64 Comments

1. Jamie Irons:

A wonderful song that was resurrected (!) by the entertaining movie “Ghost,” which featured Whoopi Goldberg in a role where — for the last time in her life — she was actually amusing.

Jamie Irons

Apr 14, 2009 - 7:15 am 2. Gordon:

Goes clear back to the ’50s; I remember the version by Al Hibbler, big hit when I was in jr high school. Checking the Wikipede, turns out he was only the second solo recording but I think was the first hit single as I don’t remember hearing any other version at that time.

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:08 am 3. wretchard:

CS Lewis argued for the existence of “true myth”; making the case that the reason certain themes are so powerful is because they “really happened”. When we say something “really happened” we really refer to particular events that have been experienced by all of us, never in the same way, but yet in fashion that the myth can generally describe. What binds us is the myth. It’s the intersection that we have in common.

So when we hear a song, or read a story which we think is “true”, that is not because it corresponds to our experience exactly, but that it contains it. PJ O’Rourke said in a recent interview that whereas most college men talked about girls over pitchers of cheap beer, what distinguished Ivy League men from the rest — and gave them their quality — was that they liked to talk, not about girls and sports in some pizza hall, but about changing the world, which despite appearances was really a conversation about themselves, less about the world, then about how they would change it.

That I think, is entirely the wrong approach. The reason homo sapiens has been so successful over the eons is that it has managed to evolve a set a behaviors which roughly correspond to the “true myths”. Man’s real power lies in his ability to recognize the patterns, not simply as they apply to the physical world, but also to the moral one. The most lasting attribute of any great work of art is its truth. They say there is no formula anyone can follow to produce commercially successful art. But there may be one infallible way to produce a dud. And that is to whisper only to oneself. Perhaps we can only speak to each other in the language of myth. And why ‘Unchained Melody’ endures.

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:15 am 4. Agoraphobic Plumber:

There was a LOT of great music that came out of the 50s, and a lot of it was entirely original. However, I personally am a child of the 70s and 80s, and for me no period or style of music will probably ever surpass the pop music of the 80s.

Wretchard rightly points out that the stuff from the 50s was more raw and unfocused, and thus better able to be adapted by the listener to their own feelings and situation.

But the ungodly array of incredibly different sensibilities that emerged in the 80s has provided me with many, many songs that perfectly fit nearly any mood I’ve ever been in. Artists as different as Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Chicago, Air Supply, Blondie, Run DMC…the list goes on and on and on. The music is more specialized…but there seemed to be a lot more of it.

Come to think of it, the evolution of music has sort of paralleled deoderant or toothpaste or cars or many other consumer products. There used to be just a few, and most of them were pretty good. By the 80s, there were a dizzying array of them, and you could nearly have your pick. Now you can custom order things to your specifications over the web and pay extra for expedited delivery.

But I don’t think you can get overnight delivery for things like “Unchained Melody”. That takes time. And inspiration.

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:19 am 5. joe buzz:

I was truly blown away by Clarence Gatemouth Brown when I watched and listened to him play his version of that song in a small venue about 15 years ago. What a great musician he was!

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:30 am 6. Aristide:

To quote the world’s greatest garage band, “Sometimes bad is bad”!

Sometimes more is less!

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:30 am 7. bogie wheel:

The most lasting attribute of any great work of art is its truth.

Which is basically what I have always understood Keats to be saying in “Ode on a Grecian Urn”:

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

Capturing or expressing the true, the beautiful, and the good used to be the definition of art. I remember getting into a debate about ten years ago with someone who was trying to take the position that beauty was neither good nor bad, “it just IS.”

De-linking beauty from truth and goodness, and de-linking art from all three, gets you, I guess, to where we are now … forced taxpayer subsidizing of Virgin Mary in Elephant Dung.

I wouldn’t mind so much those self-anointed arteests who want just to whisper to themselves. It’s those who want to shout, and to shout obscenities, and who on top of all that want me to pay for their lunch (and rent, and health insurance), that bug me.

