Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts

Saturday 21 October 2023

True, Real, Actual.















The Science and 
Illuminating & Edifying 
Discoveries of Etymology :

Being a speaking of
The True,
The Real &
The Actual.




etymology (n.)
late 14c., ethimolegia "facts of the origin and development of a word," from Old French etimologie, ethimologie (14c., Modern French étymologie), from Latin etymologia, from Greek etymologia "analysis of a word to find its true origin," properly "study of the true sense (of a word)," with -logia "study of, a speaking of" (see -logy) + etymon "true sense, original meaning," neuter of etymos "true, real, actual," related to eteos "true," which perhaps is cognate with Sanskrit satyah, Gothic sunjis, Old English soð "true," from a PIE *set- "be stable." Latinized by Cicero as veriloquium.

In classical times, with reference to meanings; later, to histories. Classical etymologists, Christian and pagan, based their explanations on allegory and guesswork, lacking historical records as well as the scientific method to analyse them, and the discipline fell into disrepute that lasted a millennium. Flaubert ["Dictionary of Received Ideas"] wrote that the general view was that etymology was "the easiest thing in the world with the help of Latin and a little ingenuity."

As a modern branch of linguistic science treating of the origin and evolution of words, from 1640s. As "an account of the particular history of a word" from mid-15c. 

Related: Etymological; etymologically.

As practised by Socrates in the Cratylus, etymology involves a claim about the underlying semantic content of the name, what it really means or indicates. This content is taken to have been put there by the ancient namegivers: giving an etymology is thus a matter of unwrapping or decoding a name to find the message the namegivers have placed inside. 


Rachel Barney, 
"Socrates Agonistes: The Case of the Cratylus Etymologies,
in "Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy," vol. xvi, 1998

also from late 14c.
Origin and meaning of etymology
Entries linking to etymology

-logy 
word-forming element meaning "a speaking, discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science," from Greek -logia (often via French -logie or Medieval Latin -logia), from -log-, combining form of legein "to speak, tell;" thus, "the character or deportment of one who speaks or treats of (a certain subject);" from PIE root *leg- (1) "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to speak (to 'pick out words')." Often via Medieval Latin -logia, French -logie. In philology "love of learning; love of words or discourse," apology, doxology, analogy, trilogy, etc., Greek logos "word, speech, statement, discourse" is directly concerned.

etymological (adj.)
1590s; see etymology + -ical. Related: Etymologically.

etymologicon
etymologist
etymologize
etymon
folk-etymology
See all related words (7) >

Trends of etymology

Tuesday 10 January 2023

Thursday 10 November 2022

The Castle of Death



Sickness to The Brink of Death

Nixon (1995) HQ "Do you ever think of death, Dick?"



"Oliver Stone's talents as a Director may be erratic 
but they shine at full strength in the richness 
of this scene depicting an uneasy agreement 
between President Richard Nixon 
and CIA Director Richard Helms.

Stone's trademark of combining aesthetic precision 
with playful creativity gives this scene 
a spinning prism-like effect, 
flashing light into a myriad of 
shadowy and suggestive areas.

However the historical inaccuracy 
of Oliver Stone's works is often held up. 
My view is that watching a film 
is like experiencing another person's dream. 
A film cannot really re-create people or events. 
It is inherently too subjective.

Stone's "dreams" make me especially curious 
to know more about historical figures 
and events and in that sense 
I appreciate them. 
I do not watch them expecting to see "what really happened". 
Hopkins is a puppet, Stone a puppeteer 
creating questions and intrigue. 
Like them, we have to find Our Own Truth 
about Nixon and Helms..."


Wednesday 26 October 2022

No. Not Even THEY Want to Claim Nixon.


SCENE 4 

X-FILES OFFICE; 

FBI HEADQUARTERS 

WASHINGTON, D.C.


Mulder shows Scully a slide of Gary's back 

with the words clearly written on it.


" HE IS ONE "


MULDER: 

Gary Kane, 16 years old, High School Junior. 

"C" student, first-string varsity football, 

member of the local 4-H club. 


Not one of Wisconsin's more remarkable kids 

but still the apple of his mother's eye.


SCULLY: 

What does that mean?


MULDER: 

Nobody knows.


SCULLY: 

What does The Police report say?


Scully walks over to Mulder and sits on the desk next to him as he shows her the file.


MULDER: 

The victim received a phone call and left his home. 

He was discovered in the woods in his underwear twelve hours later. 

He's been unable to give a coherent statement.


SCULLY: 

Any evidence of sexual assault?


