Peter Barry Lawrence . . . . made his getaway in his wheelchair, with $2,000 in cash on his lap. He was headed back to his rented room at the nearby San Diego Downtown Lodge . . . police caught up with him five minutes later.
. . . . But that was all part of the plan.
The way Lawrence tells it, Monday’s robbery of a Chase Bank was just a desperate ploy to get back behind bars, where he believes he will receive better medical care than he has been able to obtain on his own.
I suppose some will respond that we need to stop coddling prisoners.
The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future.
The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”
“The cool thing is, you can actually predict the curve, in many cases,” says company CEO Christopher Ahlberg, a former Swedish Army Ranger with a PhD in computer science.
* * * * *
“We’re right there as it happens,” Ahlberg told [Wired,] as he clicked through a demonstration. “We can assemble actual real-time dossiers on people.”
This is particularly disturbing if you've kept up with this.
What I learned from the army about language and dehumanization
It's hard to get people to shoot other people when they aren't in imminent danger. People have the unfortunate habit of seeing other people as fellow humans. They hesitate, they start questioning the ethics of what they are doing. It eats them up and ruins them for battle.
We do two things in basic training to compensate for that. We work on instincts, training people to shoot faster and view their targets as a video game or a measure of our own skill, rather than personalizing them. Silhouettes pop up and down so fast, and they look like people but they are paper with aiming circles printed on them. We start categorizing our targets as not fully human. Colonel Grossman is somewhat of an expert on that [http://www.killology.com].
The other thing we do in basic, in military culture in general, but it's very specifically started in basic training, is we use language to normalize the dehumanization of others and assert our own supremacy. We use slurs against whoever is the enemy de jour, and we do this because normalizing their characterization as lesser than fully human, based on their group identity, is an important step in making violence against them more acceptable.
Haji, the word when it's owned by the people who truly own it, it's nothing offensive. It's people on a pilgrimage. But we use it in the army do identify them as The Other. Commanders understand the importance of Othering the enemy. When Mattis said "It's fun to shoot some people," that wasn't an accident. It's part of normalizing the enjoyment of violence because the people committing that violence need to believe it's normal, in order to stay sane while doing it.
He went on to add: “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” Mattis said. “You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”
That's a great statement if you know your men are going to be killing Afghan civilians in the course of their normal business. It uses language to mark them as different because they are muslim, and it marks them as Lesser Than Real Men. They don't have any manhood, so they are lesser than fully human, in the default (male) sense.
It's genius, really, because he can claim it's about defending women even as he's upholding and appealing to male supremacy.
And it's genius because it shows he understands dehumanizing language as a sort of gateway drug to violence without remorse.
(Dallas), Sat., Aug. 7. The second exhibition organized by artist Mary Benedicto under the "X20+" rubric. I'll be presenting a recent video/interactive piece, probably some time after 8:30PM. (The piece at right is not mine, but I like it -- ripped it off the invite; not certain whose it is.)
"I refuse to acknowledge this as anything like an accident. I think that this is the result of gross negligence. Not just B.P. B.P. operated very sloppily and very recklessly because they could. And they were allowed to do so because of the absolute failure of oversight of the government that's supposed to be our government, protecting us. It turns out that -- you see this sign on almost every commercial vessel in the United States -- you know, if you spilled a couple of gallons of oil, you would be in big trouble. And you have to really wonder who are the laws made for, and who has gotten above the laws. Now there are things that we can do in the future. We could have the kinds of equipment that we would really need. It would not take an awful lot to anticipate that after making 30,000 holes in the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico looking for oil, oil might start coming out of one of them. And you'd have some idea of what to do. . . .
"But I think we have to understand where this leak really started from. It really started from the destruction of the idea that the government is there because it's our government, meant to protect the larger public interest. So I think that the oil blowout, the bank bailout, the mortgage crisis and all these things are absolutely symptoms of the same cause. We still seem to understand that at least we need the police to protect us from a few bad people. And even though the police can be a little annoying at times -- giving us tickets and stuff like that -- nobody says that we should just get rid of them. But in the entire rest of government right now and for the last at least 30 years, there has been a culture of deregulation that is caused directly by the people who we need to be protected from, buying the government out from under us.