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:31 am 8. Terry Baker:

“De-linking beauty from truth and goodness, and de-linking art from all three, gets you, I guess, to where we are now … forced taxpayer subsidizing of Virgin Mary in Elephant Dung.”

Amen, bogie wheel.

You needn’t guess. It is utterly true.

Apr 14, 2009 - 9:01 am 9. Habu:

April 14

What music was the Titanic Orchestra playing when it hit the iceburg on this date?

What play was President and Mrs. Lincoln attending on this night at Ford’s Theater on this date?

When is Habu’s birthday?

Who cares?

Apr 14, 2009 - 9:19 am 10. joe buzz:

Happy birfday day Haby, you and possumtate go out and make the rounds tonight, I’ll cover the tab.

Apr 14, 2009 - 9:29 am 11. Benj:

Not sure what Titanic’s orchestra was playing when the Iceberg hit but didn’t they do “Nearer My God To Thee” after the fact?…

Al Green does a a VERY beautiful “Unchained Melody” on “Living for You” which also has his single greatest song – “Free at Last” – just a simple R&B love song – the stuff of the blues. No edge…unless you got, ah, exceptionally American taste. – my heart is in my ears…

Apr 14, 2009 - 9:31 am 12. NahnCee:

What chords does “art” strike across cultures and civilizations? Music is one such chord, and art like Monet and da Vinci is another such chord.

However, does a Saudi watching “True Grit” get a thrill down his back when John Wayne puts the reins in his teeth, and takes off across the meadow on his horse firing a rifle in each meaty hand at the Bad Guys who had the awful taste to call him a “one-eyed old fat man”?

Apr 14, 2009 - 9:46 am 13. Charles:

Truth without love is not truth–and for that matter — love without truth is not love. fwiw

Apr 14, 2009 - 10:50 am 14. Lifeofthemind:

CS Lewis was a fellow Inkling of Tolkein’s. JRRT expounded his theory of myth making as “sub-creation” in On Fairy Stories which was published in America in the slim volume Tree and Leaf along with the short story Leaf by Niggle.

Apr 14, 2009 - 11:20 am 15. Lifeofthemind:

Habu>,
All the best, let us know when you are old enough and we’ll buy you a drink.

Apr 14, 2009 - 11:21 am 16. bogie wheel:

Habu -
It could be worse. Six more days and you, like my sister, could share Adolf’s birthday.

Then again, nine days more and you coulda shared Shakespeare’s.

As it is, you got stuck with day before Tax Day. More than enough reason to indulge in a brewski or five.

Apr 14, 2009 - 12:00 pm 17. Habu:

It is my sincere hope that you are preparing a thread on the Homeland Security report currently on everyones lips.

As you are no doubt it mentions returning soldiers, people with the wrong bumper stickers on their cars etc as “right wing radicals”

Tomorrow the nation will have it’s Tea Party and the cleveage between those who believe in the Consitution and those who belive in Marx,Lenin and Alinsky will widen.

I am no oracle, and you may choose not to print this but a civil war is brewing and you certainly must see it. Tu es d’accord, n’est-ce pas?

Apr 14, 2009 - 12:06 pm 18. Habu:

Lifeofthemind

Wonderful offer ole chap but I don’t drink, with the occasional exception of an after dinner liqueur some of which are truly wonderful.

Use to dink a sour mash called Rebel Yell or 101 Wild Turkey but quit it all about 35 years ago.

Apr 14, 2009 - 12:15 pm 19. NahnCee:

So what happens after the mega-Tea Parties tomorrow? We have thousands of people turning out across the country to protest against the taxes that they *will*, undoubtedly, end up paying.

Then what?

Obama gets his money, every one who turned out to protest goes back to work … and nothing changes?

Apr 14, 2009 - 12:33 pm 20. marymcl:

Free association is right – I see Phil Spector’s name, I hear Darlene Love’s voice!

