Deep and abiding cynicism is the portal to true idealism.


From a Washington life.

"When they mistake you for dead, its time to move on."


Overheard at Foggy Bottom.

The contingency of the world is fourfold. First, the laws of physics
themselves appear to be contingent. Second, the cosmological initial
conditions could have been otherwise. Third, we know from quantum
mechanics that “God plays dice” - i.e., there is a fundamental statistical
element in nature. Finally, there is the fact that the universe exists.
After all, however comprehensive our theories of the universe may be,
there is no obligation for the world actually to instantiate that
theory….In my own mind, I have no doubts at all that the arguments for a
necessary world are far shakier than the arguments for a necessary being…

The Mind of God by Paul Davies.

Political parties who accuse the one in power of gobbling the spoils etc,
are like the wolf who looked in at the door & saw the shepards eating
mutton & said --
"Oh certainly, it's all right as long as it's you, but there'd be hell to
pay if I was to do that!"


Mark Twain, from his journals as quoted by Roy Blount, Jr. in The Atlantic
Monthly, July/August 2001.

When we consider that all quanta have interacted at some point in the
history of the cosmos … and that there is no limit on the number of
correlations that can exist between these quanta, this leads to [a]
dramatic conclusion -- nonlocality is a fundamental property of the entire
universe….The indivisible whole whose existence is inferred … cannot be
measured or observed, we confront here an "event horizon" of knowledge
where science can say nothing about the actual character of this reality.

From a discussion of a 1997 experiment suggesting communication between
two points at faster than the speed of light in The Non-local Universe:
The New Physics and Matters of the Mind by Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos.

Hence this life of your which you are living is not merely a piece of the
entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the whole; only this whole
is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance.

Erwin Schrodinger as quoted in The Non-local Universe by Robert Nadeau and
Menas Kafatos.

What is Oedipus' hamartia then? Obviously it is not bad temper,
suspiciousness, hastiness in action -- for his punishment does not fit
these crimes; not ignorance of who his parents are -- for ignorance of
this type is not culpable; still less murder and incest -- for these
things are fated for him by the gods. No, Oedipus' blind spot is his
failure in existential commitment; a failure to recognize his own
involvement in the human condition, a failure to realize that not all
difficulties are riddles, to be solved by the application of disinterested
intellect, but that some are mysteries, not to be solved at all, but to be
coped with only by the engagement, active or passive, of the whole self.

Richmond Y. Hathorn as quoted in Asides: the Shakespeare Theatre 2001-2002
Season Issue

To be perpetually talking sense runs out the mind, as perpetually
ploughing and taking crops runs out the land. The mind must be manured,
and nonsense is very good for the purpose.

Boswell, as quoted by Richard Holmes in the New York Review of Books ,
September 20,2001

I wish I could remember what is said at this table.

Bob Homme, a regular at the Friday Misbackian.

There's nothing you can do when you're the next in line.

Genesis, from The Last Domino.

The Man, sing to me Muse of the wily man
Who wandered much after he sacked the holy citadel of Troy,
Who saw many cities and learned of the mind of men
Who suffered on the sea much grief in his heart
While striving for his soul and the return of his comrades.

Odyssey - my translation of first five lines.

Have you ever started a path? No one seems willing to do this. We don't mind using existing paths, but we rarely start new ones. Do it today. Start a path. Even if it doesn't lead anywhere.

George Carlin