

Walker: It’s perverse, isn’t it? People spend years developing their minds and educating themselves, but in the end, they just want to shut them off.

More perverse still perhaps are all those who don't want to.

Walker: Why do you wanna be a doctor anyhow?
Chris: So I can help people.
Walker: How? By keeping them alive today so you can prolong their misery until tomorrow?

The next day in class…

Walker: I see Chris Hammond is late again.
Student: There was a party last night. He fell from the top of the math building under the quad.
Student: No he didn’t. The range is too great. If he had fallen he would have landed near the bushes. He must have jumped…wouldn’t that be right professor?

The physics in other words.

Troy: I believe that if there is such a thing as luck, I’m lucky enough to notice it when it comes my way.

Of course luck runs in both directions. As he is soon to discover in spades.

Richard: …it seems that in the court of law there’s no way to prove the effectiveness of prayer, or as judge put it: “Faith is the antithesis of proof”.
Gene: Still, you gotta have faith in something…

Some, however, have faith in not having faith in anything.

Richard [to Gene]: I wish, I wish we could see into the future sometimes. That’s the problem, isn’t it? I mean, life - it only makes sense when you look at it backwards. Too bad we gotta live it forwards.

Either way, he concluded, it's likely to be fractured and fragmented.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.

On the other hand, what particular cause and what particular effect?

Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.

Next up: our greatest wisdoms may be very stupid.

The human body is the best picture of the human soul.

That can't be good...

Suppose someone were to say: 'Imagine this butterfly exactly as it is, but ugly instead of beautiful'?!

On the other hand, “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”?

This sort of thing has got to be stopped. Bad philosophers are like slum landlords. It's my job to put them out of business.

Let's try to imagine his reaction to the "serious philosophers" here.

What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.The meaning of life, i.e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.

Next up: your notebooks.

Since the screenplay [by Nick Hornby] is derived from a memior this must be [more or less] based on a true story. And since it takes place in the early 1960s, it’s still really the 1950s for all practical purposes. Which is just to point out the “action” takes place before the tumultuous reprecussions of a well known cultural revolution. If you lived through it yourself it might make all the difference in the world how you react to the film.

Of course the deck is stacked here. David is basically a rotten sonofabitch. But in “real life” he didn’t have to be…right? Or maybe he’s not really so bad after all. Maybe you’d even like to be him.

Where is the best place to get an education though? More in or out of school? The answer: Yes.

Needless to say, this all unfolds deeply enscounced in the middle class. You don’t even need subtitles to understand what they are saying!

Alas, the sophisticates are crooks. So stay in school and become one the right way.

And, as is often the case, I think the arguments are superb from both sides.

Look for...anti-Semitism?


An Education

David: Do you go to concerts?
Jenny: No. We don’t believe in concerts.
David: Oh, I assure you, they’re real.

Wink, wink.

David: Which University?
Jenny: Oxford. If I’m lucky. Did you go anywhere?
David: I studied at what I believe they call the “University of Life”.

Ah, another grifter.

Jenny: Camus doesn’t want you to like him. Feeling is bourgeois. Being engagee is bourgeois. He kills someone and he doesn’t feel anything. His mother dies and he doesn’t feel anything.
Friend: I wouldn’t feel anything if my mother died. Does that make me an existentialist?
Jenny: No. That makes you a cow.

Okay, okay...there is a difference.

Helen: God, I always think I’m going to my own funeral when I listen to classical music. That was classical, wasn’t it?
Danny: Yes. Very classical. As classical as you can get.

Let's pin that down though.

Jenny: How do you know those negro people?
David: They’re clients.
Jenny: Clients?
David: Schwarzers have to live somewhere. It’s not as if they can rent off their own kind, is it?

You know, back then?

Jack: All of this is free! That chair. This sofa. It’s all free. We don’t have to pay for any of it. You see, that’s the beauty of life, Jenny. You don’t have to pay for anything. You know, there’s a lovely Oxford tree growing in the garden, lucky for you, because that’s Oxford taken care of. And there’s a whole orchard of school trees, so that’s school is free. And I think there’s even a private tuition tree in there. I’ll just go and check, shall I?
Marjorie [Jenny’s mom]: Jack?
Jack: That’s all right, Marjorie. Don’t worry. It’ll only be a second. Because I think there’s a whole clump of them surrounding the pocket money tree. I’ll just go make sure, they’re all nice and safe, shall I? Oh, by the way, you might be lucky, there might be a man with deep pockets growing out there. Because God knows, you’re gonna need one!