"Now this has been a problem for a very, very long time. You can see that corporations were illegal at the founding of America. And even Thomas Jefferson complained that they were already bidding defiance to the laws of our country. Okay, people who say they're conservative, if they really wanted to be really conservative and really patriotic, they would tell these corporations to go to hell. That's what it would really mean to be conservative. So what we really need to do is regain the idea that it's our government safeguarding our interests and regain a sense of unity and common cause in our country that really has been lost. I think there are signs of hope."
Below is an interview of Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, from shortly before Wikileaks' recent publication of "secret" US military docs re- Afgahanistan. First, a condensed version of a few of the speakers' remarks:
JA: . . . . So information that organizations are spending economic effort into concealing, that's a really good signal that when the information gets out, there's a hope of it doing some good. Because the organizations that know it best, that know it from the inside out, are spending work to conceal it. And that's what we've found in practice. And that's what the history of journalism is.
[Interviewer]: But are there risks with that, either to the individuals concerned or indeed to society at large, where leaking can actually have an unintended consequence?
JA: Not that we have seen with anything we have released. I mean, we have a harm immunization policy. We have a way of dealing with information that has sort of personal -- personally identifying information in it. But there are legitimate secrets -- you know, your records with your doctor; that's a legitimate secret. But we deal with whistleblowers that are coming forward that are really sort of well-motivated.
[Interviewer]: So they are well-motivated. And what would you say to, for example, the, you know, the parent of someone -- whose son is out serving the U.S. military, and he says, "You know what, you've put up something that someone had an incentive to put out. It shows a U.S. soldier laughing at people dying. That gives the impression -- has given the impression to millions of people around the world that U.S. soldiers are inhuman people. Actually, they're not. My son isn't. How dare you?" What would you say to that?
JA: Yeah, we do get a lot of that. But remember, the people in Baghdad, the people in Iraq, the people in Afghanistan -- they don't need to see the video; they see it every day. So it's not going to change their opinion. It's not going to change their perception. That's what they see every day. It will change the perception and opinion of the people who are paying for it all. And that's our hope.
* * * * *
[Assange's "core values":] . . . well, capable, generous men do not create victims; they nurture victims.
UPDATE: I don't quite get how the secret US docs re- Afghanistan recently released by Wikileaks tell us nothing that wasn't already a matter of public knowledge, AND at the same time, the release was an irresponsible act likely to endanger hundreds of lives.
Got a gig to review the L. Gaga concert in Dallas. I'll probably also do a post on it/her; but 'til then, here are some vizis. (Sorry for the audio distortion; it was v. loud.)
One of her more interesting statements was along the lines of,
There's something heroic about the way my fans operate their cameras. So precisely, so intricately, and so proudly. Like Kings writing the history of their people. Its their prolific nature that both creates and procures what will later be perceived as the "kingdom." So, the real truth about Lady Gaga fans, my little monsters, lies in this sentiment: They are the kings. They are the queens. They write the history of the kingdom, and I am something of a devoted Jester. It is in the theory of perception that we have established our bond. Or, the lie, I should say, for which we kill. We are nothing without our image. Without our projection. Without the spiritual hologram of who we perceive ourselves to be, or to become rather, in the future.
When you're lonely, I'll be lonely too. And this is The Fame.
This statement raises lots of interesting issues for the "reality-based community." For now, here's hoping she acts further to preserve our alleged kingship, which is now threatened by opponents of net neutrality, among other things.
As usual, short of hoofing it to multiple venues in NY and LA, this will probably be your best if not only chance to see these exciting new works. Here are the details:
THURS. 7/22, 7:30PM, Dallas Museum of Art, Horchow Auditorium Brent Green's feature film premieres, Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then (some of you may recall Green's Hadecol Christmas, shown at the 2007 Dallas Video Festival). "The film, which belongs firmly to the American Eccentric School, tells the true story of Leonard Wood, a hardware store clerk in Kentucky who built a crazy-quilt house in the 1970s as a healing machine for his wife, Mary, hoping to save her from cancer. . . . [Green] shot Gravity in stop-motion animation – much of it in his backyard, where he rebuilt Leonard’s house – giving [the film] a dreamlike quality that carries over to the narrative." Q&A with the artist via iChat after the screening; one night only.