MULDER: 

No.


SCULLY: 

Does it seem like it might have been a schoolboy prank?


MULDER: 

The other victims have had to be sedated and hospitalized since their ordeals. 

They were reportedly hysterical with fear.


(He stands up.)


SCULLY: 

Victims? You mean there've been others?

(Mulder nods and switches the slide to another person with the same writing.)


MULDER: 

One in eastern Wisconsin, one three towns away.

(He flips to another slide, then another.)

Both with the same black words written in black magic marker.


SCULLY: 

What's your interest in this?


MULDER: 

The local sheriff in Delta Glen, Wisconsin thinks he knows what's been happening to these kids.


SCULLY: 

What's that?


MULDER: 

He thinks they've been possessed.




SCENE 5 

DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN

Mulder, Scully and Sheriff Mazeroski drive down a road in the sheriff's car. 

Mulder is in the back seat.)


MAZEROSKI: 

There's something I think you ought to see first. 

They call themselves the Church of the Red Museum. 

They're followers of a guy named Odin that moved out here from California three years ago and bought a ranch.


SCULLY: 

What's the significance of the name "Red Museum?"


MAZEROSKI: 

Well, Odin and the rest of them are a bunch of vegetarians. 

They drove the ranch right into the ground, 

turned 500 head of beef cattle into pets. 

Calls it a monument to barbarism.


MULDER: 

Probably went over big with the local ranchers.


(Mazeroski laughs.)


MAZEROSKI: 

Well, you gotta admit, it takes some big ones to set down in the middle of cow country and start a church like his.



SCENE 6 
CHURCH OF THE RED MUSEUM 
DELTA GLEN, WISCONSIN
They pull up to the church as three worshippers walk by and towards a barn. They are dressed in white except for a red turban. Mulder, Scully and Mazeroski get out of the car and watch them. Mulder takes out an umbrella and holds it over his and Scully's head.

MAZEROSKI: 
Kinda stick out like a sore thumb, don't they?

SCULLY: 
You know sheriff, from what little we've seen, what, what little you've told us, they seem rather unlikely to be involved in the kind of activities that you described.

MAZEROSKI: 
Well, I, I won't say another word. 
You can just see for yourself.

(They walk into the barn and stand in the back. In front of them is a whole congregation of fifty or so people, with a giant viewscreen in the front of the room. A man gets up onto the platform in front, puts his hand together and bows lightly.)

CONGREGATION: 
Ommm...

MAZEROSKI: 
That's Odin.

Odin sits down at a computer and starts typing rapidly. A woman in back of him reads off the screen into a microphone as the words come up on the screen in back of her.

WOMAN: 
Today is a blessing from our lord and master, who awaits his flock in this time, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. 
Eighteen earth years from the beginning of the new kingdom. 

The guides speak through me today as messengers of word that we may be free from death and the passage into spirit. 

As the acceleration continues, we, the enlightened, must bring our teachings of the skills for survival to mankind. 
Repeat in prayer...

MULDER: 
They're walk-ins.

SCULLY: 
What are walk-ins?

WOMAN: 
We, the second souls of the first bodies...

CONGREGATION: 
We, the second souls of the first bodies...

WOMAN: 
Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

MULDER: 
They're believers in soul transference
enlightened spirits who have taken possession of other peoples bodies.

CONGREGATION: 
Bearers of the word and keepers of the sacraments of a new enlightenment...

WOMAN: 
Blessed mission and toil.

CONGREGATION: 
Blessed mission and toil.

WOMAN: 
Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

CONGREGATION: 
Our struggle is transcendent, and your guidance, our guides...

Odin finishes typing and looks to the back of the room at the three visitors.

WOMAN: 
...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

CONGREGATION: 
...will carry us toward the dawning of a new age.

(Odin starts typing again.)

WOMAN: 
Today, we bear witness to three who do not believe.

The congregation, one by one, slowly turn and look back at the agents.
We encourage them to open their hearts and minds to our teachings that they who slaughter the flesh slaughter their own souls and must be taught the way.

Mulder looks at Mazeroski.



SCENE 7 
BETH KANE'S HOUSE
(Gary and Beth are sitting down. Mazeroski is as well, but Mulder and Scully are standing.)

GARY KANE: 
I only remember parts of it.

MULDER: 
Which parts are those?

GARY KANE: 
I was in the woods and... I felt... a spirit enter me.

(Mulder walks over and sits down next to him.)

MULDER: 
When you say spirit, Gary, 
I'm not sure what you mean.

