know thyself

Posted on Thursday, 2002 July 04 by Anton

A spam today bore the title “ARE YOU A RESPONSIBLE PARENT????”

Got me there: No, I’m not. Wanna make something of it?

Posted in me!me!me! | Leave a comment

suspended in mid-concept

Posted on Tuesday, 2002 July 02 by Anton

“Planes collide in midair” — raising the question: what are the boundaries of midair anyway? Is it midair if they’re one foot off the ground? One hundred? If there are mountains nearby, do they make a difference? When does a descending spaceship reach midair? In short, does midair tell us anything that air would not? Midocean can be defined as out of sight of land, or beyond the continental shelf, or in international waters; but none of these has an obvious analogy for air.

Posted in language | Leave a comment

“. . . if you can keep it”

Posted on Monday, 2002 July 01 by Anton

Mourn on the Fourth of July: A National Day of Protest

The goal, if any goal is possible to us, is no longer reform or restoration: it is resuscitation or reincarnation. This Fourth of July is no longer a holiday. It’s a funeral or, just possibly, a wake.

Posted in history, politics | Leave a comment

this entry makes less sense than it originally did

Posted on Sunday, 2002 June 30 by Anton

Jim Henley says, amid flattery:

Unqualified Offerings wishes that Sherwood would condescend to narrow his text columns, but then, Unqualified Offerings wishes a lot of bloggers would condescend to narrow their text columns.

Handy tip: you can narrow Sherwood’s text column to your own taste, simply by narrowing your window. Here in the Cave we don’t go in for that newfangled stuff (and we’d frankly prefer to see less of it).

Contentwise, thanks for the tip about the meth lab.

Posted in blogdom, me!me!me! | Leave a comment

fond memories

Posted on Sunday, 2002 June 30 by Anton

Chicago’s key contribution to civilization.

Posted in arts, California, cartoons | Leave a comment

the official cult

Posted on Friday, 2002 June 28 by Anton

I applaud the Ninth Circuit for recognizing that teaching schoolchildren to recite “one nation under God” is an establishment of religion; though without the offending phrase the tots are still being taught that their first duty is to “the republic for which it [the flag] stands”. I dimly remember (or imagine that I remember) being bothered by the implication that whatever conditions prevail in my “nation indivisible” are the definition of liberty and justice.

Let it not be forgotten:

The Pledge of Allegiance . . . was written by an avowed Socialist, Francis Bellamy, in 1892. Bellamy was at one time the vice president of the Society of Christian Socialists, and once delivered a sermon entitled “Jesus the Socialist.” Bellamy wrote the pledge to help a Boston publisher sell flags through one of his magazines . . . he also saw it as a way to instill veneration of the state and its symbols in the hearts and minds of schoolchildren . . . . —David F Nolan, Libertarian Party News, September 1995

Posted in history, politics, religion | Leave a comment

the right to drive

Posted on Friday, 2002 June 28 by Anton

A Coyote at the Dog Show has second thoughts about a discussion we had lo these four months gone. Well, since I understood him then to be making exactly the opposite point from what he now reveals he had in mind, I agree that one of us must have been muddled. I hope this acknowledgement pleases him.

By the way, Swen, things have changed at Blogspot: you now have to take the ‘?’ out of the link.

Posted in blogdom, constitution | Leave a comment