Category Archives: LIVES

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SPINOZA: AN ETERNAL ASPECT

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safe_image.php“In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.”

“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”

“Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.”

“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”

“I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.”

Watch the excellent video excerpt about the life and philosophy of Spinoza from the book The Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant

Baruch Spinoza  (1632 – 1677 )  has been called by some “The Prince of Philosophers”.  By the Catholic Church and the Jewish priests he was banned as a “heretic”.   Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities excommunicated him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books. 

If you are fundamentally heretical, like me, how can you not love this guy?

...and other stuff, BULLSHIT, LIVES, MOVING PICTURES

WARNINGS FROM THE FOUNDING FATHERS

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America’s founders were rightfully skeptical of granting too much power to bankers. Thomas Jefferson said, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

President George Washington said, “Paper money has had the effect in your State [Rhode Island] that it ever will have, to ruin commerce–oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”

President Thomas Jefferson also believed that “banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

Daniel Webster warned, “Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no, Sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors, and a ruined people.”

 

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SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

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Tonight I watched a concert by The Rolling Stones, Live at Hyde Park in 2013.   Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 70 years old!!!!!  These guys still rock harder and longer than any 18 year old stud on the planet!!  Seriously.  They make me proud to be an “old” guy!!!  This song, “SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL” spells out the truth of the scene on planet Earth as it has been during it’s entire human history.

Evil and Love are Timeless and Eternal in the gods-forsaken “reality” of prison-planet Earth!   

“Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long years
Stole many a man’s soul and faith

And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
(woo woo, woo woo)

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
(woo woo, woo woo)

I shouted out,
“Who killed the Kennedys?”
When after all
It was you and me
(who who, who who)

Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
(woo woo, who who)

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
(who who)
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
(who who, who who)

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game
(woo woo, who who)

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint
(who who, who who)

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
(woo woo)
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, um yeah
(woo woo, woo woo)

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
(who who)
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, um mean it, get down
(woo woo, woo woo)

Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
(woo woo)

Tell me baby, what’s my name?
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name?
Tell me baby, what’s my name?
I tell you one time, you’re to blame!

Oh, who
woo, woo
Woo, who
Woo, woo
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah”

—————

Lyrics by Mick Jagger and Kieth Richards