Let's read between the lines.

An Education

Helen: Jenny…
Jenny: Aren’t you coming?
Helen: We don’t go in.
Jenny: What are you talking about?

The twist?

Danny: Why don’t you go and get a nice cup of tea somewhere. Helen will look after you.
Jenny: I don’t need looking after, thank you very much. David?
Danny: I’m not going to tell you a second time. Run along.
Helen: They won’t be long. Either way.
Jenny: “Either way?”
Helen: Well sometimes they find something, and sometimes they don’t. And when they do find something, we often have to leave quite quickly. They can be a quite naughty, sometimes.

It all starts to unravel.
Though, for some, sure, it all actually begins to make sense.

David: We liberated it.
Jenny: Liberated? That’s one word for it.
David: Don’t be bourgeois, Jenny. You’re better than that.

Next up: being bourgeois here.

David [to Jenny]: You want to know what stats are? Stats are old ladies who are scared of coloured people. So we move the coloureds in and the old ladies move out and I buy their flats cheap. That’s what I do. So now you know.

By now though she’s...hooked?

Jenny: You have no idea how boring everything was before I met you.

We can check back on that later.

Jenny: I don’t want to lose my virginity to a piece of fruit!

You know the one.

An Education

Jenny [thinking about sex] It’s funny though, isn’t it? All that poetry and all those songs, about something that lasts no time at all.

But you can do it again and again. And there’s the part about love.

Miss Stubbs: It’s because of people like you that I plough through illiterate essays by Sandra Lovell about her pony. But I know where this comes from, Jenny. And If I took it, I’ll feel like I’d be betraying both of us. Jenny. You can do anything you want. You know that. You’re clever and you’re pretty… Is your boyfriend interested in clever Jenny?
Jenny: I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to tell me.
Miss Stubbs: I’m telling you to go to Oxford. No matter what. 'Cause if you don’t, you’ll break my heart.

At the time it was still too close to call.

Jenny: Maybe our lives are going to end up with pony essays. Or housework. And yes, maybe we’ll go to Oxford. But if we’re all going to die the moment we graduate, Isn’t it what we do before that counts.
Miss Stubbs: I’m sorry you think I’m dead.

No, really, who won?

Headmistress: He’s a Jew? You’re aware, I take it, that the Jews killed our Lord?
Jenny: And you’re aware, I suppose, that our Lord was Jewish?

No, really, who wins?

Jenny: Nobody does anything worth doing WITH a degree. No woman anyway.
Headmistress: So what I do isn’t worth doing? Or what Miss Stubbs does, or Mrs. Wilson, or any of us here? Because none of us would be here without a degree. You do realize that, don’t you? And yes, of course studying is hard and boring…
Jenny: Boring!
Headmistress: I’m sorry?
Jenny: Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So, what you’re telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again, but this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There’s no life in it, or color, or fun! It’s probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day now. So my choice is to do something hard and boring, or to marry my…Jew, and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz, and read, and eat good food in nice restaurants, and have fun! It’s not enough to educate us anymore Ms. Walters. You’ve got to tell us why you’re doing it.

Reductionism here cuts both ways, of course. But she’ll soon see the light.

Jenny [to David after finding out he is married]: I have nothing. I didn’t take my exams. I…I left school. Where’s it all going now?

Let's pray for her?

Sarah [David’s wife]: Oh, no. Don’t tell me. Good God. You’re a child. You didn’t know about any of this. Presumably. No. They never do. You’re not in the family way, are you? Because that’s happened before.
[Jenny shakes head head]
Sarah: Thank God for that.

Right, thank God for it.

Jack: We have to have this out. Well, if you won’t do it, I will. I’m still your father.
Jenny: You’re my father again now, are you? And what were you when you encouraged me to throw my life away? Silly schoolgirls are always getting seduced by glamorous older men, but what about you two?

We know what's coming...

Jenny: Miss Stubbs, I need your help.
Miss Stubbs: I was so hoping that’s what you were going to say.

Sans all that bourgeois crap, of course.

Science

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” Douglas Adams

Hear! Hear!

“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.” Daniel Kahneman

And now we know.

“Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?
Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different.” Albert Einstein

Uh, if you get his drift?

“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe.” Philip K. Dick

Everywhere? Does that include here?