SAT., 7/31, 6 - 8:30PM, Conduit Gallery An exhibition of installations curated by Charles Dee Mitchell opens, featuring work by David Askevold, Jon Gitelson, Matthew Day Jackson, Luke Murphy, Jason Rhoades, Erin Shirreff, and Bill Viola. This exhibition runs through August 28.
SAT., 8/4, 7:30PM, Angelika Dallas Dallas premiere of Rape of the Sabine Women by Eve Sussman & the Rufus Corporation. Presented by Creative Time at the 2007 Armory Show; shot with a cast of hundreds in Greece and Germany and scored by Jonathan Bepler (Matthew Barney's collaborator). The piece is "a re-interpretation of the Roman myth, updated and set in the idealistic 1960's." One night only; made possible by a donation from Karen Weiner.
SAT., 8/7, 7 - 8:30PM, Conduit Gallery A program of shorts curated by Bart Weiss: New York Night Scenes by Jem Cohen, Second Nature by Guy Ben-Ner, Vienna In The Desert by Wago Kreider (of The Yes Men), Below Sea Level by Pawel Wojtasik, Happy Am I by Erin Cosgrove, In G.O.D. We Trust by Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Afterimage: A Flicker of Life by Kerry Laitala, and My Voice Would Reach You by Meiro Koizumi. (Some of you may recall other works by Cohen, Ben-Ner, Hung, or Koizumi screened at the first The Program or the Dallas Video Festival.) One night only.
WED., 8/18, 7:30PM, Angelika Dallas Double Take by Johan Grimonprez. Described by the NYT as "the most intellectually agile of this year's films"; it also made John Waters' Top Ten list in Artforum. One night only; made possible by support from Half Price Books, Records, and Magazines.
I've been really excited to see all the Second Program events; but this week I got asked to review Lady GaGa's concert tomorrow night, so unfortunately, I'll have to miss the first screening. (Not that I'm trying to be a music reviewer; but I can't resist this chance to see GaGa live and maybe meet her.)
But I hope to see you at all the other Second Program events!
. . . that should have appeared prominently in your local corporate media, but mostly didn't:
Republicans Confirm: $30 Billion for Unemployed Would Bankrupt Us, but We Should Extend $600 Billion in Tax Cuts for the Rich (Paul Krugman, "Redo that VooDoo," NYT).
It's All About the Wages: Economy Would be Fine if Everyone Made Their Fair Share (Robert Reich, Alternet). See also 22 Statistics that Prove the U.S. Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out (Business Insider).
Corporate Media Abet Banksters' Lie that Corporate Communisim Is Working ("Lies Divide, Truth Unites," Dylan Ratigan, The Big Picture).
Goldman Gets Off with Fine Worth One Week of Its Trading Income and a Small Fraction of the $16 Billion It Paid in Bonuses Last Year ("Wall Street: The Banks Are Still the Boss," The Guardian).
Unequivocal, Real-time Evidence of Illegal Stock Market Manipulation (Karl Denninger, Market Ticker, starting about half-way into the video).
The New Finance Bill: A Mountain of Legislative Paper, a Molehill of Reform (Robert Reich).
(And speaking of market manipulation, I hope you've heard of the gummint's Plunge Protection Team?)
(1984), from a tv special Paik did for PBS's Good Morning Mr. Orwell; this is some of the more appealing footage I've seen of Moorman playing one of Paik's cellos (don't forget to thank public tv with your donation!)
That's George Plimpton with her, sounding uncomfortable. He should have seen Moorman's performance of TV Bra for Living Sculpture -- or maybe he'd heard about it.
I'm kidding, right? But this isn't per The Onion, but CNN:
As Cooper explains, the rule seems to have no reasonable relation to safety. Guess we didn't realize the "Constitution-Free Zone" extends into surrounding waters.
Meanwhile, the AP just reported US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton's statement last Saturday that "[i]ntolerant governments across the globe are 'slowly crushing' activist and advocacy groups that play an essential role in the development of democracy . . . ." She cited Venezuela et al.; but see my previous post (and you can find the AP's story here.)
"American Civil Liberties Union has issued a report chronicling government spying and the detention of groups and individuals 'for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.'"
"'Our review of these practices has found that Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by the police just for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public,' Michael German, an ACLU attorney and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, said . . . ." More at Wired.
And people haven't just been surveilled and harassed; they've been pre-emptively prevented from exercising their rights in such a way as to make their views heard.