GARY KANE: 
It... it might have been an animal spirit. 
I can't explain it. Something... just came over me.

MULDER: 
And you don't remember who called you?

(Gary shakes his head no. Scully, standing in the doorway, looks back down the hallway.)

Anything at all about what happened immediately after you left home that night?
(
Scully walks down the hallway, looking at various pictures.)
Have you ever had any dealings with anyone from the Church of the Red Museum?
GARY KANE: I've seen them around.
MULDER: Do you have any reason to believe that they may be involved with what happened to you?
(The pictures are of Beth, Gary, Stevie and the whole family.)
MAZEROSKI: Now tell him what you told me, Gary.
(Gary talks in the background. Stevie walks up to Scully.)
SCULLY: Hi.
STEVIE KANE: Hi.
SCULLY: Who are you?
STEVIE KANE: Stevie.
SCULLY: Oh, you're in all the pictures. You must be Gary's younger brother.
(Stevie nods.)
I'm Dana. Stevie... do you remember who your brother might have gone out to see the other night?
(Stevie shakes his head "no.")
Did he say anything?

Through the peephole in the bathroom mirror, the man watches Scully. 
Scully hears footsteps in that direction and looks towards the mirror, but does not see anything. 
The man is gone from behind it. 
Mulder walks up to Scully.

MULDER: 
Scully, we'll meet you outside.

He and Mazeroski leave. Scully turns back to Stevie.

SCULLY: 
Well, thank you for your time.

Mulder and Mazeroski start down the front steps.

MULDER: 
Has this boy ever been in any trouble?

MAZEROSKI: 
Gary?

MULDER: 
Yeah.

MAZEROSKI: 
No, I've known him since he was a kid. Same age as my son. 
Now, he's done some beer drinking, but he's just your basic sixteen-year-old. Least he was.

MULDER: 
You see a noticeable difference in him?

MAZEROSKI: 
Yeah, yeah. Gary Kane lived for football. He's a damn good athlete too. Now he won't even suit up.

MULDER: 
The Red Museum... 
how are they treated by the local citizens?

Scully walks over.

MAZEROSKI: 
Nobody much cares for them.

MULDER:
Well, are they ever singled out? 
Shop owners refusing to sell to them, stuff like that?

MAZEROSKI: 
Well, there's a reasonable amount of tension 
but most folks are happy to just try to avoid them.

MULDER: 
Uh, can you recommend a good motel in the area?

MAZEROSKI: 
Sure. That means you're going to stay on for a bit. 
You think there might be something to this?

MULDER: 
Well, I, I want to run a background check 
on the church and this guy

MAZEROSKI: 
You've come to the right place for that.



SCENE 8 
CLAY'S BBQ
Scully sits with plates upon plates of food in front of her. 
She has a bib with the store logo on it, and it is covered with sauce. 
She finishes off a rib and puts down the bone, leaving some more sauce on her cheek by her lip. 
Mulder is sitting across from her with a bib on as well.

SCULLY: 
You know, Mulder... ribs like these, 
I'd say the Church of the Red Museum 
has its work cut out for it.

He wipes off the sauce on her face.

Thanks.
So, you started to tell me about walk-ins 
but I'm not sure if I grasped the finer points.

MULDER: 
Well, it, it's kind of a new age religion based on an old idea. 

That if you, uh, 
lose hope or despair 
and 
want to leave this mortal coil
you become 
open and vulnerable.

SCULLY: 
To inhabitation by a new spirit.

MULDER: 
A new enlightened spirit. 

According to the literature, 
Abe Lincoln was a walk-in. 

And Mikhail Gorbachev 
and Charles Colson
Nixon's advisor.

SCULLY: 
But not Nixon?

MULDER: 
No. Not even they want to claim Nixon.

I Do.


Wednesday 28 September 2022

Fat Old Sun












"Kirby could throw away in one single panel a high concept that would keep others busy for years : Crippled Vietnam War veteran Willie Walker became the vessel for The New God of Death — a black man in full armor hurtling through walls and space on skis. The Black Racer was a twist on Kirby’s original idea for the Silver Surfer, here as an angel of Death, not Life. The Mother Box, a living, emotionally nurturing, personal computer was the fusion of soul and machine carried by all the inhabitants of New Genesis. Metron the amoral science god with his dimension-traveling Mobius chair. The Source was for Kirby the ultimate ground of being, like the Ain Soph Aur of Judaic mysticism, beyond gods, beyond all divisions and definitions. Genetic manipulation, media control, the roots of Fascism — Kirby was on fire and had something new to say about everything under the sun.

