Teddy Boy

People are sad for Ted Kennedy. That Kennedy was an imposter. A man who hid behind his crimes. A man without character. Alas , people think so highly of him. Oooh, he supported Obama. First of all, I am still of the viewpoint that Obama is just a fake. He is not fit to be leader yet. Lets get back to the topic shall we, 
This is an excerpt from the Time Magazine.


"IT has been more than 28 months since Senator Edward Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, causing the death by drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne and, some thought, fatally injuring his chances of ever becoming President. In this survey, the TIME bureau chiefs who with the help of 76 local correspondents will report on the five major regions for the 1972 campaign were asked whether Ted could defeat Richard Nixon—with particular emphasis on the residue of Chappaquiddick. Their answers are not a forecast but a reading of present sentiment; any number of factors could change the situation. Nor do these reports attempt to judge other candidates who might do as well or better against Nixon." Time, November 1971.


People don't seem to have heard of this incident. I as appalled when people were saddened over the loss of this supposed "great soul". One who never seeked office. Well, he tried , a number of times, and failed as much.


It is not an animadvert against Teddy boy, but I have been rather irked by the lack of knowledge that people have on Kennedy.


What can you say about a man who uses nepotism to escape the hands of the law. He also used all his connexions to get his nephew off the hook on charges of rape. There are lot many incidents but I wouldn't want to spoil the spirit of this blog.
People have always managed to inure themselves to the crimes of time. He may have supported various bills over the years, but one can't obtain salvation in such a way. He is and shall remain a pariah.    

The lady pope

Well, here is a funny story about the bowdlerisation and expurgation of an entire papacy. There are many records of there being a female pope and many that refute it and call it a protestant conspiracy. 
A well orchestrated canard or bruit, some say to perpetuate protestantism and debase the Catholic Church. 


The story is as enduring as it is dubious: A millennium or so ago in Rome, the pope was riding in a procession when suddenly she–that's right, she–went into labour and had a baby.
What’s this hullabaloo all about? Well, The Catholic church has maintained that it is a canard and nothing else.
 Europeans in the Middle Ages didn't think so. The story of a pope named Joan was accepted without question in Catholic circles for centuries and only after the Reformation, when Protestants used the story to poke fun at Roman Catholics, did the Vatican begin to deny that one of its Holy Fathers had become an unholy mother.
The tale has definitely faded since but never died out.


During the Middle Ages, many versions of the "popess" affair appeared and were ruthlessly quashed. Anyone in the Catholic circle even insinuating that there had been a female pope was immediately excommunicated, a punishment worse than death in those times. Such disestablishmentarianism though favoured in England was not so in the rest of Europe.


Most accounts came from friars compiling church histories. The Vatican’s contention was that it was the legerdemain of the protestant varlets. A few medieval chronicles said Joan's great deception occurred in the 10th or 11th century. The report that gained the widest acceptance, written in 1265 by a Dominican friar from Poland named Martin of Troppau, set the unblessed event in the ninth century.
Apparently the spectators watched in horror as the pope, trying to mount a horse, went into a forced labour and gave birth to a son. Immediately after that , the crowd caught her by her hair, tied her feet to the horse’s tail and stoned her to death as she was being dragged along the street.


The Popess was born in Germany of English parentage. At the time, not only were women considered a weaker, unnatural, dangerous, sly, uncouth, etc. breed but there was tremendous discrimination as can be seen by the bible quoting God as Him. No sexual discrimination laws, no gender bias laws, nothing really.

She pretended to be a male and at the tender age of 12, she managed to reach Athens by seducing a bishop – known for celibacyJ.
Eventually, by seducing her way and by being a brilliant student, she became a cardinal in Rome, where her knowledge of the scriptures led to her election as Pope John Anglicus.
Martin of Troppau's account had her ruling male-dominated Christendom from 855 till 858. Her original name, according to some, was Agnes. Others called her Gilberta and Jutta. Later on John was feminised to become Joan.


But by no name would she win a place in the Vatican's official catalog of popes. The church insists that its papal line, dating back to St. Peter, is an unbroken string of men.
A problem is the gap between the alleged event and the news of it. Not until the 13th century–400 years after Joan, by the most accepted accounts, ruled–does any mention of a female pope appear in any documents. That's akin to word breaking out just now that England in 1600 had a queen named Elizabeth or that a king called Akbar had existed in India.


 Some writers, including the 14th-century poet Petrarch, scorned Joan and debased women in general. But she also had a large number of backers. In Tuscany around 1400, her face was carved among the papal busts in the cathedral at Siena. It remained there until its replacement by the bust of a male pope two centuries later.
Medieval accounts show the Vatican striving to avoid a repeat of its Joan episode. For several centuries, popes shunned the street where Joan allegedly gave birth.
 The pontiffs were said to regard the route as a scene of shame. The Vatican later would argue that the street was simply too narrow for a procession. I smell Cover up :D.