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.” Lawrence M. Krauss

Do they know that?

“Whether or not you believe in God, you must believe this: when we as a species abandon our trust in a power greater than us, we abandon our sense of accountability. Faiths… all faiths… are admonitions that there is something we cannot understand, something to which we are accountable. With faith we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to a higher truth. Religion is flawed, but only because man is flawed. The church consists of a brotherhood of imperfect, simple souls wanting only to be a voice of compassion in a world spinning out of control.” Dan Brown

Unless, of course, he's wrong.

Before the wages of fear comes the desparation goading you to take them. But there will always be men lining up to make that exchange. Of course those who pay them insist that no one forces them to. It’s a, uh, free country.

Everything here is about power. Both kinds. That and the extent to which you can manipulate the beliefs others have about your own.

But sometimes you just can’t win. Not when you are your own worst enemy.

"Yves Montand and Charles Vanel both contracted conjunctivitis after filming in a pool of crude oil and being exposed to gas fumes."

I can believe it. Wait’ll you see that part: oil, oil everywhere. They may as well have been swimming in it.


The Wages of Fear [Le Salaire de la Peur]

Mario: There’s only one chronic sickness here, hunger. That’s what kills most of us.

In other words, some things never change.
Or so it seems?

Mario: That’s for Americans.
Jo: Americans here?
Mario: Wherever there’s oil, there’s Americans. SOC is their company. They’ve got a camp. They’re organized. Houses, a canteen, a cemetary. All prefabricated.

Any oil here?

Luigi: Easy to strut with that.
Jo [gives the gun to Luigi]: Here.
[pause]
Jo: Well, shoot.
Luigi: I can’t that way.
[Jo slaps him hard across the face]
Jo: How about this way?
[Luigi tosses the gun and walks away]
Jo: You look pale. A gun’s not enough. You need guts.
Luigi: I’m not a murderer.

There's always a first time though.

O’brien [on phone]: The safety commision is coming out to see you this afternoon. Give them a good meal and plenty of liquor. Blame it all on the victims.

Right, the safety commission.

O’Brien: The hell with the Union! There’s plenty of tramps in town, all volunteers. I’m not worried. To get that bonus, they’ll carry the entire charge on their backs.
Bradley: You mean you’re gonna put those bums to work?
O’Brien: Yes, Mr. Bradley, because those bums don’t have any union, nor any families. And if they blow up, nobody’ll come around bothering me for any contribution.

Capitalism let's call it. That and all the cronies, of course.

Dick: When I was a kid, I used to see men go off on these kinds of jobs… and not come back. When they did, they were wrecks. Their hair had turned white and their hands were shaking like palsy! You don’t know what fear is. But you’ll see. It’s catching, it’s catching like small pox! And once you get it, it’s for life! So long, boys, and good luck.

They'll need it.

Mario: Only 300 miles to go.

Roughly.

Luigi [to Mario of Jo]: Can’t you see he’s just a walking corpse?

Not unlike all the rest of us.

Luigi: You sure are something! Mario’s got guts. So have I. Jo has none at all. But you take the cake!
Bimba: Ever worked in a salt mine? The Nazis gave me 3 years in it. I was nearly dead when I got out. Compared to that, this is a joke.

Or maybe not: Boom!

Jo: Do you smell it? It’s my leg.
Mario: It’s only the oil.
Jo: No, it’s me. I smell like a corpse.

Now that takes me back.

Mario: No thanks. When someone else is driving, I’m scared.

The worst mistake he ever made.

Roberto Bolaño

There's a time for reciting poems and a time for fists. As far as I was concerned, this was the latter.

Next up: the virtual fists here.

Reading is more important than writing.

Unless, of course, you actually can write.

Only poetry isn't shit.

Let's define shit...philosophically.

History, which is a simple whore, has no decisive moments but is a proliferation of instants, brief interludes that vie with one another in monstrousness.

Let's define whore...philosophically.

We play at believing ourselves immortal. We delude oursleves in the appraisal of our own works and in our perpetual misappraisal of the works of others. See you at the Nobel, writers say, as one might say: see you in Hell.” Roberto Bolaño

Let's appraise this.

The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man’s sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too.

How about we pin down the diseased minds here. Or is mine the only one?

Note: Everything about this movie is explicit!

Memento on steroids? No bullshit: The beginning of this film is the closing credits. And you know what direction that means. Even the words here are printed backwards.

