Mr.Piffka's Quotes

"One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy."

E. B. White (1899-1985)

(Piffka note: I've always liked E.B. White.)

Hi Jjorge, that is a good one isn't it? ... and so old, too.

Yes, Mr.P's family was very good at keeping records, many were well-educated and most kept journals. One of the guys I think is coolest from his family claimed that he wrote the song, "Home on the Range."

"The chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility; he can never admit an error."

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)

Oooh, good one.

Pif,

I just noticed you signature line:

'No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds -- November.'

I love it.
Where did it come from? Is it yours?

No. (heh heh)

It's from Thomas Hood (1799 - 1845), a not very well-known Scottish poet.

Here's the entire poem - "November"

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

Here are two different versions of his life, and since you might be interested, I'll also copy his most famous poem.






The Song of the Shirt

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread--
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt."

"Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work ?- work ?- work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

"Work ?- work ?- work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work ?- work ?- work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

"Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch ?- stitch ?- stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own ?-
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work ?- work ?- work!
My Labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread ?- and rags.
That shatter'd roof ?- and this naked floor ?-
A table ?- a broken chair ?-
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work ?- work ?- work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work ?- work ?- work!
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work ?- work ?- work,
In the dull December light,
And work ?- work ?- work,
When the weather is warm and bright ?-
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet ?-
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!"

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread ?-
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, ?-
Would that its tone could reach the Rich! ?-
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

Good stuff Piff. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.

There is on BBC radio a weekly programme called "Quote Unquote"...which you could listen to on-line...which is very good...and from which my sig quote was lifted this week!

Thanks, McTag, I'm glad you like to come here and read. I like your quote too and am copying it here so it doesn't get lost when you change sig lines.

--- "The game of chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency." -Raymond Chandler ---

A good piquant turn of phrase. I'll have to see about that radio show. Thank you for pointing me there. (It must be a little tricky to get a quote off of a radio station.)

For Thursday, straight from the emails of Mr.Piffka*:

"All the war in the world, all the violence, is in the name of religion, which has been born of a dualistic mind."

Deepak Chopra (1947- )


*I admit, I was surprised he'd quote Chopra, but he has gained a lot of respect for him since viewing the movie "One".

Ohhhhh, I got one of those!

"Hear that hissing noise? That's the sound of the air being let out of Woodward's reputation."
-Arianna Huffington

"This ain't a war….it's a goddam whorehouse."
John Dos Passos (1896-1970)


Jjorge, we have a library copy of Bush at War sitting on the Dining table.... hiss.....

The truth is,we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.

Woodrow Wilson.

"Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions."
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)


Jjorge -- Didn't you refer to Bob Woodward and how he's pandered to the administration in that book on Bush?

Yes Pif, I did, but the way you answered -perhaps because you mentioned having his book on your table- I wasn't sure if you were agreeing with me, or hissing AT me.

A little irony for your Sunday...

"Thank God I'm an atheist."
Luis Buñel (1900-1983)


Jjorge- You think I might hiss at you?

I'm just a little disappointed with Woodward but maybe (>?) he is telling it as he sees it. <shrug> We chose NOT to buy the book, you'll notice.

"Nature never makes any blunders, when she makes a fool she means it."

Archibald Alexander (1772-1851)

"Force is the weapon of the weak."

Ammon Hennacy (1893-1970)

"On the bank of the Oxford canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air...The whole performance, cotton wool, catkins, tree and all, is in aid of one thing and one thing only, the spreading of DNA around the countryside. Not just any DNA, but DNA whose coded characters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. Those fluffy specks are, literally, spreading instructions for making themselves. They are there because their ancestors succeeded in doing the same. It is raining instructions out there; it's raining programs; it's raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn't be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs."

Richard Dawkins (1941- )

"The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault." - Major Ralph Peters, US Army Command and General Staff College


(Ed. note: As a supplement to today's quote for those of you who, like me, just cannot find the information that would explain why we are doing what we are doing, here is a short passage from the Defense Science Board Task Force, which is an advisory body attached to the office of Secretary of Defense, and which produces unclassified background reports on diverse subjects as directed by the Department of Defense. This is an excerpt from a DSBTF report published in September 2004 on the subject of 'Strategic Communication'. I have bolded a few things I think are key:

"We call it a war on terrorism - but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself. And it has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents - of which radical fighters are only a small part. Moreover, these movements for restoration also represent, in their variant visions, the reality of multiple identities within Islam.
"If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the 'apostate' regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward - and potentially dangerous - situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive. Thus the U.S. has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle that is both broadly cast for all Muslims and country-specific.
"This is the larger strategic context, and it is acutely uncomfortable: U.S. policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself. Three recent polls of Muslims show an overwhelming conviction that the U.S. seeks to ?'dominate' and ?'weaken' the Muslim World. Not only is every American initiative and commitment in the Muslim World enmeshed in the larger dynamic of intra-Islamic hostilities - but Americans have inserted themselves into this intra-Islamic struggle in ways that have made us an enemy to most Muslims.
"Therefore, in stark contrast to the Cold War, the United States today is not seeking to contain a threatening state/empire, but rather seeking to convert a broad movement within Islamic civilization to accept the value structure of Western Modernity - an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a ?'War on Terrorism.'
"But if the strategic situation is wholly unlike the Cold War, our response nonetheless has tended to imitate the routines and bureaucratic responses and mindset that so characterized that era. In terms of strategic communication especially, the Cold War emphasized...an acceptance of authoritarian regimes as long as they were anti-communist. This could be glossed over in our message of freedom and democracy because it was the main adversary only that truly mattered. Today, however, the perception of intimate U.S. support of tyrannies in the Muslim World is perhaps the critical vulnerability in American strategy. It strongly undercuts our message, while strongly promoting that of the enemy. American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.
"Muslims do not ?'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states. Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that ?'freedom is the future of the Middle East' is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World - but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
"Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self determination. Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack - to broad public support. What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of ?'terrorist' groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.
"Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.
"Thus the critical problem in American public diplomacy directed toward the Muslim World is not one of ?'dissemination of information,' or even one of crafting and delivering the ?'right' message. Rather, it is a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none - the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam. Inevitably therefore, whatever Americans do and say only serves the party that has both the message and the ?'loud and clear' channel: the enemy."

Now, I realize there are those among us who legitimately believe we should unapologetically work to 'corrupt' Islamic culture with western modernity, and that the use of the military to 'keep the world open to our cultural assault' is a completely legitimate use of that power. This is because they view what is going on right now as a clash between cultures, essentially a battle to the death, and they love and cherish our western ways and absolutely intend to see them prevail over what seems to us the superstitious tribal brutality of Islam. The fatal flaw in their reasoning is that the means we are using to pursue this goal are inimical to the goal. Instituting republican political forms by force is like training a dog to 'come' by beating him every time he arrives. It seems to me that if your goal is to 'corrupt' Islam with western ways and thereby diminish support for Islamic fundamentalism, it would be far more effective, and inexpensive, to provide every twelve-year-old boy in the Islamic world with an internet connection. Give all the 8-year-olds X-boxes. You wouldn't have to give anything to the girls, they are not the problem. Your War on Terror would dry up and blow away. I'm starting a new organization right here and now, we'll call it "iPods for iSlam" - cash contributions only, please. )

Piff, thank you for the report from DSBTF. It covers most everything that is wrong with this war.

Isn't it amazing that Hoover and McCarthy and all the Cold War warriors couldn't do half the damage the Bush administration has done? (And most of them probably wouldn't have considered going the way of the Shrub).

Now for something to lighten the mood:

"Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it."