In the Vatican, an unusual chair inspired by the trouble with Joan is present and has been used for centuries. The wooden throne, with a potty-style hole in the seat, is said to have been used until the 16th century in the ceremony of papal consecration. Each prospective pope would sit on the hole while an examining cleric felt under the seat. A moment later, the examiner would withdraw his hand and solemnly declare: "Our nominee is a man."

So her legacy continues furthering her unheard voice.

What do you think opinion is, well it is horseshit. I don’t believe that a woman pope could ever have existed and it is a whole lot of cadence to assume that women made better popes than men. It was gauche to assume that the people believed that women were equal in those times. Now we are more evolved but ancient Christianity is rife with wars, executions, inquisitions, anti-feminism etc.

I know there is going to be a huge hoopla , ballyhoo or an outcry. Lets just see. 

I have put up some references for your perusal.

 Oxford Dictionary of Popes- J.N.D. Kelly

Pope Joan - Donna Woolfolk Cross

The Legend of Pope Joan, Peter Stanford

Au revoir , mes amis.  :D

Obama : The "Change" is here. LOL

This is what Henry Kissinger had to say of Obama "He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games, but he hasn't completed a single game and I'd like to see him finish one."

Well, Lets talk of the war shall we, According to me and a couple of fine political analysts in the States, Obama seems to be under the influence of militaryindustrial-financial complex and the neoconservative ideologues, that have been blamed for the beginning of the end of the Worlds only superpower.

Obama's only following Bush's policies albeit in a far costlier way. It saddens me to say that Obama is costing the nation much much more than Bush and also that most people don't seem to know about it. 

He is basically deferring the payments of the war and just paying off the interests.

Bush and Obama administrations have never properly financed their foreign wars by forcing Americans to pay for them through higher taxes. None of them have ever raised taxes. Then where is the money coming from ? With an eleven trillion dollar deficit , where is the money coming from ?

I always love to repeat my question so as to  warrant enough awe that the message gets through.

Think about it , Where is the money coming from ?

I shall elucidate a few things here for you. 

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost America a trillion dollars to date. The repayments have been deferred and only the interests are being paid as I said earlier. This means that the future generations shall foot the bill. So All Obama is doing is shifting the blame and making his problem someone else’s. I would have expected Bush to have done it, but the "Changer" to do so. Well, that appals me.

But this kind of deceptive national accounting is becoming increasingly difficult in the face of Obama's $1.4 trillion deficit this year. Not only that he is actually increasing the number of troops in the countries which shall cost even more. (30,000 to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan alone!).

 Each American soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million per annum, according to the US Congress Research Service. Which in simple terms means that the extra  US troops in Afghanistan alone will thus cost $30 to $40 billion in additional war costs on top of the $200 billion annual cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan. 

A significant portion of this money is going to be  borrowed from China and Japan.

This is not the only thing, it is estimated that if the war lasts for ten years in Afghanistan, it will cost the same $900 million as providing a comprehensive health plan for all Americans. 

The problem can be solved if people are charged a sort of a War tax- say 10 - 12  %. It is the time of war, people have to give something up , and sorry to use language that doesn't behoove me , but it is time that Obama grew a pair of Cajones.

While the Afghan and Iraq wars are increasingly unpopular among Americans, a tax increase at a time of over 10 per cent unemployment will ignite the same kind of furious reaction that met President Obama's proposed national health plan, and endanger Democrats facing midterm elections. As the Obama administration appears set to plunge deeper into the Afghan morass, the real costs of Afghanistan and Iraq are still being concealed from the public and Congress. This cost is just the tip of the iceberg. 

The annual bill for US intelligence, which employs over 200,000 people, has doubled to $75 billion. Costs of occupying Afghanistan rose to $300 billion this year. Operations in Iraq will cost $684 billion in 2009!

This is simply unacceptable for a man who promised change. If this is the change that he promised, than sorry , I do not particularly favour White Elephants.

Lets go a bit deeper shall we? 

In addition to the aforementioned figures, there are additional costs involved. The pecuniary demands on the economy are seemingly endless.

Obama has been spending $25 billion funding foreign armies, the bulk of which goes to the Middle east, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Aid to Islamabad will rise to $15 billion over the next five years, including secret `black' payments. All sanctioned by the Change - of course. 

The US supports 168,000 `contractors' in Iraq, many of them gunmen - Blackwater or better known as XE being one of them. 

The CIA acting under Obama’s direct order runs 74,000 mercenaries in Afghanistan. 

The new fortified, 50 hectare US Embassy in Baghdad will cost $700 million; the new embassy in Islamabad, $800billion.

 Add to these costs the expense of maintaining fleets in the Gulf and Indian Ocean, and military bases in the Gulf and Diego Garcia to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; hugely expensive military airlifts; $100 per litre fuel delivered to US forces in Afghanistan; and, of course, financial inducements to many smaller nations to send handfuls of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is definitely more than the $200 billion that our dear friend is proposing and has disclosed. Yet Obama, heedless of such costs, appears determined to expand the Afghan War. Lets make it even bigger. 