The first 25 minutes? Good luck. But it’s nothing compared to the part in the middle.

Said by some to be one of the most raw, revolting, films ever made, this isn’t for everyone. But the question you have to ask is this: Is the whole point of the film just to be raw and revolting…or is there something more? That, well, each viewer will have to decide for him or herself. It’s saturated with sex. And who is to say where sex should fit into our lives?

How then are the parts here to be fitted together into a whole? Is it misogynistic? Homophobic? Pornographic?

The photography at times is a bit…vertiginous? If you are prone to dizziness, try something else.

This portrays S&M way, way down in the dungeon. Everything here reeks of brutality.

But never once have I ever felt attracted to this sort of thing. It is completely alien to me. To be aroused by pain? Nope, no way. It seems absurd.

Men are everywhere here. Those kinds of men. Sick, fucking beasts. The party animals, the hounds of lust. The despicable rapist.

Also...

Newsweek stated that this was the most walked out of movie of the year. The French DVD release proudly proclaims in the blurb on the back that of 2,400 people at the film’s Cannes premiere, 200 walked out. Three people fainted.

The entire story is told backwards which means that each sequence starts at that moment where the next sequence in the film ends.

The rape scene was shot a number of times and the only constraint on the actors, apart from the beginning and end, was that it didn’t run over twenty minutes.

Director Gaspar Noé only had a three-page draft before the movie was shot, so all of the dialogue was improvised.

The “Rectum” was in fact a genuine gay S&M club in Paris. The crew changed the name, redressed the set and added red lighting. The club was spread across the basements of three separate buildings and was so cavernous and confusing that many of the crewmembers became claustrophobic in it. IMDb


Irreversible

Philippe: You want me to say it? Time destroys everything.

So far, anyway.

Phillippe: I was in the joint because I slept with my daughter.
Friend: Ah, the Western Syndrome.

You know, if that's what it is.

Friend: Take it easy, man. We all think we’re Mephisto. It’s no big deal. We fuck up and they say it’s bad news. It’s tragic. Can’t forget the pleasure, the joy. There are no bad deeds, just deeds.

Beyond good and evil as it were.

Bystander: All philosophers are faggots!! Ain’t no rubbers in prison. You’re gonna catch AIDS, faggot!

New thread?

Pierre: You’re behaving like an animal. Even animals don’t seek revenge.

Come on, they would if they could.

Taxi driver: What is the Rectum?
Marcus: A club for fags! Fags! Understand?

Nope.

Mourad: You’re counting on the police? You know they won’t do shit. They’re gonna catch him, put him in prison, give him food, clothing, medical care. Your friend didn’t get a doctor.
Marcus: Who are you?
Mourad: Who am I? Until proof of the contrary, I can be your best friend. I can help you find him if you want…With a little money, we can help you get revenge. The assailant drew blood. Blood calls for revenge. Vengeance is a human right.

Unless, perhaps, you go too far?

Woman on Street [to Alex]: Take the underpass. It’s safer.

Safer? Wait’ll you see the underpass.

Le Tenia: You think the world revolves around you? Because you’re beautiful?

You know what's coming. You just don't expect it to go on and on and on and on.

Alex: You know what people say? There are no women who can’t come, only men who can’t fuck.

Sounds about right.

Alex: You’re so lofty, lofty, lofty. But at the end of the day, when it comes to sex, you’re down to earth.
[she points to Marcus]
Alex: And then you say he’s an animal!
Pierre: His basic need is sex!. He says, Me want to fuck. Me want to eat. Me, Marcus.

Little do they know...

Not like any prison movie I’ve ever seen. And I think I’ve seen them all.

She teaches classical piano in prison. Not many students. But often the whole point of films like this is to explore the relationship between the few exceptional people here there are. Exceptional however can be manifested in many different ways and in many different contexts.

And both have a tumultuous, crippling past. Which means they are now damaged psychologically.

In part, it shows the manner in which we see others as they are while having little or no understanding as to how or why they became that way. We can only react to them based on the manner in which we have become who we think we are.

This is set in German prison. Is it typical? You got me.

Is this a believeable story? You got me. But it certainly is an absorbing one…an emotionally draining one.

A dark past. Some have one, some don’t. And, unless you have, what the hell can you possibly know about the link between that and the present in those that did?


Four Minutes [Vier Minuten]

Inmate: You let her dangle, didn’t you, Jenny? You’re just the type. You’d steal the last smoke from a corpse.

