I cant sleep

I cant sleep
cant sleep I
sleep I cant
I cant Sleep

I stay awake
stay awake I
awake I stay
I stay awake

GRAHAM C LINDSAY

Burning books

Why do people burn books?

Here is a negative statement about the origins of the Bible.

Before the Bible was written god had been a women. Some say she was called Lilleth and her emblems were an apple, and a snake. In the Bible Lilleth is turned into the snake of the Garden of eden tempting Adam and Eve into eating an apple. Also Lilleth in the Bible is represented as being an Owl. The Bible is propaganda and has its own agenda and Lilleth was turned from being the mother god of the earth into satan. I am guessing now but maybe people worship images of the Owl as it represents a time of wisdom and a connection with the earth. A time before the destructive Biblical hegemony.

Now imagine from this statement that a new religion of Lilleth arose and replaced the Abrahamic religions. The Bible would be seen to be a threat to the new risen Lilleth religion so they would burn the Bible.

Burning books is a powerful message. Have you ever seen the film Fahrenheit 451? Its based on a novel by Ray Bradbury. The freedom to read and write and to learn is an immutable human right. Through the history of the written word, politicians and religious figures have burned books. One of the greatest pieces of vandalism was the burning of the great library at Alexandria. Burning a copy of a Bible may seem like a nothing event, or burning copies of many of the Gideon Bibles that gather dust in Hotel drawers may seem just an empty issue, but it would lead to other vandalism. Imagine if a friend of yours took all your books and CDs and put them on the fire, what would your reaction be?

Imagine tomorrow if all the Libraries and all the book shops and every place that the written word is placed just vanished. Then like a continuing virus all the music disappeared together with every work of art. Just imagine a world where every creative expression was simply wiped away until a void was left. Not one speck of human creativity left to be admired or hated. And on tomorrow you woke to find that every word that you had ever written or music that you had ever composed or every photo you had ever taken completely vanished.

John Donne XVII Meditation

XVII. MEDITATION.


PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Literature Network » John Donne » Meditation XVII

20 Tons of TNT

I fell upon this Flanders and Swann song. The Lyrics were written when the World population was half it is now. The words are so chilling and such a huge contrast to their usual Gnu type songs.

I have seen it estimated:
Somewhere between death and birth
There are now three thousand million
People living on this earth
And the stock-piled mass destruction
Of the Nuclear Powers-That-Be
Equals--for each man or woman--
Twenty tons of TNT.

Every man of every nation
(Twenty tons of TNT)
Shall receive this allocation
Twenty tons of TNT.
Texan, Bantu, Slav or Maori,
Argentine or Singhalee,
Every maiden brings this dowry
Twenty tons of TNT.

Not for thirty silver shilling
Twenty tons of TNT
Twenty thousand pounds a killing--
Twenty tons of TNT.
Twenty hundred years of teaching,
Give to each his legacy,
Plato, Buddha, Christ or Lenin,
Twenty tons of TNT

Father, Mother, Son and Daughter,
Twenty tons of TNT
Give us land and seed and water,
Twenty tons of TNT.
Children have no need of sharing;
At each new nativity
Come the ghostly Magi bearing
Twenty tons of TNT

Ends the tale that has no sequel
Twenty tons of TNT.
Now in death are all men equal
Twenty tons of TNT.
Teach me how to love my neighbour,
Do to him as he to me;
Share the fruits of all our labour
Twenty tons of TNT.

Michael Flanders

Drinking the last of the 20th Century. by Neil Stringfellow

Drinking the last of the 20th Century.


The dusty Library building was undergoing a face lift
It had been closed for many months,
Books have a musty smell and buildings need to comply
With the latest government regulations.
Still the pensioners and students
would come with bundles of books,
Tied together with string.
But with librarians on leave, and labouring workmen in there place
with plaster board and gloss paints,
books could not be returned.
Only a sign, chained to the big gates, greeted visitors with the words,
"This Library is temporarily closed due to refurbishment,
It will reopen in Spring 2000."

I filled up my cup with old wars and revolutions
I drank down the last of the 20th century,
I looked to the bottom of the cup
Looking for memory or desire;
No clues or tealeaf readers,
Only ideology leaving a taste to forget.
Would the library ever reopen?






Neil Stringfellow. November 21st, 2005.

Shimmering Strings by Eugene Montini

"

By a shimmering sea at sunset on my own and out of luck, longing suffocates my soul as the sun poisons what is left of my withered soul, a dull whip lash or even a gust of wind and night came like an immaculate bowl over flowing with stars and newness

Suddenly the voice of a violin thin and hungry floated on the black night’s air. Like a stray dogs' howling-It was my companion, it was someone else’s aloneness loose upon the sand

I sought this violin in the night I searched step by pitch black step, tide by tide, star by star. But it faded fell silent then suddenly surged like a flare in the brackish night, it was a pattern of incendiary sound spiral of musical contours and I went on searching for the dark violins life line the source submerged in silence

Finally there it was; a withered bow and its his hungry companion soaring over the lonely night on a solitary scale, a single theme that rung to the sky full of stars and wondering. And I played my violin half asleep held deep in the estuaries of my mind the strings giving birth to desolate cries, the wood worn smooth by the plunging of many fingers and I honoured the smoothness of a perfect instrument perfectly assembled. That hungry violin was like family to me like kin not just because of its sound not just because it raised its howling to the hungry stars; no because it had grown up learning how to befriend lost souls and sing songs to wondering strangers"

Eugene Montini 4 August 2010 A wonderful Kenyan friend

just making it up for laughs

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

I nearly wet my self looking at this site
Its the obverse of Wikipedia

I bet you some people take the nonsense in this site and think it to be true

Lots of love and hugs to you if you read this gubbins

Diogenes Teufelsdröckh

I like the people I work with and they work so very hard. I have given each a wee present as a way of saying thanks. I keep waking up in the wee small hours and end up listening to the World Service. I guess that's why I am here now wiring into this Blog. I like having a Blog it just stays here like a dog on my lap. I made my first real Youtube film of me playing the organ. Its just a Simple copy cut and paste job of me playing Holy Holy Holy. I am feeling sad maybe its just sentimentality creeping up on me or is there something lurking ready to pounce. Giles will be back from Dubai soon. Maybe that's it. I have missed his friendship. Its good to have friends. Books can be like a friend. I re read Sartor Resartus Thomas Carlyle its a funny and intriguing book about the imaginary philosopher Diogenes Teufelsdröckh.

Are you being served

I felt odd tonight. Heals were celebrating 200 years of being in existence. I won an award, Champagne, certificate and £100 in Heals Tokens. But it felt unreal. I appreciate the sentiment but the £100 deserves to be given to my colleagues. I will divide amongst them its them who have done the work. I feel strange and undeserving.

Torn in two

I wish that Stirling was not so far from my London home. My family grow older and its been a year since I saw them. Its good to be here but I like London. So Iam torn in two.