It seems clear that `peace candidate' Obama has fallen increasingly under the influence of America's powerful military-industrial-financial complex and neoconservative ideologues. In short, the same calculus of forces that guided the Bush administration but with greater gusto! 

Even America's mighty economy cannot for long support waging wars across the Muslim world. It's economy is 3 times as big as the 2nd largest one and 10 times the 10th largest one.

Well, I am loving it, because while everyone was bushbashing, I knew of one thing, Obama was wrong for the country. McCain sans Palin would definitely have been better. Yeah, Definitely sans Palin. 

Cheers 

Bestiality - a war on the border between law and morality

What is so shocking about the concept? It has been around ever since humans have existed. Proto humans were known for committing bestiality. There are numerous examples of bestiality known to have existed since quite a while and at one point of time, it was even considered to behove and improve the sexual prowess and increase love between two consenting adults.

It has been done for quite a while. It is present in Hindu Mythology, Greek and Roman Mythology, Egyptian and Norse Mythology etc.

The Kama sutra makes an explicit mention of this and has devoted a lot of time and space on the Khajuraho temples for the same.

In a recent survey by a prestigious magazine, it was discovered that 25 -30 percent of the people around the world have fantasized or have actually had sexual encounters with animals.

Hell, the term riding, a euphemism for sexual intercourse is derived from the pleasure that women get after riding a horse. Hence the propensity for a large number of women equestrians.

Paintings by Chagall, Ruebens , Picasso , Rembrandt  have all depicted them. That’s how commonplace it is.

Chagall’s paintings depict bestiality and these are the less explicit ones.

There is a Greek story about it, titled Leda and the Swan. Zeus came to Leda in the guise of a swan and raped Leda and Helen and Polydeuces were the offsprings of this grotesque consortion . A poem by Yeats and paintings will further elucidate this story.

"Leda and the Swan" is a poem by William Butler Yeats first published in 1928.

Combining psychological realism with a mystic vision, it describes the swan's raping of Leda.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush,

             But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

There are a lot of other examples. One of the greatest Japanese painters, Katsushishka Hokusai painted the infamous Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

In some countries, such as those in Scandinavia, bestiality is allowed.

It is currently illegal in Canada, Netherlands, most of the United States, etc.

 In the UK, only penetrative acts are illegal. Countries such as Belgium, India, Russia etc permit sexual activity with animals, but prohibit the promotion of animal-oriented pornography.

This is just to throw light upon a little know issue. I know that it is disgusting. Personally I couldn’t care less, but this despicable and revolting act is a part and parcel of humanity since its inception.  In the Book by Michael Crichton, called Congo, a couple of Africans have mentioned the need and the enjoyment that they gain with sexual intercourse with animals especially primates.

It is common folklore in most African and Indian tribes, that sexual intercourse with animals Improves and even promotes the fertility and the Sensuality of that person. In villages in China , infertility is cured by sex with different animals.

There is a common and widely accepted hypothesis that AIDS , SARS , Avian Flu, Swine Flu , etc have all been due to bestiality.

I seem to be promoting it. Nay, I am a believer of free speech but this is preposterous. Such gross violations against the fundamental principles of humanity. I don’t simply condemn it, I loathe it, to such an extent that I am willing to put that person on an island full of his kind and let them all stay there ostracised.

You have to agree, that I am inimitable and get these crazy topics. Please check your google wave profiles, I have sent a document and it has all the pictures too.

Au revoir. :D

Of Friendship - Francis Bacon

I am a bit lazy at quarter to 5 in the morning. Therefore  I put up an essay by Francis Bacon .
Its a brilliant one though i don't agree to all of it , but he is a rather logical thinker.
Just go through it. Hopefully You realise its significance . :D. cheers.

IT HAD been hard for him that spake it to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.
For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man’s self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings, and suffocations, are the most dangerous in the body; and it is not much otherwise in the mind; you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flowers of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart, but a true friend; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe, how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship, whereof we speak: so great, as they purchase it, many times, at the hazard of their own safety and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, except (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace, or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them participes curarum; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants; whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed other likewise to call them in the same manner; using the word which is received between private men.

L. Sylla, when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey (after surnamed the Great) to that height, that Pompey vaunted himself for Sylla’s overmatch. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again, and in effect bade him be quiet; for that more men adored the sun rising, than the sun setting. With Julius Caesar, Decimus Brutus had obtained that interest as he set him down in his testament, for heir in remainder, after his nephew. And this was the man that had power with him, to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and specially a dream of Calpurnia; this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate, till his wife had dreamt a better dream. And it seemeth his favor was so great, as Antonius, in a letter which is recited verbatim in one of Cicero’s Philippics, calleth him venefica, witch; as if he had enchanted Caesar. Augustus raised Agrippa (though of mean birth) to that height, as when he consulted with Maecenas, about the marriage of his daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life; there was no third way, he had made him so great. With Tiberius Caesar, Sejanus had ascended to that height, as they two were termed, and reckoned, as a pair of friends. Tiberius in a letter to him saith, Haec pro amicitia nostra non occultavi; and the whole senate dedicated an altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of friendship, between them two. The like, or more, was between Septimius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry the daughter of Plautianus; and would often maintain Plautianus, in doing affronts to his son; and did write also in a letter to the senate, by these words: I love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me. Now if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant goodness of nature; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it proveth most plainly that they found their own felicity (though as great as ever happened to mortal men) but as an half piece, except they mought have a friend, to make it entire; and yet, which is more, they were princes that had wives, sons, nephews; and yet all these could not supply the comfort of friendship.