Here's a tip for the authorities: I hear there might be some felonies going down in some board rooms. And the Gulf.
And if you haven't already seen it, don't miss Elizabeth Warren's presentation, here.
UPDATE: Just came across this at Who Rules America (apparently based on a recent paper {here} by Edward N. Wolff at Bard's Levy Economics Institute):
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.
and
So far there are only tentative projections -- based on the price of housing and stock in July 2009 -- on the effects of the Great Recession on the wealth distribution. They suggest that average Americans have been hit much harder than wealthy Americans. Edward Wolff, the economist we draw upon the most in this document, concludes that there has been an "astounding" 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007.
B.t.w., happy 4th.
FURTHER UPDATE:Here are 22 statistics from FinanceMyMoney.com that "Prove the Middle Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out of Existence in America" (via Business Insider).
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For posts explaining why It's the Derivatives, Stupid (before Planet Money was talking about them), see hereand here; and if you'd like still more, click on the label at the bottom of one of those posts, "follow the money."
Note: I revise my posts. Revisions are made to add info or improve accuracy or allure. If you're interested in my not-best, the Wayback Machine may have preserved earlier versions, or you can e-mail me and I'll see what I've got. If you'd like to quote me, please check back for the most recent version.
You can see a larger version of most of the images on this blog by clicking on them.
"Panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works." – John Stuart Mill, before the Manchester Statistical Society, December 11, 1867, as quoted in "Financial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression," T.E. Burton (1902). ["Unproductive works": wars, credit derivatives, etc.]
"The most popular tulip species were scarce and demanded huge prices, peaking with the 'Semper Augustus', which was worth 5,000 Dutch Florins, the same price as a canal-side house in Amsterdam."
Re- this blog:
I mostly do this when I should probably be doing something else, so it's hit-and-miss. Please don't think anything of it if I don't cover your exhibition or issue.
I welcome corrections and comments but reserve the right not to publish those that threaten bodily harm, that consist mainly in name-calling or personal attacks, that dispute well-supported facts without offering credible substantiation, or that appear to be spam or designed to drive traffic to other URL's.
Coalition military deaths in Iraq since March, 2003: 4,766(as of April 22, 2011; click here to update). At least 467 contractors have also died, based on only partial information. Total U.S. military wounded as of as of January 14, 2010: 31,882.
Coalition military deaths in Afghanistan since October, 2001: 2,416 (as of April 22, 2011; click here to update.
Thoughts for the year or whatever, in no particular order:
What a huge debt this nation owes to its “troublemakers.” From Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King, Jr., they have forced us to focus on problems we would prefer to downplay or ignore. Yet it is often only with hindsight that we can distinguish those troublemakers who brought us to our senses from those who were simply troublemakers. Prudence, and respect for the constitutional rights to free speech and free association, therefore dictate that the legal system cut all non-violent protesters a fair amount of slack. – Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Papineau v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46 (2d Cir. 2006).
I can hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half. – Jason "Jay" Gould, per Philip Sheldon Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States Vol. 2: From the Founding of the A. F. of L. to the Emergence of American Imperialism, P. 51 (1998, 2d ed.).
On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. – Stewart Brand to Steve Wozniak, at the first Hacker's Conference in 1984, per Roger Clarke.
A modern economic system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking. – U.N.E.F. Strasbourg, On the Poverty of Student Life (1966).
A balance of power requires a balance of knowledge. – moi (pre- 2000).
. . . Napoleon . . . said that it wasn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it was sufficient to delay the news until it no longer mattered. – attributed by PRWatch to Martin A. Lee & Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1991), p. xvii.
The infowar is the new class war; and information is the new wealth. – moi (2010).
Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight. – "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett.
Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. – Hermann Goering, per Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947), by Gustave Gilbert
The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. – George Orwell, 1984.
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . . – Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit (South End Press, 2002; originally published 1993).
Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. – Julian Assange, IQ.ORG, "Witnessing," Wed 03 Jan 2007.
I used to be concerned about this mass audience thing . . . not anymore. There are overlapping circles of activity and . . . . It doesn't matter what the volume is . . . These circles are not sealed off from each other, they affect each other. – Yvonne Rainer, in an interview by Lyn Blumenthal for "Women with a Past," Program Six from the series, What Does She Want (VHS 1987, Video Data Bank).
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.' – John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1919).
