Miscellany and Trivia

During the Civil War Lincoln had occasion at an official reception to refer to the Southerners as erring human beings rather than as enemies to be exterminated. An elderly lady, a fiery patriot, rebuked him for speaking kindly of his enemies when he ought to be thinking of destroying them. “Why, madam,” said Lincoln, “do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”.

With all this crap they put in meat, like hormones for fast growing, antibiotics, etc… we will all go down, there’s only the vegetarians that will survive – so let me give you a good piece of advice: if you want to eat some healthy meat, eat a vegetarian!

Addressing an audience of priests, Martin Buber said something like this: “What is the difference between Jews and Christians? We all await the Messiah. You believe He has already come and gone, while we do not. I therefore propose that we await Him together. And when He appears, we can ask him: were You here before?” Then he paused and added: “And I hope that at that moment I will be close enough to whisper in his ear, ‘For the love of heaven, don’t answer.’ ”

From Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea. Elie Wiesel. (c)1995. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.

In Japan, the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages have been replaced with Haiku poetry messages. Haiku poetry has strict construction rules. Each poem has only 17 syllables; 5 syllables in the first, 7 in the second, 5 in the third. They are used to communicate a timeless message, often achieving a wistful, yearning and powerful insight through extreme brevity. Here are 16 error messages from Japan, expressing the essence of Zen:Your file was so big.

After months of negotiation with the authorities, a Talmudist from Odessa was granted permission to visit Moscow. He boarded the train and found an empty seat. At the next stop a young man got on and sat next to him.
The scholar looked at the young man and thought: This fellow doesn’t look like a peasant, and if he isn’t a peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes from this district, then he must be Jewish because this is, after all, a Jewish district.
On the other hand, if he is a Jew, where could he be going? I’m the only Jew in our district who has permission to travel to Moscow.

I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN ESOTERICIST

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan)

by Bill Beattie

I am the very model of a modern esotericist,
A seasoned astral traveler and edifying exorcist,
A sparkling star astrologer, a dead adroit necromancer,
A dab hand as a palmist and a card as a tarotmancer.

I’ve folk tradition lineage—Celtic and Germanical;
I’ve channeled Dion Fortune, and I’ve busted cults satanical;
Elusively mysterious in Eleusinian Mysteries,
I’ve proven eighty-three per cent of Velikovsky’s histories.