  The Fourth World cycle was to be a great interlocking mechanism of books combining to form a complete modern myth, while, as an afterthought, re-creating the very idea of the superhero from the ground up and infusing it with Divinity. It might have run for five more years.

  But then The Fourth World spun off its axis. Carmine Infantino, promoted to DC’s vice president, allegedly looked at sales figures and canceled the books, which were doing well enough but not as well as had been hoped based on Kirby’s name. The King was hit hard, and The World lost the conclusion to a Great Work. He went on to create more titles, of course. Hundreds more original, quirky stories burst from that relentless mind, but the great mythographer had been thwarted in the midst of his masterpiece, brought down by dark forces and jealous gods. Kirby’s personal vision, his avalanche of novelty and energy, was too new for a culture in retreat, looking back to the fifties, dreaming of sock hops and ponytails, in the happy days before ’Nam and Richard Nixon.

  When Kirby returned in 1985, older and more wary, to complete his story, he was given only sixty pages to wrap up a saga that warranted thousands more. Imagine God halfway through Exodus having to hurry it up. The Hunger Dogs showed the passage of time and the footprints left by the relentless march of cynicism. Still The King delivered. As a dreadful elegy for the hopes of the baby boomers and the stark truth of their lives—growing older, facing Reagan and Thatcher — The Hunger Dogs, Kirby’s completion of The Story, was bleak, unforgettable, and in many ways the only perfect end to The Fourth World saga.

  But by the time it was released, Kirby’s hand-to-eye coordination had deteriorated significantly, making some pages appear ugly and rough-hewn. A more generous approach might imagine the artist embracing a new primitivism, a shorthand in which scale and perspective played second fiddle to the immediate expression of the ideas. But too many of the drawings were doodles that told the story with the barest minimum of effort. And his audience had flown. Fashion had passed him by. He was “Jack the Hack” now, an old man mocked and derided by the same people who had hailed his genius twenty years earlier and would again ten years later.

  The Epic had stalled and, like the great Aquarian youth revolution that had inspired so much of it, unraveled into world-weary cynicism. The Forever People had all grown up, gone bald, got jobs, and given up the struggle for a future among the stars. But Kirby had one final trick, one last visionary warning to leave his readers : A new superhero saga that would jump so far into The Future that it’s still reverberating and is more relevant today than it was when it was published to little acclaim in 1974...."

Saturday 6 November 2021

Whatever You Believe Imprisons You.





Jim Garrison and the Illuminati 

Discordianism is in direct contradiction of the monotheory- mono theist foundations of Western religion, Western logic and Western law, all of which assume that there is one correct model that is true in all cases. People who are religious in the dogmatic Judaeo-Christian sense, logicians who haven't gotten to Godel's Proof yet, and lawyers of all sorts are the last persons on Earth to be able to appreciate the Discordian philosophy. 

Nonetheless, in a totally Quixotic way, Kerry Thornley, dragging his Discordian history behind him, insisted on getting himself involved in the Kennedy Assassination Mania of the '60s, and went straight to a lawyer — New Orleans D.A. Jim "The Jolly Green Giant" Garrison. He might as well have gone to a Thomist theologian. 

Kerry decided in 1967, after reading Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment and a few other of the Kennedy assassination books, that perhaps his old friend Lee Harvey Oswald hadn't killed the President after all; maybe there really was a conspiracy. Kerry naively went back to New Orleans and had several long talks with District Attorney Garrison, who had opened a new investigation which seemed to be uncovering such a conspiracy. 

Thornley and Jim Garrison did not make a good team together, to put it mildly. In fact, at their last interview, each told the other to go to hell. Discordianism and law do not mix. Kerry left New Orleans and angrily informed all his friends and correspondents that Garrison was an unscrupulous demagogue who was organizing a witch-hunt to excite the gullible and advance his own political career. Garrison's aides struck back with a series of ridiculous charges against Thornley. 

Naturally, I got drawn into the controversy. 

That was when I really began to understand how arbitrary are the reality-constructs of the average human nervous system. The establishment press was 100% anti-Garrison and denied all of his charges. The underground press was 100% pro-Garrison and supported all of his charges. In Leary's language, all the signals that could be organized into a "good" Garrison Gestalt were transmitted freely and omnidirectionally in the underground press game, while all signals suggestive of a "bad" Garrison, or inconsistent with a "good" Garrison, were smoothly, efficiently reserved for the Establishment press game. 

"My God," the Libertarian said to himself one day in early 1968, when this had become clear, "the left wing is as robotic as the right wing." (We apologize for our naivete in taking until 1968 to figure that out.) 