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison, Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 6, 1788, The Federalist.
[W]e forgot that the question is NOT, how do we get good people into power. The question is, how do we limit the damage the powerful can do to us? – Chris Hedges, "The Failure of the Liberal Class in the United States," address to the Poverty Scholars Program, April 10, 2010.
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. – Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1977).
In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. – Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ca. 500 B.C.
The opposite of good is not evil; it's apathy. – Cindy Sheehan in her speech to the Veterans for Peace on August 5, 2005, just before she began her first vigil outside of Pres. G.W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX; see vimeo; see also HuffPo.
One sits and beats an old tin can, lard pail. One beats and beats for that which one believes. That's what one wants to get near. Could it after all Be merely oneself, as superior as the ear To a crow's voice? – Wallace Stevens, The Man on the Dump(1923). It's class warfare, [and] my class is winning, but they shouldn't be. – Warren Buffet, CNN Interview, May 25 2005, suggesting we need to raise taxes on the rich. The past is never dead. It's not even past. – William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun, Act I, scene iii (1951). Cui bono (To whose benefit)? – attributed by Marcus Tullius Ciceroto Lucius Cassius Longina Ravilla, ca. 125 B.C.
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. – Economic sophisms, 2nd series (1848), ch. 1 "Physiology of Plunder."
The higher the buildings, the lower the morals. – Noel Coward (1899-1973) (numerous sites attribute this to Coward, but I've found none that provides a more precise citation).
Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity. – attributed to Marshall McLuhan, http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/poster.html. "Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing."
– Joseph Heller, Catch 22, Ch. 39, P. 407 (Simon & Schuster, 50th Anniversary Ed., 2011).
They'd rather some people die for your mistake, than that they lived, but that they lacked a leader.
It was too late to prevent the great Fall, but it was still possible, at least, to cut short the intermediate period of chaos. – Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation, P. 87 (ed. Bantam June, 2004; first published 1953). You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. – Abraham Lincoln (1805-1865). My heart rouses thinking to bring you news of something that concerns you and concerns many men. Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. – William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" (1883-1963) (I don't own this and find no online source that mentions where it was published; pls help if you can). All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke (1729-1797; see link re- variants and possible misattribution).
I consider it completely unimportant who . . . will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how. – Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), per the Memoirs of Stalin's Secretary.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
HECATE: And you all know, security Is mortals' chiefest enemy. – W. Shakespeare, Macbeth(ca. 1606), Act II, scene v, MIT's Moby Ed.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. – Frederick Douglass, “West India Emancipation" speech, Aug. 3, 1857.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead (1901-1978).
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall. – Che Guevara, Intercontinental Press (Vol. 3 January - April 1965); also in Che Guevara speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1967). The United States is the only nation in history to go from barbarism to decadence without any civilization in between. – Norman O. Brown, Closing Time (described as a graffito in Paris, May 1968; p. 29, ed. Vintage Books, 1974).
Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen, "Anthem" (1997?)
Let’s do something, while we have the chance! It’s not every day that we are needed. . . . Let us make the most of it before it is too late! – Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1949).
If, one day, a people desires to live, then fate will answer their call. And their night will then begin to fade, and their chains break and fall. For he who is not embraced by a passion for life will dissipate into thin air,
* * * * * Then it was earth I questioned: “Mother, do you hate mankind?” And Earth responded: “I bless ambitious and aspiring souls, Who do not flinch at danger. I condemn those out of step with time, People content to live like stone." – “If the People Wanted Life One Day,” Abou-Al-kacem El-chebbi (also spelled other ways, such as Abu Al-Qasim Ash-Shabi), known as the "poet of the Tunisian Revolution." Hatred never ceases by hatred; But by love alone is healed. This is an ancient and eternal law. -- "Dhammapada," Ch. 1. theTwin Verses5, as quoted by Maha Ghosananda.
There is no responsibility, without freedom; No freedom, without power; No power, without knowledge; No knowledge, without love.
– moi (1976).
A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias. – Oscar Wilde (1997). Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis, p. 1051, Wordsworth Editions.
. . . and in the morn I'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples, Where I have hope to see the nuptial Of these our dear-beloved solemnized; And thence retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave. – W. Shakespeare, The Tempest (ca. 1611), Act V, scene i, MIT's Moby Ed.
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