That’s exactly what she did.

Gertrud: You remind me of someone, warden.
Direktor Meyerbeer: Meyerbeer…
Gertrud: My first warden also refused to be called warden.
Direktor Meyerbeer: Head of penitentiary?
Gertrud: SS-Sturmbannführer.

Well, after all, she is a lesbian.

Gertrud: You want to play piano with those hands?
Jenny: They’re the only hands I’ve got.
Gertrud [to guard]: Get her out.
Guard: But I think she is talented. It says she is musical.
Jenny: And my piano lesson?
Gertrud: I’m sure you can do without.
Jenny: What’s your problem?
Gertrud: Young lady, watch your manners.
Jenny: What? I can’t play because of my hands? Fuck that fascist shit!

Well, at least they're off to a good start.

Gertrud [to Jenny strapped down on a gurney]: I don’t know where you learned your skills…
Jenny: FUCK OFF!
Gertrud: …and I don’t really care. That Negro music is worthless. But…it was still…unusual. God must have given you something special. I think you’re despicable, you should know that…but you have a gift. And you have the obligation to preserve that gift…

Imagine her reaction to rap then!

Gertrud: The words ‘sorry’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are missing in your letter.
Jenny: Sorry. Please. Thank you.

Okay, but did she mean it?

Jenny: What’s in it for me?
Gertrud: Rule number five: this is not about you.
Jenny [looking over at a child]: When I was that kid’s age, I performed in New York and Amsterdam. At ten I had played numerous international contests. I won half of them. My adoptive father tried to turn me into Mozart. When I quit at 12, he fucked me senseless. He raped me. Repeatedly. So I don’t really feel like some stupid contest.
Gertrud: Then it might be best to go back to rule number one.

Take a wild guess.

Four Minutes [Vier Minuten]

Gertrud [slapping Jenny]: Don’t you ever play that Negro music again!
Jenny: That is the music I like.

Jazz, she means. The irony being that, for many reared on pop, they may as well be the same thing.

Gertrud: Today, you did something extraordinary, Jenny. And then you ruin it all. What is it with you?
Jenny: I knew the glass wouldn’t break. I ran into it before, when my baby was born. I was in labor for 16 hours. When I told the doctor that I…I couldn’t take it anymore, he said I was just a con trying to stay out of prison. They should have done a Cesarian. But they didn’t. They just let me tear. I blacked out. When I woke up the nurse said to me, “You’re baby is gone. It’s just gone.” Three hours later they took me back to jail.

God's will, let's say.

Gerhard [Jenny’s father]: Jenny ended up on the street. There she met this cute little hustler. The cheapest kind. And then this boy killed his father.
Gertrud: According to the files your daughter did it.
Gerhard: That’s not true.
Gertrud: Then why is she in prison?
Gerhard: Because she was convicted, not because she did it. She incriminated herself to cover for this loser. Then he dumped her and got free.

Modern love, let's call it.

Gertrud: Quit playing that Negro music.
Jenny: Negro music, huh?
Gertrud: I won’t let you ruin your technique. The concert is in one week. We had an agreement.
Jenny: You lost us three days. I do what you say. I play the pieces you pick. I work your fucking Schummann till my ears hurt. So don’t freak out when I play some good stuff.
Gertrud: It’s noise.

I was once inclined to agree. Now, however, I'm just not sure.

Gertrud: Today is my last day. I just want to get my piano.
Kowalski: Tell me, Mrs. Krüger… What do those guys have that others don’t?
Gertrud: One’s a murderer and the other raped his niece.
Kowalski: I’ll miss you, Mrs. Krüger.

Not really.

Gertrud: You think today was an easy day for me? Why do you think I’ve stayed here for 60 years?
Jenny: Because of a dead body? Great! A lesbian who likes corpses. You’re a perverted freak, madam.
Gertrud: How dare you! How dare you talk like that! I’ve worked very hard for this day. I’ve overlooked your respectless manners and your fits. I got you out of prison. I told you about the only person I cared about, and you walk all over me!!
Jenny: I didn’t mean…
Gertrud: You know nothing…nothing about the ease of annihilation!

And, for some, about the morality of it.

Gerhard: I hope you win, Jenny.
Jenny: I hope you die, Daddy.

You tell me: https://youtu.be/ib8_rOwCCE8?si=fjsG7VpDbPCD_oTd

Of course, she's no Taylor Swift.