It is not to be forgotten, what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair, and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true; Cor ne edito; Eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends, to open themselves unto, are carnnibals of their own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend, works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves. For there is no man, that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is in truth, of operation upon a man’s mind, of like virtue as the alchemists use to attribute to their stone, for man’s body; that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature. But yet without praying in aid of alchemists, there is a manifest image of this, in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression: and even so it is of minds.

The second fruit of friendship, is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections, from storm and tempests; but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness, and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly, he seeth how they look when they are turned into words: finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour’s discourse, than by a day’s meditation. It was well said by Themistocles, to the king of Persia, That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad; whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel; (they indeed are best;) but even without that, a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statua, or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point, which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel, that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend, and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self; and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man’s self, as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts: the one concerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health, is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man’s self to a strict account, is a medicine, sometime too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of morality, is a little flat and dead. Observing our faults in others, is sometimes improper for our case. But the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them; to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favor. As for business, a man may think, if he win, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or that a man in anger, is as wise as he that hath said over the four and twenty letters; or that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm, as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is done, the help of good counsel, is that which setteth business straight. And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces; asking counsel in one business, of one man, and in another business, of another man; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all); but he runneth two dangers: one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled; for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends, which he hath, that giveth it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy; even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body; and therefore may put you in way for a present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind; and so cure the disease, and kill the patient. But a friend that is wholly acquainted with a man’s estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And therefore rest not upon scattered counsels; they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct.

After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit; which is like the pomegranate, full of many kernels; I mean aid, and bearing a part, in all actions and occasions. Here the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are, which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear, that it was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another himself; for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their time, and die many times, in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are as it were granted to him, and his deputy. For he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man cannot sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like. But all these things are graceful, in a friend’s mouth, which are blushing in a man’s own. So again, a man’s person hath many proper relations, which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless; I have given the rule, where a man cannot fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

The Purple Thread

This is a rather quaint musing .
Epictetus, the slave philosopher of ancient Greece, once ruminated on great people. He once commented on the people who wanted to be normal.
He could never imagine a person wanting to be normal . Everyone should have greater aims, aim to be a god in fact, he said.
He gave an analogy to a toga. He wondered why anyone would want to fit in society- to become like a white thread in the toga. Greatness always lay in the Purple thread. That thread defined the entire toga, made it the cynosure.  The Avant-gardes were the ones who would be known as the purple thread that made the entire toga beautiful. They were the causes for the toga to stand out. The rest were just parts of the toga to serve the purpose while the purple was for the beauty.


here is an excerpt from his book :

"For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say "pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. "
So it is just not enough to be great, it is just as important to be different.

This is for a certain friend of mine too, and I would much rather prefer that person to be anonymous.
Cheers

First They Came........................

 Numerous forms of the famous saying by Martin Niemoeller are known to exist. And Why is that so?  And why are they circulated, claiming the authority of the famous Protestant opponent of the Nazis? Well that is a question that shall be answered in this post. 

    Firstly, who was this Martin Niemoeller? An enigmatic soul  - once known to be a Nazi Supporter, then an Anti Nazi , a Protestant etc etc. The esoteric effect is probably compounded by the enigmatic appeal and use of those stanzas. 

 Niemoeller was one of the most respected of all the Christian Protestants in the Fatherland- I simly adore calling it that :) . 

After a career as a decorated U-Boat captain in the First World War, he became an active Christian. 

 In 1933, when he became the most high profile of Hitler's Christian opponents, he was in charge of a prestigious suburban parish in Berlin-Dahlem.

Initially he was a pro-Nazi and supported Hitler. But looking on, at the destruction, the hatred amongst fellow humans. It was essentially witnessing a litany of one of humanities' greatest purges and iniquities , he took an antipodal stance.Also he objected the Nazi interference in the running of the Church. Hence he started the Anti Nazi movement. 

    Niemoeller was a leader in the mobilization of the Pastors' Emergency League, that essentially denounced the abuses of the dictatorship in the famous "Six Articles of Barmen," and in other visible joint actions and sermons that finally led to his arrest in 1937.  He was a founder of the Confessing Church, which opposed the nazification of German Protestant Churches. He opposed indignantly to the Nazis Aryan Paragraph, but was considered to be anti-Semitic.

There were an exiguous number of honest jurists still in Germany and when the court let him go with a slap on the wrist Hitler personally ordered his incarceration.  Niemoeller was sent to a concentration camp, which included  long periods of solitary confinement. He remained there until the end of the war narrowly escaping execution.

