After 20 days of intensive scientific endeavor and modestly successful experiments (nobody died) here are some more fragments unearthed from my sideline of pale-ontology, so named because it is beyond the pale, yea even the wider shade of pale....
Human Dinosaurship--Terrible Lizardry Indeed! Nothing worse than being old, so I am told! So we are postponing that living fossil gambit, and we are living vicariously through our new granddaughter, Alathea(first "a" long, last one short) whose name is Greek for "Truth". "Veritas" perhaps was too formal and rather overused and abused in some venues, I suppose. Alathea Joy Schuler had to be born in Mississippi rather than in Mobile because midwifery at home is still illegal in AL; yet one more reason for me to avoid the AMA. Her birthday, then, would be 11/20/o9, for those of you who are keeping track.
Here then, in her honor, are Two Terrible Truths for our Times:
From Cupid, Inc.,quoted in World Magazine--"The shortest messages get almost the best absolute response rate, and the reply rate actually goes down as messages approach extreme length." And what is "extreme length", pray tell? "Apparently, after about 360 words...you start scaring people off. A message like that is the online equivalent of a face tattoo. Of your life story."
Uh-oh. Good thing I kissed dating goodbye! Pleeeeez ,Mr.( Neil) Postman! Have you got a letter, a letter fo' me???
My old scientific friend, Pascal, knew how to abbreviate hard truths. The following indicates one of the foundational goals of this blog:
"I do not admire the extreme of one virtue unless you show me at the same time the extreme of the opposite virtue. One shows one's greatness not by being at an extremity but by being simultaneously at two extremities and filling all the space in between."
More Post-men later. Rest your eyes and I will too.
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by Blaise Pascal
353. I do not admire the excess of a virtue as of valour, except I
see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as in
Epaminondas, who had the greatest valour and the greatest kindness.
For otherwise it is not to rise, it is to fall. We do not display
greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and
filling all the intervening space. But perhaps this is only a sudden
movement of the soul from one to the other extreme, and in fact it
is ever at one point only, as in the case of a firebrand. Be it so,
but at least this indicates agility if not expanse of soul.
Thank you, Dennis, for the correct quote and the wider context!(insert emoticon of choice)
ReplyDeleteSee can you find this'n:
It is bad enough to be king;worse yet to be emperor; and pure hell itself to be G_D!
You have me with this quote.
ReplyDeleteI can think of dozens of people who could have said something like it but I can't find this quote.