It certainly illustrated the first law of Discordianism: "Convictions cause convicts." Whatever you believe imprisons you. 

Thornley, as I had gotten to know him through the mails and then through visits, was a humorous, agnostic, libertarian person who was dogmatic about only two things: anarchism and pacifism. It was against his personal ethic to destroy life in any form. It was impossible for one to consider him seriously as a participant in a conspiracy to murder anybody. 

And yet, in the underground press, Thornley and the other Garrison suspects were pictured as a weird gang of homosexual Satanic C.I.A. Nazi fanatics. It was the McCarthyism of the '50s all over again, coming from the left this time. 

("There seem to be a lot of different realities going around these days," Abbie Hoffman said during the Democratic Convention horrors of 1968; that may well be the only intelligent thing he ever said.) 

From that time to this the Skeptic has made it a point to read one or two periodicals every month put out by some political or religious group he despises, just to see what sort of signals are being screened out by his habitual reality-maps. It is most educational. 

(Aleister Crowley and Bertrand Russell, respectively the outstanding mystic and the outstanding rationalist of the 20th Century, have also recommended this practice. It is one of the best ways to discover how Nasrudin's donkey—the self-metaprogrammer—works.) 


Meanwhile, Thornley discovered that Allan Chapman, of Texas, one of Garrison's aides, believed the JFK assassination was the work of the Bavarian Illuminati. Of course, I had been an expert on that subject (I thought) for a number of years, and Garrison's involvement in it encouraged me to enter the belief system that Garrison was a paranoid or a demagogue or both. There simply were no real Illuminati; it was all a rightwing fantasy-a sanitized version of the tired old Elders-of- Zion mythology. Although the underground press was absolutely fundamentalist in its allegiance to the Garrison Revelations, it was also intensely gullible and eager to believe all manner of additional conspiracy theories, the weirder the better. Most Discord ians, at this time, were contributors to underground newspapers all over the country. We began surfacing the Discordian Society, issuing position papers offering non-violent anarchist techniques to mutate our robot-society. One was our "PURSE" plan (Permanent Universal Rent Strike Exchange) in which everybody simply stops paying rent forever. (Can they dispossess us all into the Atlantic and Pacific?) Another was our "PUTZ" plan (Permanent Universal Tax Zap), in which everybody stops paying taxes. Along with this we planted numerous stories about the Discordian Society's aeon-old war against the sinister Illuminati. We accused everybody of being in the Illuminati— Nixon, Johnson, William Buckley, Jr., ourselves, Martian invaders, all the conspiracy buffs, everybody. We did not regard this as a hoax or prank in the ordinary sense. We still considered it guerrilla ontology. My personal attitude was that if the New Left wanted to live in the particular tunnel-reality of the hard-core paranoid, they had an absolute right to that neurological choice. I saw Discordianism as the Cosmic Giggle Factor, introducing so many alternative paranoias that everybody could pick a favorite, if they were inclined that way. I also hoped that some less gullible souls, overwhelmed by this embarrassment of riches, might see through the whole paranoia game and decide to mutate to a wider, funnier, more hopeful reality-map. The distinguished poet Ed Sanders, author of Fuck God Up The Ass and other immortal works, once sent me an urgent message, warning, "There's nothing funny about the Illuminati. They're real!" I laughed immoderately, as the Fool always does before the doors of Chapel Perilous swing shut behind him. The Discordian revelations seem to have pressed a magick button. New exposes of the Illuminati began to appear everywhere, in journals ranging from the extreme Right to the ultra-Left. Some of this was definitely not coming from us Discordians. In fact, one article in the Los Angeles Free Press in 1969 consisted of a taped interview with a black phone-caller who claimed to represent the "Black Mass," an Afro-Discordian conspiracy we had never heard of. He took credit, on behalf of the Black Mass and the Discordians, for all the bombings elsewhere attributed to the Weather Underground. 

Other articles claimed the Illuminati definitely were a Jesuit conspiracy, a Zionist conspiracy, a bankers' conspiracy, etc., and accused such worthies as FDR, J. Edgar Hoover, Lenin, Aleister Crowley, Jefferson and even Charlemagne of being members of it, whatever it was. All this inspired Bob Shea and me to start work on the gigantic novel which finally emerged as the Illuminatus trilogy. We made The Discordians The Good Guys and The Illuminati The Bad Guys in an epic of convoluted treachery that satirized all conspiracy theories of Left and Right. 