After the War , he became a founder of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt.

    After the war, he undertook quite a trips to the United States of America.  At that time he brought the message of concern for others, often driving the point home with a confession of his own blindness when the Nazi regime rounded up the others. 

And that quotation is now famous . 

   He still remained an ardent opposer of Catholic values and hated the Roman Catholics.  But when we asked him years ago about the addition of the Roman Catholics, he said, "I never said it.  They can take care of themselves." 

    Niemoeller knew the sequence of Nazi assault, because he was there.  Any average student of the third Reich should be able to give the record accurately; it is a shocking display of professional incompetence when materials that are supposed to be vetted by "specialists" can be issued that are simply contrary to the record.  Even if a corrupt text appears in print, whether published by an ignoramus or a special pleasure, the literate reader should be easily able to correct the mistake.

 The assault on the Jews was the culmination of the Nazi dictatorship's ruthless elimination of targeted communities and individuals.

    Martin Niemoeller's message, in its true form, carries a powerful moral impact. 

These are the famous lines which I love and know by heart :

In Germany , 

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak up--because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak up-- because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up-- because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up--  because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Roman Catholics, and I did not speak up - because I was a Protestant

Then they came for me--   and by that time there was no one left to speak up.

I would like to end this by stating something which i have followed for quite a while. 

"Be a hero by being a man". 

It may sound puerile or foolish but try to clear your mind and think about it. I have always made my own set of rules and therefore don't follow anyone or do not think of anyone as great and never believed in either Hero worship nor being a fan . But I do believe that it is important to learn from others even though they may be despicable. 

Jung : Consciousness & Owning your own Shadow

Sometimes it is healthy to explore the darkest side of human nature , the darkest of the Human Psyche. The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung called it "Owning your own Shadow".

Like Freud, Jung posited the existence of a conscious and an unconscious mind.
A model to describe this phenomenon here is an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that is above the surface of the water is seen as the conscious mind. Consciousness is the part of the mind directly known to us, readily accesible. It is where we think, feel, sense and intuit. It is through conscious activity that the person becomes an individual. It’s the part of the mind that we “live in” most of the time, and contains information that is in our immediate awareness

Below the level of the conscious mind, and the bulk of the ice berg, is what Freud would call the unconscious, and what Jung would call the “personal unconscious.” These contain thoughts, feelings, urges and other information that is difficult to bring to consciousness.

Experiences that do not reach consciousness, experiences that are not congruent with who we think we are, and things that have become “repressed” are found at this level.
 The contents of the personal unconscious are available through hypnosis, guided imagery, and especially dreams. Although not directly accessible, material in the personal unconscious has gotten there sometime during our lifetime.Dreams are directly the result of subconscious

Thus, the depth psychologist would say that many decisions, indeed some of the most important ones that have to do with choosing a mate or a career, are determined by unconscious factors.

The idea of psychological archetypes is among Jung’s most important contributions to Western thought.
 An ancient idea somewhat like Plato’s idea of Forms or “patterns” in the divine mind that determine the form material objects will take, the archetype is in all of us.

The word “archetype” comes from the Greek “arche” meaning “first, and “type” meaning “imprint or pattern.”

Psychological archetypes are first prints, or patterns that form the basic blueprint for major dynamics of the human personality.
For Jung, archetypes pre-exist in the collective unconscious of humanity. They repeat themselves eternally in the psyches of human beings and they determine how we both perceive and behave. These patterns are innate, inherent in every human. They reside as energy within the collective unconscious.
We can meet them by going inward to our dreams or fantasies. We can meet them by going outward to our myths, legends, literature and religions. The archetype can be a pattern, such as a kind of story. Or it can be a figure, such as a kind of character.

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life,
the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.


Shadow as an archetype is the clearest and most articulated of all. The Shadow is not a difficult concept. It is merely the “dark side” of the psyche. It’s everything that doesn’t fit into the Persona. The word “persona” comes from the theater. In the Roman theater, characters would put on a mask that represented who the character was in the drama. The word “persona” literally means “mask.”

Basically Jungian belief is that the persona is how we would like to be seen by the world, a kind of psychological clothing that “mediates between our true selves and our environment” in much the same way that clothing gives an image.
The Shadow is what doesn’t fit into this Persona per se. These “refused and unacceptable” characteristics don’t go away; they are stuffed or repressed and can, if unattended to, begin to take on a life of their own. it can be likened to that of filling a bag.

Humans are taught a farrago of things at an early age, there are certain ways of thinking, being and relating that are not acceptable in society, and so it is stuffed in the Shadow bag.
For example,
 The shadow side of sexuality is quite evident in the form of pornography, prostitution, and topless bars. Psychic energy that is not dealt with in a healthy way takes a dark or shadow form and begins to take on a life of its own.
Children have a fairly small bag but it keeps on growing as we age. This coincides perfectly with the Karma philosophy prevalent in Hinduism. Rather obtuse yet simplistic at it's core.

