(1/29/99) Cause

"As far as we know causality is like clockwork. Sequential clockwork systems we understand; nonlinear web systems are unadulterated myteries. The latter drown in their self-made paradoxical logic. A causes B. B causes A. Swarm systems are oceans of intersecting logic: A indirectly causes everything else and everything else indirectly causes A. I call this latteral or horizontal causality. The credit for the true cause ( or more precisely the true proportional mix of causes) will spread horizontally through the web until the trigger of a particular event is essentially unknowable. Stuff happens."

Out of Control, Kevin Kelly (p. 23)

(6/1/98) Be neither slave nor tyrant.

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man nor ask another to live for me."

Atlas Shrugged , Ayn Rand (John Galt's speach)

(12/27/96) Why Anarchy?

"The root question of collective morality is ridiculously simple to phrase. Either the people wish to make their own decisions, trusting they have the common sense to do so, or they wish to be controlled by the decisions of others. Collective morality, once entrenched, is a cyclic argument, and it is tantamount to selling your soul for the ease of non-thinking. The essence of freedom is contained in the individual's exercise of personal judgement, and once that bastion is surrendered, all liberty will soon disappear. Ultimate authority, in any system, regardless of its name, can bring about collapse and explosion."

Blueprint for Revolution, F.M. Wood (p.140)

(3/29/98) Education

"Trust in families, neighbohoods and individuals to make sense of the important question, "What is education for?" If some of them answer differently than you might prefer, that's really not your business, and it shouldn't be your problem. Our type of schooling has deliberately concealed that such a question must be framed and not taken for granted if anything beyond a mockery of democracy is to be nurtured. It is illegitimate to have an expert answer that question for you. It was our trust in our potential that helped lay down our foundations back in the colonial period, and I feel certain that the structure we built still houses powerful potential. Let's use it, and create a truly American solution to the great school nightmare."

Dumbing us Down, John Taylor Gatto (p103)

(10/9/2004)  Religion

"If the central religious image was a woman giving birth and not, as in our time, a man dying on a cross, it would not be unreasonable to infer that life and the love of life -- rather than death and the fear of death -- were dominant in society as well as art."

The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler

(4/9/2005) Story

"This is the room of the wolfmother wallpaper. The toadstool motel you once thought a mere folk tale, a corny, obsolete, rural invention.

This is the room where your wisest ancestor was born, be you Christian, Arab, or Jew. The linoleum underfoot is sacred linoleum. Please remove your shoes. Quite recently, the linoleum here was restored to its original luster with the aid of a wax made from hornet fat. It scuffs easily. So never mind if there are holes in your socks.

This is the room where your music was invented. Notice the cracked drumhead spiked to the wall, spiked to the wolfmother wallpaper above the corner sink where the wayward wife washed out her silk underpants, inspecting them in the blue seepage from the No Vacancy neon that flickered suspiciously out in the thin lizard dawn.

What room is this? This is the room where the antler carved the pumpkin. This is the room where the gutter pipes drank the moonlight. This is the room where moss gradually silenced the treasure, rubies being the last to go. Transmissions from insect antennae were monitored in this room. It's amazing how often their broadcasts referred to the stars.

A clue: this is the room where the Painted Stick was buried, where the Conch Shell lay wrapped in its adoring papyrus. Lovers, like serpents, shed their old skin in this clay room. Now do you remember the wallpaper? The language of the wallpaper? The wolfmother's blood roses that vibrated there?

Enough of this wild fox barking. You pulled up in the forest Cadillac, the vehicle you claimed you'd forgotten how to drive. You parked between the swimming pool and the row of blackened skulls. Of course, you know what room this is.

This is the room where Jezebel frescoed her eyelids with history's tragic glitter, where Delilah practiced for her beautician's license, the room in which Salome dropped the seventh veil while dancing the dance of ultimate cognition, skinny legs and all."

Skinny Legs and All,  Tom Robbins