A good omen early in the writing cheered us vastly. A search through the Discordian Archives revealed that the earliest of Discordian holy books—How the West Was Lost, by Maladypse the Younger (Greg Hill)—was originally printed, after office hours, on the Xerox machine of D.A. Jim Garrison, in summer 1963. (Greg's girlfriend was Garrison's secretary.) That would be about the time when Oswald was ordering the Carcano rifle and I was having my experience with the green man in the cornfield, and by this time we were all too sophisticated to dismiss such a pattern as "mere coincidence." Synchronicity, by Goddess, was afoot. . . and the weirdness was increasing. For instance, we Discordians had a mystic sign, like the Masons and everybody else. Ours was blandly lifted from good old Tory warmonger Winston Churchill; it was the V-for-Victory Winnie had used all through World War II. Of course, to us, it had special Discordian meanings: theV, being the Roman numeral for 5, illustrated the Law of Fives. The way the sign is made, with 2 fingers up and 3 bent down, exemplifies the hidden 23 within the Law of Fives. The fact that this sign is also used by Catholic priests in blessing and by Satanists in invoking the devil illustrates the essential ambiguity of all symbolism, or the Cosmic Giggle Factor. Between the first edition of the Principia Discordia, run off on Jim Garrison's Xerox machine in 1963, and the fourth edition, published by Rip-Off Press in Berkeley in 1969, only 3,125 copies of that basic Discordian text were ever distributed. Nonetheless, the V sign, somehow, got accepted by the whole counter-culture, especially circa 1966-70. One saw hundreds of thousands of protesters using it at the Pentagon demonstration in October 1967 and again at the Democratic convention of 1968. The odd part was that virtually nobody using it was aware that we Discordians had revived i t . . . The Pentagon itself, of course, is a sacred Discordian shrine, both because it is five-sided* and because the Byzantine bureaucracy there enshrined illustrates so wonderfully the basic Discordian sociological law enunciated by Kerry Thornley in The Gospel According to Fred: "Imposition of Order = Escalation of Chaos." I attended the Pentagon protest in October 1967—where the Yippies attempted to expel the Demon, Yog-Sothoth, by chanting, "Out, demon, out!" -and all of it, especially the V signs, seemed as if the Discordian version of surrealism was becoming a new political reality. The next year the Yippies ran a pig for President. A psychologist named Richard Ryan, in New Jersey, read some of the Discordian literature and wrote to tell me another 23 mindfuck. Ryan had overheard a psychiatrist, in a mental hospital where they both worked, giving a royal asschewing to a nurse who'd made a mistake. "When I say 23 c c , " the psychiatrist had shouted, "I want 23 cc.-not 24 cc." Ryan heard this on his way to visit a ward with chronic schizophrenics. When he entered the ward, one of the schizzies said to him, in a tone of anxiety, "Yes, yes, 23 cc."

Saturday 15 May 2021

Card Games






Morgan Le Faye:
I could always beat you at Chess, Merlyn....

Time's Champion,
The Artist Yet-to-be Known as Merlyn:
Who said anything about Chess....?

I'm playing Poker...!

And I've got an Ace! up my sleeve...!!




Lt.Gen Cushman,
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence :
He's Nervous, sir...
He's heard you're looking for a new Director.
 
 DICK Nixon :
He sure'n isn't acting like it.
 
 

Lt.Gen Cushman,
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence :
That's Helms -- The Epitome of Cool.
He's a World Class Poker Player, sir.
 
 
 DICK Nixon :
Yeah? Well, I own the fuckin' Cassino.

Wednesday 9 December 2020

Nixon Extempore




"That's what I love about Illusions; they're right up there in front of you but somehow you don't see them... until suddenly you do."



 " And as I advise parents to think nothing more important than The Education of their children, so I maintain that it must be a sound and healthy education, and that 
Our Sons must be kept as far 
as possible from vulgar twaddle

For what pleases The Vulgar 
displeases The Wise. 

I am borne out by the lines of Euripides, 
"Unskilled am I in the oratory that pleases The Mob; but amongst the few that are my equals I am reckoned rather wise. 

For those who are little thought of by The Wise, seem to hit the taste of The Vulgar."

And I have myself noticed that those who practise to Speak Acceptably and to the gratification of The Masses promiscuously, for the most part become also profligate and lovers of pleasure in their lives.

Naturally enough.

For if in giving pleasure to others they neglect The Noble, they would be hardly likely to put the lofty and sound above a life of luxury and pleasure, and to prefer moderation to delights. 