 It is not merely the dark side of a particular archetypal pattern or form. Wherever Persona is, Shadow is also.
 Wherever there is good, evil persists , for without evil, what is Good ? - PDD .

We first know the shadow as the personal unconscious in all that we abhor, deny and repress: power, greed, cruel and murderous thoughts, unacceptable impulses, morally and ethically wrong actions. All the demonic things by which human beings betray their inhumanity to other beings is shadow. But the Shadow is the unconscious .Since it is unconscious, we know it only indirectly.
Jung says that when you are in the grips of the archetype, you don’t have it, it has you.

Projection is an unconscious psychological mechanism. We all project onto other people parts of ourselves that we disown, that we deny. It’s them. It’s not us.

When someone is carrying parts of our own shadow, we will be repulsed by that person and whatever they stand for. It will feel like whoever they are is totally against our principles, moral values and ideals and we will be highly critical of their actions or way of being in the world.

Whatever we deem too negative to express, whatever goes against our highest ideals will be conveniently projected out into the world. Our energy is like a magnet and the unconscious is profound. The power of attraction states that it shall repeat itself over and over again.

Jung believed that whatever we are highly identified with in our character, the opposite extreme will be in our unconscious. He called this the law of opposites. So unconsciously we will attract the parts of us that we actually badly need. Isn't that usually among human lovers. They are opposites of each other.


There are no accidents. Both people are attracted or repelled whatever the case may be by an unconscious collusion. There is an order in the Universe whether we can see it or not. According to Jung, the psyche is always striving for wholeness and if we can take our cues from nature we will see that wholeness is balance. 
For example there is light and the dark. Who would want no dark ?

We’ve all met people who seem too sticky and gooey. They are “too nice” and sickeningly sweet. We sense that they are somehow being fake when we are around them and we feel we never really know them. Usually they don't fool me, as I believe in Absolute candour. But still, mistakes are bound to occur. These people are barricaded behind their mask or persona. They will deliberately avoid any kind of negative reaction or emotion. They refuse to be real and suffer the acceptance of their own dark side and this can be a dangerous thing. We are better off knowing about our dark side because as Jung put it “Whatever one does not live, lives against one.”

How many times have you said something and then said, “I didn’t mean it that way.” Well , I am pretty sure that you meant it that way and our Shadow decided to have it’s say. The Shadow side of us relates to life much more authentically and it will come out whether we like it or not.

Repressing or denying our Shadow can lead us into experiences where we are overwhelmed by it and it can take us over. Then we can end up with egg on our face, acting in the very way we have denied or condemned in others and saying to ourselves, “Why did I act like that? I am not like that.” Well when we say it like that — “I’m not like that,” — we are like that, we just don’t know it.

There are many hidden and undeveloped parts in all of us and in attempting to keep our self-image intact, we will completely deny their existence. We do this because we want to be accepted by our society, by our families and our peers. Our baser qualities — our hypocritical behavior, our excessive greed, our ruthlessness, our ability to be manipulative — go straight into the unconscious. But that doesn’t mean they are not active in our life, they just live in the unconscious (unsupervised), and periodically they burst forth into our awareness and propel us into situations that we would much rather avoid.

Jung would say that there really is such a thing as evil, but that most of what we see as evil, particularly collectively, is shadow projection. The difficulty is separating the two. And we can only do that when we discover where the projection ends.For that , one has to Own the Shadow.
I shall give you something to think about, as a sort of a parthian shot :)

“The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves.”
— DR. CARL GUSTAV JUNG

QED.

P.S know it is really long, hopefully it helps understand my frame of mind. I have been delving into th secrets of human nature for far too long :).

Schadenfreude

Schadenfruede is a german word which is used in the English language to denote the common human feeling of happiness over somebody else's misfortune.
Don't get offended. We all do it. Each and every one of us has at some point or the other had a semblance of that feeling. I have always had complete faith in humanity's enormous propensity to stoop lower than the lowest nadir expected of them.