Speaking of Tolkien and “true myth”, his own mythmaking grew directly out of his philology. Tolkien was one of the last practitioners of the old historical philology, which has now been almost entirely replaced by Noam Chomsky’s transformational linguistics (I think that’s what it’s called). Anyway, Tom Shippey’s books explain the process in detail, and it’s complicated enough that I shouldn’t even try to do so here, but basically Tolkien worked off the idea that certain commonalities between fragments of poetry in different archaic languages hearkened back to words that no longer exist but may have been commonly used at one time to refer to specific things that also no longer “exist”. Such words were designated by placing an asterisk at the front of them (as in *dverg, which led the professor to “dwarf” IIRC) So he spent a lot of time chewing on these archaic *words and fragments of words and his imagination took it from there. I’m not explaining it very well, probably because I still don’t entirely understand it, but as a creative process it’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard of before.

Apr 14, 2009 - 12:56 pm 21. Habu:

Dept. of Homeland Security Report

Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

It specifically mentions returning soldiers and other people who are Constitutionally centered.

http://tinyurl.com/cuqph7

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:10 pm 22. Chiral:

Recognizing true patterns within different works of fiction… isn’t the term “plagiarism”? Or simply “lying”? If a drama didn’t happen, then that drama is melodrama; it’s misleading nonsense likely to be used for propaganda.

There is no shortage of epic and inspiring non-fiction. Why tell myths?

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:12 pm 23. Habu:

.

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:21 pm 24. bogie wheel:

NahnCee -

As an old pro of all of two Tea Party protests so far (and my third will be tomorrow), and based on numerous conversations with other TPers, also protest neophytes, I offer a twofold answer:

1) We don’t quite know yet what happens after this. Only that -
2) We’re not going away.

These people, of whom I am apparently one, are angry and determined. Anger notwithstanding, I have not heard much ire-filled rhetoric so much as I have heard references to The Constitution, The Constitution, and The Constitution.

At the Pittsburgh Tea Party this past Saturday, Alan Keyes, the keynote speaker, asked a question of the crowd, in reference to finding ourselves in this big stinking mess of a national situation: “Where have we been?”

“Working!” was the spontaneous reply of several people in the crowd.

There’s a lot of truth in this, I think, and it certainly applies to me. For tens of millions of Americans, politics has never been a full-time hobby, let alone occupation. All our lives, we have worked, paid taxes, tried to stay informed and voted. We have also been busy raising our families, getting the car inspected, building the new deck, cleaning the basement, sitting in freeway jams or on the bus commute with the “Harry Truman” audio CD playing, going to church and cheering on our football team on Sundays, taking the kids to the doc and the soccer games, meeting with their teachers, helping with homework, debugging the tomato plants and decrapifying the new computer, and every now and then taking a vacation.

In a country with limited government, the hard-working, tax-paying, informed but marginally-politically-involved citizen would be okay. There’s equilibrium to the system.

On the other hand, when a class of people take it upon themselves to make politics their be-all and end-all, the part-timers (ordinary taxpayers) are going to be at a great disadvantage to the professionals, who will inevitably tilt the system in every way imaginable to benefit themselves, their cronies, and their constituents.

At which point we are back to Square One. The ordinary, hard-working, taxpaying private citizen must become politically active, obsessed, even, and relentless. So that one day, our grandkids can go back to building the deck and cheering on the team.

“I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.” — John Adams

Did those guys climbing aboard the Dartmouth, the Beaver, and the Eleanor that night have a five-year plan? Or even a one-year plan? No.

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:22 pm 25. trangbang68:

The talent shows at San Quentin might get more interesting. Get three young guys ,turned out by cellmate Bubba, put them in bouffant hairdos, white evening gowns and do the Shang-ri-las Redux. “that’s why I fell for the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood…..”

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:25 pm 26. bogie wheel:

It specifically mentions returning soldiers and other people who are Constitutionally centered.

Must be the same people behind Penn State’s “beware the psycho vet” video, yes?

As for the Constitution … if someone wants to call it a radical manifesto, then can I call them “King George”?

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:26 pm 27. JMH:

I am no oracle, and you may choose not to print this but a civil war is brewing and you certainly must see it. Tu es d’accord, n’est-ce pas?

Habu hopes I’m wrong about how GenY votes on Social Security, and I hope Habu is wrong about this brewing civil war.

But I’m really, really terrified that he’s right.

