[1117] in Central_America
New quotes for Wed Nov 30
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Nov 30 01:32:27 1988
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 88 01:32:05 EST
From: Initializer.SysDaemon <root@CHARON.MIT.EDU>
To: ca-mtg@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
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capsalad (Dave Schulman):
{From system: This user's .plan file is just no fun at all}
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celine (Adam Weishaupt):
This is planet earth, in case you were wondering.
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dachurch (Douglas A. Church):
You? Never!
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dschmidt (Dan Schmidt):
To cheer William up (a hopeless task)
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ehahn (Edward C Hahn):
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way,
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown,
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today.
Then one day you realize ten years have got behind you,
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking.
Racing around, to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older,
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death.
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say.
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ereidell (Evan A. Reidell):
Well, what is it exactly that you want to do? Temporarily, it
seems, the Media Lab is the perfect place: lots of coding, my
own specifications. Doing things your own way, being able to
impress people with computerized "magic". But is this good?
How will this help mankind, or will it generally turn us all
into slaves? To give everyone so many options, it'll be like a
death grip on the world? What will the world do with infinite
space on computers once we get it? Is AI as bogus as Media
Technology? When people ask me what I do, I do not know what
to tell them. The lines are too blurry; the course seems to
have no focus. But this does nothing for the fact that I
really enjoy doing that kind of stuff a lot. David Small works
with color. He is cool. Of course Bob is staying for Grad
School. He has it good, he's a genius, and he sure knows how
to program. Shouldn't I be able to go home and type along like
this without the extra added advantage of big X11 screens?
Isn't it beginning to look like I have no plan?
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jik (Jonathan I. Kamens):
(excerpted without permission from Joseph Heller's _Good_as_Gold_)
Even more surprising had been the telephone call from Ralph Newsome
to thank him on behalf of the White House.
"Where do you shine in?" Gold inquired. Ralph still sounded
truthful. They had lost touch with each other since their fellowships
at the Senator Russell B. Long Foundation seven years back.
"I'm at the White House now," Ralph answered. "I'm on the staff."
Gold was impressed. "How come I haven't read about you?"
"You probably have but didn't realize it," said Ralph. "I do a lot
of work as a source. An unnamed source."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. You see, Bruce, I'm in the inner circle and very little of
what I do gets outside. It really boosted my stock here when they
found out I knew you," Ralph continued. "The President was very
pleased with what you had to say."
"Tell him," said Gold, "I'm glad. Tell him I tried very hard to be
fair."
"You were," said Ralph, "and he knows that. Very fair. We got lots
of gushy reviews, like Lieberman's, but most of those were from people
who wanted something. I can't think of any that was more pertinent
and balanced than yours."
"I hope," said Gold, "that I wasn't too unsparing."
"You were just unsparing enough," Ralph reassured him. "This
President welcomes criticism, Bruce, and he found your suggestions
helpful. Particularly those about his sentence structure and
paragraph organization. You seemed to understand him better than
anyone else."
"Well, Ralph, there were a few things that did puzzle me."
"What were they, Bruce?"
"Well, frankly, Ralph--"
"Be frank, Bruce."
"Most Presidents wait until their terms are over before they write
their memoirs. This one seems to have started right in the day he
took office."
Ralph assented with a modest laugh. "That was my idea," he
admitted. "This way he had a crack at more than just one best seller.
He might do one every year. That bosted my stock way up with him
too."
"There was one more thing. But I decided not to go into it."
"What was that, Bruce?"
"Well, Ralph, he must have spent an awful lot of time his first year
in office writing this book about his first year. Yet, nowhere in the
book does he say anything about being busy writing the book."
Ralph cleared his throat softly. "That's a point I think we
overlooked. I'm glad you didn't go into it."
"Where did he find the time?"
"We all pitched in and helped," Ralph replied. "Not with the
writing, you understand, but with most of the other junk a President
has to attend to. Every word was his own."
Gold said he understood.
"This President really knows how to delegate responsibility, Bruce.
Otherwise, he never would have gotten it done. It would be a lot like
Tristram Shandy trying to write down the story of his life. Bruce,
remember `Tristram Shandy' and that paper I copied from you?"
"I certainly do," said Gold with a touch of pique. "You got a
better grade than I did and even had the paper published."