If you ever go to a French restaurant , you will notice that the upper cover for the crabs is always kept open , prima facie that they aren't going to escape as they have a very strong feeling of schadenfreude.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said that Let no man pull you low enough to hate him . M.L.K. Jr. himself detested Edgar Hoover , so much for  being non hypocritical. Even though Edgar Hoover did a great many wrongs in his life, he was not a hypocrite. MLK Jr. loved it when Hoover was having problems with the Kennedys . This man, known by many to be beyond reproach, an honourable and a "fine" example of a human being had enormous schadefreudic qualities. Hoover too, loved it when the Kennedy administration ceased to exist with Kennedy's assassination. Schadenfreude in action. I just love to see it in action. It is a rather jejunic reminder of Greek mythology ,with even the gods committing wrongs.
Gandhi, a man known to be an impeccable example of humanity , having perhaps the finest qualities a human could possibly have, played loads of dirty politics in his lifetime.
He didn't let Patel be the first Prime Minister of India due to two reasons. And no , they aren't the ones that he had stated. New documents and letters found ample evidence that he made Patel promise not to be the PM even though he had complete support from the party , unanimous support. The first reason for such malfeasance was due to Nehru being a closer follower of Gandhi and could be easily manipulated as per his whims and fancies. Ergo Gandhi could rule without a crown , typical Shakespearean twist isn't it ?  Exactly like Caesar , Gandhi refused the crown or in better words , spurned it. The second reason was that Patel himself was Gujarati. Gandhi couldn't bear to be upstaged by another Gujarati. Patel was much more strong willed & wily , and not easily fooled by tricks. Gandhi couldn't bear that. Patel was also a better organiser and  ruler. Gandhi too had schadenfreudic qualities. Yes ! The great Gandhi too. The expulsion of Subhash Chandra Bose from the Congress was carefully planned and Gandhi loved it when Bose failed to procure any help from the Fascists and had to flee to Japan and get killed in the process. He hated to be upstaged by anybody. This is not a mere whim of mine , there is documented evidence , in the books of Janardhan Thakur or Thakkar one of them , and a couple of others. The other books were bowdlerised by Nehru as a favour to his former mentor. And then we blame the British, the Americans , the French , the Germans , etc.. We are the worst of the lot. As we hide behind the shadows and masks , our hypocrisy shows through. But the fact of the matter is, that only we don't realise that we are being perceived like this in the world.
The human capacity to stoop low never ceases to astonish me . These are but a few examples. There are many more. History always repeats itself. It always shall repeat itself. I mean to say that great people arent that great. after all they are merely human , are they not. I agree that I too have a bit of schadenfreudic streak with me. But I would like to believe that I have contained it well enough. This post was just to show that there is no man greater than yourself. Dont follow other people's ideals, their belief systems. Nay, form your own . For that which is your own can never be corrupt for thine self. You know yourself better than most and thus shall you conquer the rest.
A very hypocritical quote will suffice.
Emerson says that "I hate quotations, Tell me what you know" .

Well , I know that this is going to cause a bit more than a rustle, but I don't really care now,  do I ?

Nuances of a Language

People often ask of me , that why do I use words that people don't usually use in day to day parlance. Well the problem is that one does not understand the nuances of the English language. The beauty of the English language is only due to its vast vocabulary. This gives one a freedom to use apposite words as and when required. I do not advocate the use of high falutin words. It is just that some feelings can not be expressed without the use of the relevant words. 


Mind you , I am not using the language to confound people , just to express myself more clearly. 
I remember reading about an incident concerning Dr. Samuel Johnson , he was slightly tipsy and he refused the offer of a friendly arm to lean on , by saying " I'm not so drunk that I cant walk without your help " , being the keen lexicographer that he was, he realised his mistake and corrected himself immediately. This is what he said " I'm not so inebriated as to be incapable of unassisted perambulation."
This is just not my style.


Instead of using 15 words to describe the incredible smell that you get of the wet earth just after it has rained , I would use a single word to describe it. Is it not convenient ? (The word is petrichor) .


I am definitely not being pharisaic here. It is just that to describe a critically important achievement, one has to use the language that behooves the occasion. Hence the use of a word such as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for extremely good work. The mere ability of the English language to imbibe in itself a brilliant array of words to accommodate every feeling and thought and its ability to assimilate different  languages into a common one. The creation of Esperanto as per my view was rather otiose to say the least. 


A nihilarian attempt by a man just to dissuade people from the "harmful effects" of the English language.


This is just my suggestion to afford others an opportunity to grasp and appreciate the language which has all but conquered this planet. I assure you that the World especially India can not survive without the English language. How can a person from say, Sikkim - whose native tongue is closer to Nepali and Chinese -  be able to communicate with a person from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands - who have a ghoulish tongue resembling the languages of the Micronesian islands - without the help of a unifying language. 


Some people may argue that Hindi can assume that role, but that has been tried before and the hullabaloo and uproar in the south is a thing that shall not be forgotten soon .
One can choose to address a handsomely dressed man , apropos as a man dressed in full sartorial splendour, but it shall be rather superfluous to do so.


This post will surely roil some of you and hopefully enumerate the prima facie importance of the English language to the remaining few.


Well, as always you can always comment on what you feel about this post.


Cheers.   

A Simple Epiphany

This shall be a rather small musing. It was actually an epiphany that I got when I was talking to a friend and she asked me about the number of languages I spoke. I realised that once upon a time , I was pretty good in Latin too. I read Virgil as a child of mere 6 years of age. It was rather obtuse for me to understand. I tried to learn Latin so as to better understand him and a couple of other authors.I have forgotten quite a bit of Latin since, but I do remember quite a bit.

Virgil's Great Lines :

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes, et inexorable fatum ,
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari -

I have  translated it as
" Happy is the man who has imbibed the causes of all things , and put under his feet all his fears , and inexorable fate , and the cacophony of the hell of greed."