Yet what better advice could we give our sons than to follow this? or to what could we better exhort them to accustom themselves? 

For Perfection is only attained by neither speaking nor acting at random—as the proverb says, 
Perfection is only attained by practice.


Whereas extempore oratory is easy and facile, mere windbag, having neither beginning nor end. 
And besides their other shortcomings extempore speakers fall into great disproportion and repetition, whereas a well considered speech preserves its due proportions. 

It is recorded by Tradition that Pericles, when called on by the people for A Speech, frequently refused on the plea that he was unprepared

Similarly Demosthenes, his state-rival, when the Athenians called upon him for his advice, refused to give it, saying, 

"I am not prepared." 

But this you will say, perhaps, is mere Tradition without Authority

But in his speech against Midias he plainly sets forth the utility of preparation, for he says, 
"I do not deny, men of Athens, that I have prepared this speech to the best of my ability: for I should have been a poor creature if, after suffering so much at his hands, and even still suffering, I had neglected how to plead my case."

Not that I would altogether reject extempore oratory, or its use in critical cases, but it should be used only as one would take medicine.

Up, indeed, to Man's Estate 
I would have no extempore speaking, 
but when anyone's Powers of Speech are rooted and grounded, then, as emergencies call for it, I would allow his words to flow freely. 

For as those who have been for a long time in fetters stumble if unloosed, not being able to walk from being long used to their fetters, so those who for a long time have used compression in their words, if they are suddenly called upon to Speak off-hand, retain the same character of expression. 

But to let mere lads speak extempore is to give rise to the acme of Foolish Talk. 

A wretched painter once showed Apelles, they say, A Picture, and said, 
"I have just done it." 

Apelles replied, 
"Without your telling me, I should know it was painted quickly; I only wonder you haven't painted more such in the time." 

As then (for I now return from my digression), I advise to avoid stilted and bombastic language, so again do I urge to avoid a finical and petty style of speech; for tall talk is unpopular, and petty language makes no impression. 

And as The Body ought to be not only sound but in good condition, so Speech ought to be not only not feeble but vigorous

For a safe mediocrity is indeed praised, but a bold venturesomeness is also admired. 

I am also of the same opinion with regard to the disposition of the soul, which ought to be neither audacious nor timid and easily dejected: for the one ends in impudence and the other in servility; but to keep in all things the mean between extremes is artistic and proper. 

And, while I am still on this topic, I wish to give my opinion, that I regard a monotonous speech first as no small proof of want of taste, next as likely to generate disdain, and certain not to please long. 

For to harp on one string is always tiresome and brings satiety; whereas variety is pleasant always whether to the ear or eye. "

-- Plutarch, 
Moralia, On Education


Richard Nixon Delivers His Farewell Address to Administration Staffers

Members of the Cabinet, members of the White House staff, all of our friends here. I think the record should show that this is one of those spontaneous things that we always arrange whenever the President comes in to speak. And it will be so reported in the press and we don't mind because they've got to call it as they see it.

But in our part, believe me, it spontaneous. 
You are here to say goodbye to us. 
And we don't have a good word for it in English. 
The best is au revoir
We'll see you again.

I just met with the members of the White House staff, you know, those that serve here in the White House, day in and day out, and I asked them to do what I asked all of you to do to the extent that you can and are, of course, are requested to do so, to serve our next President as you have served me and previous Presidents because many of you have been here for many years with devotion and dedication because this office—as great as it is—can only be as great as the men and women who work for and with The President.

This House, for example, I was thinking of it as we walked down this hall and I was comparing it to some of The Great Houses of The World that I've been in.

This isn't The Biggest House. 
Many and most in even smaller countries are much bigger.

This isn't the Finest House. 
Many in Europe, particularly in China, Asia, have paintings of great, great value, things that we just don't have here and probably will never have until we are a thousand years old or older.

But this is The Best House. 
It's The Best House because it has something more important than numbers of people who serve, far more important than numbers of rooms or how big it is, far more important than numbers of magnificent pieces of art.

I was rather sorry they didn't come down. We said good‐by to them upstairs. But they're really great. And I recall after so many times I've made speeches — some of them pretty tough — you'll always come back or after hard day — and my days usually have run rather long — I'd always get a lift from them because I might be a little down, but they always smiled.

And so it is with you. I look around here and I see so many of this staff that, you know, I should have been by your offices and shaking hands and I'd love to have talked to you and found out how to run the world. Everybody wants to tell The President What To Do.
And boy he needs to be told many times. 
But I just haven't had the time.

But I want to know—I want you to know that each and every one of you, I know, is indispensable to this Government.

