Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
What can be said but that it's Oscar time once again.
Lament
A wind weeps
O'er an ancient sea
At the darkening
Close of day.
A past that's lost
Cries out woe;
Chilled in the breeze
That echoes thoughts
Melancholy.
Come then night
That summons peace;
Bring forgetfulness,
Release!
That all may be silent
Once more!
Come oh sea,
To take life away;
Away from
This hapless shore.
As with speed
Sparrows take flight,
Take flight oh soul to air!
Come oh end to sorrow;
When life's no longer here.
Old school murderers meet and make the Nouveau riche -- what choice did they have? For golden ghosts and (sufficient) money purchase respectablity and cleanse all sin.
["Thin Lizzy Live on The Old Grey Whistle Test" -- 'Don't Believe A Word' with Phil Lynott, Gary Moore Scott Gorham & Cozy Powell]
As bad as very bad spirit people are and can be, it necessary to understand that one's attitude toward theme does, might, or should change according to circumstances. To treats them belligerently and as a bitter adversary has it's place and makes sense; yet so also does viewing them with Christian or humanitarian charity and sympathy. A lot depends on the immediate situation and what is going on. Either of these basic approaches (and there are other variants or sub-species to these two; such as humor) has its usefulness and wisdom in furtherance of what must be the ultimate goal, namely peace and an end to the worst kinds of crime, violence, and injustice -- not final punishment or final judgment. When then society comes to own up to addressing the problem of violent, false religious, and criminal spirit people, it will be necessary to have a medical and altruistic as well as a military/police arm or department; and which can be fallen back on or availed of when the other is less applicable, effective, or (for the moment at least) no longer necessary.
If people are going to be weird, then the least we can do is get these kids and animals guaranteed protection and or otherwise evacuate them to safety.
Eastern European countries like Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or Ukraine, and given their relatvely recent appearance on general maps of the continent, might seem to some to be merely newly created states produced, as it were by mere partitions of land following a war or other conflict. Yet when we take the time to learn and look more closely we find these nations had their origins in the middle to late middle ages (if not earlier). At the same time, what seem subservient states (from a 20th century viewpoint) at one time or other were notable for ther martial prowess. The Hungarians, for instance, gave a sharp check to Genghis Khan's unstoppable hordes where almost all other Europeans collapsed in the face of the Mongol onslaught. The Czechs and Poles once combatted victoriously against the vaunted Teutonic Knights of Germany; while the Poles also might be said to have saved Europe from the Turks in the 17th century. Jan Zizka, a Czech leader in the Hussite (religous) Wars of the 15th century is credited by some for having invented one of the first prototypes of the tank while introducing methods of attack that resembled modern mechanized warfare; and for a time the Czech's were the terror of their region -- until they fell out among themselves; and were thereafter subsumed by others. The following is from an unabashedly sentimental and patriotic Czech film from the 50's, and which depicts Zizka in the battle of Sudomer, 25 March 1420. Although pretty corn; it's diverting enough and serves a useful didactic purpose for those of us for whom this period is unfamiliar.
*----*
["JAN ZIZKA (1955) - Battle of Sudomer 1"] and ["JAN ZIZKA (1955) - Battle of Sudomer 2"]
["Al Stewart- One Stage Before"]
For such as who might be curious or interested as what I said to him (be he two-headed or otherwise) just of late:
It was always his grand claim that doing the wrong thing procured for him wealth, power, money, prestige -- and all the privileges that do or might go along with those things that follow therefrom. Yet still he requires, after two decades or more, to torment, when not literally torture, us. Why? I will tell you. We reacted long ago to his way by sayng -- all right, if that's how it is, we, for our part, will just live wth our cats, books, and music; he, correspondingly, will have his heaven, sublime wisdom and foreknowledge, angels, grasp of all matters relgious, profound, and those presaging of things to come -- and girls -- so we should both be happy with that arrangement. Yet when lo and behold, when we are relatively happy and at peace in our otherwise (by them) beleagured and relative isolation -- much, much more so than he and all his putative heaven, etc., he then says: "No, ths will not do and does not serve our own best interest. Consequently, to rectify and redress this imbalance, while preservng face, we will torment you, etc. -- and no cats."
Naturally, I make it a regular point to remind him that I now nor ever had anything to do with him, and he is in my life simply as an Satanically empowered brigand, harasser, and parasite. Meantime, he continues to send exotic brids to his true believer devotees to validate his veraciy and trustworthiness with them. But he must know and be aware that not everybody is such a fool, and if he is so great, magniloquent, and deific, he needs to start making good with his bird-brain followers, and not continue to be leeching on and needng us. For after all, it is a fundamental trait of a god to be self-reliant; and look how you contradict yourself by being so reactant to, dependent on, and needing us. Make good with your own already, and thereby prove what you've claimed all along.
We noted some while back how several of the Church Fathers were rather hypocritical, and in some instances even scurrilous, in their denunciation of philosophy and the philosophers. In retrospect and on the surface, this hostility seems somewhat strange. Yet upon examination it is not hard to find some of the sources and reason for it, and of which can be listed the following.
1. Philosophy to a large extend and by that time (if not much earlier) had degenerated into an exercise of pedants as well as a haven for gluttons and hypocrites; indeed, much like what was to happen to the church and for which the church (or at least some churchmen) was blamed in later centuries.
2. Philosophy at that time had not taken fair reckoning of the role and importance of sentiment and value judgments in determinations of fact and truth, and which severely weakened all of its epistemologies.
3. Legitimate philosophers understandably looked askance and with suspicion on Christian mysticism; while some Christians were evidently too quick to reproach and then condemn such philosophers for such reasonable skepticism.
4. Philosophy was largely a Greek product, and some negative attitudes toward philosophy, particularly as such originated in the colonized Near East, might be construed and to some extent be seen as a revulsion against Greek, and in turn Roman imperial, culture.
Later. It is illuminatng and ironic to observe that the imperial Roman inquisitions of early Christians in a number of respects mirrored and foreshadowed those later medieval inquisitions that sought out “heretics.”
Strength through peace. Yet there is no true peace without giving due and free rein to honest, rational, and candid truth.