This is perhaps one of the best philosophical messages that I have ever come across. Believe me when I tell you that I have read quite a few in my life.
 This actually tells us that Satisfaction is the key. A bit of wisdom is joy forever.
It is the Zeitgeist that material acquisition is the most potent driving force than ever before.
What I am trying to elucidate here is that , If the mind is properly fed , ie if we seek the goods of the mind first , then the rest shall either follow or shan't be required.
Government suffers just like Science due to its disdain of philosophy. Movement should be guided by Knowledge and Perspective rather than an aimless platitude, that is nothing but individualism and materialistic gain. To step out of this ennui , one must atleast pro tem, shun materialism. Just as the pursuit of knowledge becomes scholasticism when divorced from the actual needs of mean and life , so does the pursuit of knowledge becomes a destructive bedlam when divorced from science and philosophy.
A philosopher king would be the best ruler of them all.  Even an abecedarian of history knows that the best rulers have been the wise and the learned.
I bring this post to a quick denouement and this is entirely my interpretation of Virgil's Stanza. Please feel free to disagree, or improve it any which way you can.

Au revoir.

Beyond Good and Evil- Friedrich Nietzsche

I promised that I would keep myself away for a few weeks before writing a new review but I felt that it was necessary to post one.  I have made special effort to make sure that this is easily understandable and not as vertiginous as my usual style of penning down my thoughts. So I made one of my flatmates to help me sort out the words that he found difficult to understand and I had the entire documented expurgated, thereby containing only the simplest of words that I could think of. This is by far the toughest review i have written as I can express my thoughts with as much clarity even though the author is amongst my favourites and if you happen to read my wall posts, I have oft quoted him.

“That which is done out of love is always beyond Good and Evil.”

This author always manages to perplex me in ways that people can’t seem to understand.  This giant amongst philosophers, this great author has the uncanny ability to use verbal prestidigitations and sometimes even casuistry to make his points and make sure that the readers are proselytised into his way of thinking. He is the only successful philosopher to make use of a large number of jokes and other “silly” devices – as his contemporaries called it – to make the books immensely enjoyable for at least perusing if not reading.

The man i am talking about is Friedrich Nietzsche.

A German philosopher having a plashy reputation, often mistaken to be a proto-fascist, lunatic ,egotist , misogynist , and in his book Thus Sprach Zaruthashtra or Thus Spake Zoaraster in English- he proclaimed that God Is Dead.

I am not going to discuss that book as it is not in my power to describe a book that good. I shall be reviewing a book known as Beyond Good and Evil.

Reading his books, one can find that he was a very trenchant man. This book is a collection of essays some of which are bizarrely poetic and others mordantly funny.

He was an iconoclast , and therefore started off to deracinate all other previous beliefs and renouncing all the works prior -  bordering near calumny even – and stating that the philosophers before him tended to cater for the public rather than discover anything useful.

I shall quote him -“it has gradually become clear........what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of an involuntary and unconscious memoir. ”

He defines morality as no more than a psychological projection on human drives and needs, and mocks any attempt to base morality on veracity, asking what truth is in any case and its subsequent importance to humans.

The most important of his statements was that all truths are no more than mere interpretations and hence subject to change was used by later day philosophers for ages.

I particularly like the way he mocked Descartes when he said that his statement – I Think – as nothing more than a grammatical mistake. That the only reason we believe that there must be such an ‘I’ only because the way our language works.

He also makes fun of the tartuffery of Kant. Let me quote that –

“The tartuffery, as stiff as it is virtuous, of old Kant as he lures us along the dialectical bypaths that.........mislead to his categorical imperative”

He views the drives and the psychologies that have formed our ideas of the truth,beauty and good as being essential human attributes.

The particular target is morality. He often talks of the overmen – the strongest and best people who act according to their wills and morally overcome themselves. He says that good and evil are just concepts and they are products slave morality and that the so called “virtues” actually work against the most of the human drives.

“That which an age feels to be evil is usually an untimely after-echo of that which is formerly felt to be good.”

The weak spirited, the suffering and the sick are envious and scared of the strong, so they define all strong as evil. The internalisation of the resentiment of the weak drags us down through this system of values. So he proposed to redefine Good and evil with good and bad and redefining strength, intellect , ego , will , nobility , self creation as good. This is what the Fascists used as proof of the Superman Theory and the subjugation of the strong over the weak. This was a distortion of what he stood for. In fact he was one of the most non violent people in Germany!

His caricature of democracy, religion and liberalism are at time frighteningly prescient.

With the concept of “eternal recurrence”, he stated that we should live our lives such that if at any point we were aware that we would have to live a life over and over again , nonetheless we would make the same choices.

The book is really very remarkable despite the objurgations and the calumnies. He would have hated to be called good or virtuous because he felt that he was too bad a man to be called good. That proves his character. Well I can well attest to the fact that this man was not a non compos mentis and asseverate with all my heart, please read this book.

The peroration as usual shall have a quote

“Objection, happy distrust, evasion and pleasure in mockery are signs of good mental health”

Please comment on this piece if you like it. Hope it has been an easier read.

Friedrich Nietzsche