I'm proud of this Cabinet. I'm proud of our — all the members who have served in our Cabinet. I'm proud of our sub‐Cabinet, I'm proud of our White House staff.

As I pointed out last night, I'm sure we've done some things wrong in this Administration. And the top man always takes the responsibility and I've never ducked it. But I want to say one thing. We can be proud of you—five and a half years. No man or no woman came into this Administration and left it with more of this world's goods than when he came in. No man or no woman ever profited at the public expense or the public till.

That tells something about you. 
Mistakes yes, but for personal gain, never
You did what you believed in, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, and I only wish that I were a wealthy man. 
At the present time I've got to find a way to pay my taxes. 
(laughter)
And if I were, I'd like to recompense you for the sacrifices that all of you have made to serve in Government.

But you are getting something in government. And I want you to tell this to your children and I hope the nation's children will hear it too. Something in government service that is far more important than money.

It's a cause bigger than yourself. It's the cause of making this the greatest nation in the world, the leader of the world, because without our leadership the world will know nothing but war, possibly starvation or worse in the years ahead.

Strength From Sacrifice

With our leadership, it will know peace, it will know plenty. We have been generous and we will be more generous in the future as were able to. But most important, we must be strong here, strong in our hearts, strong in our souls, strong in our belief and strong in our willingness to sacrifice as you have been willing to sacrifice in a pecuniary way, to serve in government.

There's something else I'd like for you to tell your young people. You know, people often come in and say, what'll I tell my kids. You know, they look at government. It's sort of a rugged life and they see the mistakes that are made. They get the impression that everybody is here for the purpose of feathering his nest. That's why I made this earlier point. Not in this Administration. Not one single man or woman.

And I say to them there are many fine careers. This country needs good farmers, good businessmen, good plumbers, good carpenters. I remember My Old Man. I think that they would have called him sort of a — sort of a little man, common man. He didn't consider himself that way. You know what he was?

He was streetcar motorman first and then he was a farmer and then he had a lemon ranch — it was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you —he sold it before they found oil on it. 
And then he was a grocer. 
But He was a Great Man because he Did His Job and every job counts up to the hilt regardless of What Happens.

Nobody will ever write a book probably about My Mother. 
Well, I guess all of you would say this about Your Mother. 
My Mother was A Saint. 
And I think of her — two boys dying of tuberculosis — nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona and seeing each of them die and when they died it was like one of her own.

Yes, she will have no books written about her. 
But She Was A Saint.

On Looking Ahead

Now, however, we look to The Future.

Had a little quote in the speech last night from T.R. 
As you know, I kind of like to read books. 
I'm not educated, but I do read books. 
And the T.R. quote was a pretty good one.

There's another one I found as I was reading my last night in the White House. And this quote is about a Young Man. He was a young lawyer in New York. He'd married a beautiful girl. And they had a lovely daughter. And then suddenly she died and this is what he wrote. This was in his diary. He said:

She was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. As a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine. There had never come to her a single great sorrow. None ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright and sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness.

“Fair, pure and joyous to the maiden. Loving, tender and happy as a young wife when she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun and then the years seemed so bright before her. Then by a strange and terrible, fate, death came to her.

“And when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever.”

That was T.R. in his twenties. He thought The Light had gone from his life forever but he went on. And he not only became President but as an ex‐President, he served his country always in the arena, tempestuous, strong, sometimes wrong, sometimes right. But he was A Man. And as I leave let me say that's an example I think all of us should remember.

We think sometimes when things happen that don't go the right way, we think that when you don't pass the bar exam the first time—I happened to but I was lucky. I mean my writing was so poor the bar examiner said we just gotta let the guy through.

We think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all has ended. We think, as T.R. said, that The Light had left his forever. Not True. It's only A Beginning always.

The Young must know it. The Old must know it. It must always sustain us because The Greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but The Greatness comes and you're really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness conies because only if you've been in The Deepest Valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on The Highest Mountain.

And so I say to you on this occasion we leave, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us and worked for us and served this country.

We want you to be proud of what you've done. We want you to continue to serve in government if that is your wish. Always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember others may hate you but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them. And then you destroy yourself.

And so we leave with high hopes, in good spirits and with deep humility and with very much gratefulness in our hearts.

I can only say to each and every one of you, we come from many faiths. We pray, perhaps, to different gods, but really the same God in a sense. But I'll have to say for each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, not only will we always be grateful to you, but always you will be in our hearts and you will be in our prayers.

Thank you very much.