Hi, VYAZMA - Out for a few hours - the operation went well but the rehab is a b….! (Two more weeks!)
Got lots of time to rehash my thoughts, my frustrations and my inconsistencies.
Looking for the answer - The Quest and that is still a worthy step for us.
And, in the center, I am surrounded by modern and arrogant French, beautiful Italians, Spanish and Potuguese romantics, Moorish Arabs, and ancient Seferads - such a wealth of wisdom along with the confused feelings of today’s world. Trying to find a neutral ground is quite a challenge!
Anyway, I look forward to returning to this fascinating site of stimulating, mature, concerned and beautiful people!
friend John

Socrate’s pupil - 09 November 2008 09:42 AM

Hi, VYAZMA - Out for a few hours - the operation went well but the rehab is a b….! (Two more weeks!)
Got lots of time to rehash my thoughts, my frustrations and my inconsistencies.
Looking for the answer - The Quest and that is still a worthy step for us.
And, in the center, I am surrounded by modern and arrogant French, beautiful Italians, Spanish and Potuguese romantics, Moorish Arabs, and ancient Seferads - such a wealth of wisdom along with the confused feelings of today’s world. Trying to find a neutral ground is quite a challenge!
Anyway, I look forward to returning to this fascinating site of stimulating, mature, concerned and beautiful people!
friend John

Glad to see all went well.Welcome back friend.That’s a mouthful there.I would say that the answer lies somewhere in the middle of your thoughts,frustrations,inconsistencies,as well as your happiness and your comforts.Try picking the answer out of that garbled mess.You’ve seen alot of stuff,and now your in France somewhere,you should be providing me with some answers.
Talking with you on this site,I get frustarated somehow.You eminate a bohemian vibe and a sense of intellectual freedom.I stupidly set those things aside,and am now bogged down in a f****ng trap.So by all means,tell me what you know.

You know, I am hoping as well that with Obama in office many things will change. Thing that I feel a lot of people are forgetting is that one man can not do it all by himself. Obama may have great hopes for economic change, or plans on helping feed the poor, poverty and all that stuff. But people need to be standing up and actually realizing that they need to be out there on the front lines as well. Our country can not move forward if its people are all running backwards. We placed so much blame on the Bush administration, and much of it was deserved. But we didn’t hold ourselves accountable for our mistakes. I believe that this will be the key factor in our country advancing and changing. Not the president himself, but the people of the nation.

Hi, friend from Buffalo
I am out with another weekend pass and go back tomorrow (Sunday) after lunch. If I am lucky, I will be released next weekend.
You sound frustrated. This is a useful word probably invented over 2500 years ago (I really think that all useful words that were ever necessary to express human emotions were made up and agreed upon back in those years when they first started writing non-religious books. Read ‘Histories’ by Herodutus.)
We go through different moods each day and just because we are frustrated at a given moment, it does not justify our putting a bullet through our heads.
“Slow Down, You Move Too Fast, ...” - remember that song? Yes, I am old and free of responsibilities - you are not! I am in a very nice position. But you must handle things calmly and cooly for you are not the free (irresponsible?) agent that I am. All starts with you. You create your own sunshine. And you share it with those you love and are close to (first and foremost!) and then with friends. Answers are found as you read, experience, evaluate and step out again. Remember, most of all, that I am so free to dream and run my mouth but too old to do anything. You are the one that will change the world.

Simon and Garfunkle.Yes,this last post of yours is a little over the top.

By the way, I know history rather well and know that it is a very romantic story of man since the early Greeks. Millions of books have been written on it. And there are as many interpretations.
Man is trying to defy Nature and it cannot be done. One thing we can do is to try to be a little more friendly to our kind and the rest of livng things as well.
Yes, man is greedy. Yes, he is vicious. But he also lives in fear of losing what he has at the moment - money, power, position, as well as his family. He is afraid that the masses are going to take it all away from him. And they will too, if given the chance (witness the French Revolution!) Have you ever heard the truth of this ‘glorified’ event? There was such waste, destruction, murder and savagery.
Man is a very dangerous beast so he must be controlled, guided and forced to behave himself and to be kept within reign. Have you ever witnessed a riot?
So we have the rich and wealthy who are afraid of losing everything and we have our present government that perpetuates and encourages the worst of animal instints in man. That is where we are with our righteous and moral, our most Christian and God inspired country who most definitely believe in their mission!
So we go back to Erasmus and More and their ideals for the best in man to shine forth. It has been a constant battle for centuries. Perhaps a ‘Benevolent Dictatorship’ is the only solution?

Socrate’s pupil - 15 November 2008 12:58 PM

So we go back to Erasmus and More and their ideals for the best in man to shine forth. It has been a constant battle for centuries. Perhaps a ‘Benevolent Dictatorship’ is the only solution?

The rule of international law via the UN would bring us your “benevolent dictatorship”, and I live for that day. As a businessman I have always loathed overhead, it kills you, and that’s what militarism does to us -sucks the wealth from our species into the influence of those “above the law”.

Maybe it will take some “Black Swan” occurrence nobody has foreseen. I just got a brillig that soon an online newspaper could come online that people trusted, like the Manchester Guardian, or the Christian Science Monitor (believe it or not) 50 years ago. It could be the arbiter of all things intellectual, moral and material.

Hopefully, it will be a newspaper of and by the UN itself?

Martinus - 17 December 2008 04:24 PM

Hopefully, it will be a newspaper of and by the UN itself?

Your wish is my commnand! http://www.un.org/news/