God

“It's tragic that extremists co-opt the notion of God, and that hipsters and artists reject spirituality out of hand. I don't have a fixed idea of God. But I feel that it's us - the messed-up, the half-crazy, the burning, the questing - that need God, a lot more than the goody-two-shoes do.” Mike Doughty

See how it works? Or do you need it explained to you?

“I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.” Roméo Dallaire

See how it works? Or do you need it explained to you?

“God seemed to have become a brand, a packaging, and people purchase this trusted brand with such faith and devotion that they no longer care who the vendor is.” Justin Villanueva

If they're not the vendors themselves.

“There's a lot of pride involved in my refusal to believe in God.” Orhan Pamuk

Me? No way. I want to believe again.

“You push the TRUTH off a cliff, but it will always fly. You can submerge the TRUTH under water, but it will not drown. You can place the TRUTH in the fire, but it will survive. You can bury the TRUTH beneath the ground, but it will arise. TRUTH always prevails!” Amaka Imani Nkosazana

Well, of course.

“I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they've learned, I'd find quarks and God just like they did.” Mary Doria Russell

Any of those people here?

How close does it come to however close I come to understanding the manner in which wealth and power eclipse everything else in Washington? Pretty damn close.

We all know any number of films that make the connection between wealth and power. If there is a shitload of money involved people can be made expendable. And what is legal is often considerable more harmful to most of us than what is not.

In other words, as in China, state capitalism prevails here as well. Just not nearly as flagrant…out in the open. Most of it has to unfold behind the curtains. On the conveyor belts between Wall Street, K Street, Capital Hill and the White House.

The film almost goes right to the belly of the beast. The DOD and the military industrial complex. Here though the focus is on the increasing role played by the “private sector”. In other words, the likes of firms like Blackwater [Acidemi]. But it barely scratches the surface regarding the nature of defense contractors, the war economy and crony capitalism. The “system” apparently is okay…it’s the rotten apples trying to turn war into a “business”.

Look for the remake of All The President’s Men.



State of Play

Cal: Mornin’…
Cameron: So? Where are we, was he nobbing her or not?
Cal: Morning, Cam…
Cameron: That’s funny about you. Every time your friend runs for re-election or conducts a hearing, you drop his name to me until we give him some coverage… but he finally does something that actually might sell some newspapers, you render mute. It’s, it’s - incongruous!
Cal: No, it’s not… it’s inconsistent.

Let's explain the difference.

Stephen: Aren’t you going to ask me how I could be so stupid?
Cal: Yeah, in a minute.

Ouch!

Posted Sign [in restaurant]: List of who eats free at Ben’s / Bill Cosby / NO ONE ELSE / Management

Of course, that was before, well, you know.

Cal [to Stephen]: Who might have wanted Sonia dead?
Stephen: What?
Cal: Is there something in her history? Something you haven’t told me about? Some commections she had?
Stephen: No. No. Wait, who am I talkin’ to here? Am I talking to my friend…or to a reporter?
Cal: Here I gotta be both.

No, really.

Cameron [to Della]: I want you to do a complete rundown on this Sonia Baker: who she knew, who she blew, the color of her knickers.

You know, Washington.

Stephen [to PointCorp/Blackwater exec]: Straightforward question: Since the start of the war on terror was declared has your own personal net worth gone up by $250 million dollars.

The deep state, he suspected.

Death

“I saw the years of my life spaced along a road in the form of telephone poles threaded together by wires. I counted one, two, three... nineteen telephone poles, and then the wires dangled into space, and try as I would, I couldn't see a single pole beyond the nineteenth.” Sylvia Plath

Next up: your bell jar. Unless, perhaps, you'd like to know more about mine?

“There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.” Jean Rhys

Next up: There are always two lives...

“Yer a good lad, Atticus, mowin’ me lawn and killin’ what Brits come around.” Kevin Hearne

Any Brits coming around here? Welcome!

“Tell me what it is like to die," I answered.
He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while. "You experience something similar every day," he said softly. "It is as familiar to you as bread and butter."
"Yes," I said. "It is like every night when I fall asleep."
"No. It is like every morning when you wake up.” Martine Leavitt

Only, chances are, you never, ever wake up.

I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.” Lin-Manuel Miranda

That can't be good, right?

“The only sin is the sin of being born.” Samuel Beckett

True enough. But...does anyone here know why?