Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    

My opinion is that if we don't get a few million more Americans to vote in
the next election, we're sunk.
  

    
My opinion is that this conversation/interview/whatever can and should 
continue. Why not??
  

    
So long as folks are posting, it's continuing! 

I always thought Reagan's gang wanted to take us back to the Dark Ages and
reinstitute a feudal society.  Now that the Islamic fundies appear to want
to do the same, I'm wondering why so damned far back?  I simply can't accept 
that the 1950s weren't repressive enough to return to!  

So here I am, thinking I'll wake from a very bad political dream into 
a less bad one.  A miserable substitute for optimism about some blend 
of progress and evolution.  

My opinion is that we need to pass around a new wishful picture of 
the future, because my old ones are dented, damaged and lost.
  

    
Maybe someday we can be like South Korea?
  

    

The two best things that came from my marriage to an atheist Russian Jewish
girl were my son, the atheist Jew (who takes after his mother in that
respect) and THE FAMILY SEDERS.  Damn, I love a meal that goes on for hours,
involves a ton of food and gallons of wine and READING AT THE TABLE (which
was a big NO NO in the Methodist family I grew up in).

Thank you Paul.

Thank you Mike.

Thank you Dave.

Thank you Jon.

Thank you Martha.

Have a nice vacation.  Maybe we can all get together again after vacation.
  

    

Oh, shit, and thank you too, Cynthia.  I thought I got everybody in there,
but then I thought I got everybody on my pagan tree-worship card list too.
  

    
jeez, is anyone in this conference NOT jewish?

gentiles, it's okay ... we'll let you talk!

blue
  

    
Funny thing, you never hear anybody asserting, "My parents were
gentile, but I don't consider myself gentile."  

Say good night, Gracie.
  

    
Goodnight.
  

    
Do not go gentile into that night... (he said, the actual quotation he
was parodying suddenly evaporating from his "brain"). 
  

    
Years from now, when you think about this, be gentile.
  

    
In the 70's, I was in an army reserve unit in Chicago.  Gene Siskel was 
in the unit playing one of many renditions of Sad Sack.  One time we 
were all lined up to get on a bus to head off to summer camp and someone 
made a joke about lining up for a short arms inspection.

Siskel made the comment that this would 'separate the men from the 
goys', getting some laughter.  Then he said that the people who didn't 
get the joke should load the bags of those that did.  
  

    

If the all-powerful <vard> were here, she'd slap the shit out of you both.

She's Chief of the Pun Police.
  

    

Slippage on a Saturday morning!

(Well, shit, I'm in somebody's office downtown D.C. where they can't see
what I'm billing for, so it would make sense others would be online, getting
paid to screw off too.)
  

    
Goodnight, Gracie...
  

    
Paul, email sent re Nancy.

The jewish thread is interesting, and timely for me: I just this
morning told my sister, who says she cannot identify as a Jew (tho we
are indeed Jewish) that  her problem is she considers Jewishness a
religion rather than an ethnicity. Obviously, I think the reverse.
  

    

My Jewish friend Akiko Yonekawa would most definitely disagree with the
Jewishness=Ethnicity thing.
  

    

Whoa.  I'll bet.
  

    
why do we have to decide on either ethnicity or religion?  jews are
complicated people, we have a complicated history, and there's lots
more social/spiritual possibilities these days.

and, you know it already, jews are just like everyone else, only more
so.
  

    
just back from Vegas... mightly enjoyed the riffs here.


words that make no sense to me (think I saw them all here, except,
maybe, ultimate?) -

right
wrong
truth
ultimate

<\http://freespace.virgin.net/sarah.peter.nelson/lazyman/lazyman.html>


"In the province of the mind what one believes to be true, either is
true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be
found experimentally and experientially. When so found these limits
turn out to be further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of
the mind there are no limits. However, in the province of the body
there are definite limits not to be transcended." - John C. Lilly 
  

    

From Phil Proctor:


2002 IN RE-PHEW!

The best non-news: we didn't suffer another insane terrorist attack. Most of
our wounds were, as usual, self-inflicted.

It's also the year that asks the question, "If you're a Raelian Clonaid baby,
are you a 'clonely child' or just 'alienated'?"

It may be the last year Mervin Whipple of Killlingly, CT sets up his 120,000
Christmas lights and animated displays, because he says, these days, "The
spirit of giving is nowhere near as much as the spirit of receiving."

Or the spirit of receivership, for that matter, with over $350 billion in
corporate bankruptcies declared this year. But then we can all feel comforted
that a millionaire sewage treatment contractor (no, not that other "waste
manager"), copped a $314.5 K powerball prize.

And speaking of winners, a world-wide poll by the BBC has named the globe's
"favorite songs ever", led by the Irish republican ballad "A Nation Once
Again", followed by a Bollywood movie song, a Nepalese lieder, a Tamil Tiger
film song and the pop song "Believe" by our own Cher, dearly won.

One of the UN Iraq weapons inspectors, Harvey John "Jack" McGeorge was found
to be the co-founder of the Washington-based S&M group, "Black Rose", and
offers training seminars in the use of knives and ropes. Do those into rough
sex need to wear a "sheet belt"? Funny the inspectors didn't find that out
sooner...

This Xmas, you could've purchased a die (sic) cast iron replica of JFK's Dal-
las death limo complete with non-action figures or a pocket-sized "Joke
Master" offering electronic access to a  thousand jokes, PLUS -- three "TV-
style laugh tracks of increasing intensity."

Good thing to have in the bomb shelter.

Video games this year included "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" where a player
can hijack police cars, kill cops and pedestrians, and pick up prostitutes
for "health points" and then whack the ho-ho-hos to get their money back.
Looked good under the tree next to the "Army Forward Command Post, a
dollhouse destroyed by a bomb.

Forward - into the paaaast!!!
  

    
#283 of 296: Paul Krassner 

>>Funny thing, you never hear anybody asserting, "My parents were
gentile, but I don't consider myself gentile."  

Say good night, Graciie<<

'Cause I, and most of my gentile friends, read so many novels about
growing up in the East Side that a small section of our brains is
totally convinced we're jewish.
  

    
Hi Paul,
   I just realized that we are in the well together for a while! Hope
the heat isn't too bad in Desert Hot Springs. Be cool, man, as if you
could be anything else... Blessings....  Scoopji
  

    
macoyote,  you do hear people say "my parrents were christian, but I don't
consider myself christian," of course.  Dunno if Paul's still cheking in,
Scoop.  He had a book party/conversation thing here too, and sometimes 
people just can't stop talking and hanging out after the fixed time is up.
  

    
that would've been fun -- cross-posting scoop and paul!

well, if anyone knows, i'm wondering (inquiring minds, and all): 
where can a person find paul's review of "the parallax view" these
days?

someone in front of me at the library was checking out the video and
we got to talking and I didn't know...

and, me, i'm a zen judaist.