"I got a better grade on all the papers I copied from you, didn't
I?" Ralph reminded him. "Bruce, this President is a very busy man.
He has to keep doing so many things a lot faster than he's able to
write about them, even when he's doing nothing more than writing about
all the things he's supposed to be doing. That's why he needs all the
help he can get. Bruce, have you ever thought of working in
government?"
Gold learned in that instant what a heart felt like when it skipped
a beat. "No," he answered steadily. "Should I?"
"It's fun, Bruce. There are lots of parties and you get lots of
girls. Even actresses."
...
...
"What kind of job would I havew?"
"Any one you want," Ralph replied, "depending on what's open at the
time we take you on. We have lots of turnover."
"Oh, come on, Ralph," Gold disagreed pleasantly. "You can't mean
that?"
Ralph seemed faintly puzzled again. "Why not?"
"A Senator?"
"That's elective."
"An ambassador?"
"Not right away. At the start, we'll want you in Washington. You
see, Bruce, we have a very big need for college professors, and we
can't go back to Harvard after all *they've* done. The country
wouldn't stand for it."
"How's Columbia?"
"Still clean. I don't think anyone here associates Columbia with
anything intellectual. And Brooklyn, of course, is perfect."
"What would I have to do?"
"Anything you want, as long as it's everything we tell you to say
and do in support of our policies, whether you agree with them or not.
You'll have complete freedom."
...
...
"I'll need some time anyway," Gold volunteered obligingly. I'll
have to prepare for a leave of absence."
"Of course. But don't say anything about it yet. We'll want to
build this up into an important public announcement, although we'll
have to be completely secret." Gold listened for some signal of
jocularity in Ralph's voice. He listened in vain. "If the
appointment we give you is unpopular," Ralph went on in the same
informative way, "we'll start getting criticism about it even before
we announce it. If the appointment is popular, we'll run right into
tremendous opposition from the other party and from our own left,
right, and center. That's why it's good your a Jew."
That word *Jew* fell with a crash upon Gold's senses. "Why, Ralph?"
he managed to say. "Why is it good to have someone... who is Jewish?"
"That will make it easier at both ends, Bruce," Ralph explained with
no change of tone. "Jews are popular now and people don't like to
object to them. And a Jew is always good to get rid of whenever the
right wing wants us to."
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jtkohl (John T Kohl):
Here follows a trental, more or less reasonable, hardly fitting
for the Church, but formal enough, for John the Clerk, a certain man of
many names who was called John Jayberd. He was called clerk by the
clergy. This holy father died in the year of your Lord 1506. In the
parish of Diss there was not his like; a man renowned for malice,
double-hearted and double-tongued, worn out by old age, suspected of
all, loved by none. He is buried . . .
Sing we songs in our cups to celebrate John. The clerk truly is
dead and was given the name of Jayberd. He was born among the people of
Diss and was called clerk by the clergy. Never was he wont truly to
bewail his sins. His evil tongue was loquacious and lying. Such morals
as his were never before in anyone. When he breathed the vital air he
disturbed his companions and his fellow citizens as if he were an ass, a
mule, or a bull. Do you ask who this is? John Jayberd, inhabitant of
Diss with whom while he lived were associated quarrels, violence and
strife. Now here he lies . . .
Pray, brethren . . .
Drink your fill. See he is buried under your feet, a fool, an
ass and a mule . . .
For ever and ever.
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kest (Kathleen Mahoney):
{From system: This user's .plan file is not world readable}
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reuven (Reuven M Lerner):
Who can plan anything when George Bush is president...and when he promises to
continue the Reagan Administration's policies in dealing with the press?
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shanzer (Michael S. Shanzer):
The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child,
was propounded to me by my father:
"What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?"
I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity
gave up.
"A herring," said my father.
"A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!"
"So hang it there."
"But a herring isn't green!" I protested.
"Paint it."
"But a herring isn't wet."
"If its just painted its still wet."
"But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring
doesn't whistle!!"
"Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard."
-- Leo Rosten
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tytso (Theodore Y. Ts'o):
Procrastinating when I have far too much work to do.
---
setenv TEDPATH x3-7788:x3-7787:x3-4261:x5-6361:x3-5009
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vanharen (Christopher J VanHaren):
DREYFUS
ILDIN
--- End of Central America ---