Paterns and all that. They point to Leftists trying to outlaw any peaceful opposition. No hate speech, no extremists, no ungoodthink. Their plan, I think, is to remove opportunities for peaceful resistence to their agenda (really just an extrapolation using the courts to circumvent elected legislators, speech codes, etc.) and figure that violent opposition will push the country even farther into their hands. A ploy to force their opposition to either submit, or declare itself illegitimate by resisting.

Not sure how it’ll work out. Kinda worried though.

Apr 14, 2009 - 1:49 pm 28. Unsk:

Habu,

This time with this Right Wing Terror Alert, Obama and his minions have gone too far. This piece of fascist crap is indefensible to any American with the slightest patriotic yearnings.

It tries to criminalize and intimidate free speech and dissent. Wasn’t it just months ago that ” dissent was the highest form of patriotism”?

But it is also a great opportunity for Conservatives. Anyone defending this authoritarian garbage can be roundly ridiculed forever, and that includes our great Messiah. It should pull back the curtains for the many who have been blinded.

Now if only the Republicans will take advantage of this. The Congressional Republicans should demand hearings and firings of anyone involved.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:01 pm 29. sigintel:

The Obama government has “lost that loving feeling” for about half of the country. What is going to bring on more push back to the Obama plan will be when white males discover that the stimulus package specifically targets 8a companies and gives preferences to minorities on most of the big dollar projects. The New Haven Fire Department reverse discrimination case is going to the Supreme Court and should it be adjudicated that the whites and Latino were discriminated against then all hell will break loose with affirmative action programs.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:08 pm 30. LFMayor:

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the congressional Republicans to do anything besides line their pockets. We’re going to have to fix this ourselves people. Rejoice in the fact that you’re not alone on the street corner tomorrow, there ARE many who feel as you do. Realize that waving signs isn’t going to change Washington or fix the rigged voting though. I’m with Habu, nasty times are ahead and it really torques me because it’s not what I or my relatives served to ensure, that bright future was robbed from us all. So… if the quickest way around the fire is through it, then that’s just what we’ll do.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:14 pm 31. bogie wheel:

FWIW, Powerline has a great fisking of the DHS “nutter in every bush” slander.

I agree there won’t be anything useful coming from GOPers in Congress. Even the handful that are good. There are just too few of them. Washington is broke(n).

However, I do think that it remains to be seen what certain states will do if things get much worse.

And then there’s always that much-vaunted Black Swan.

At which point everyone, including Dear Leader, gets OBE.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:26 pm 32. Habu:

JMH & Unsk

I believe you’ve both pegged it correctly. It’s the classic moves of a leader who tends toward totalitarian government.
Just look at the last few weeks of various announcements.
* Guns coming from North America to Mexico. This is totally bogus but it’s a building block toward gun confiscation
* The Home Security Report which defines people who we would normally call simply good citizens are now being cast as “right wing radicals.”
* Obama hiring and touting using “estimates” for the census//guess who’ll make out there?

He’s polarized the population more than any president in my lifetime..as I’ve said before the really scary thing is that he is still very popular.

Texas has just passed legislation reinforcing our 10th amendment rights. Other states will no doubt follow.
Gun sales off the chart.
Economic redistribution of wealth and outright government ownership of industries, including the heart of capitalism , the banks which he refuses to allow to pay back TARP money so he can continue to run the banks..

It’s not good.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:37 pm 33. sigintel:

As Habu states, The State of Texas issued a statement today informing the federal government of its sovereign powers under Article 10 and to back the hell out of the State’s business. This could be the beginning of a big push back by Red states against the hideous Federal intrusion. Maybe things will start to turn against totalitarianism when the State’s say enough ! …Of course that will never happen in Michigan, NY or Hawaii.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:39 pm 34. Habu:

LFMayor

Brother you said it. This isn’t what we served our country for. Even if you didn’t serve and are your regulation citizen to lerch to the far far left and seeing the foundations being prepared for a larger more powerful government telling us just what and how we can do things is very disturbing.

Everyone has their antennae up. The hard Left is thrilled beyong belief to see the Communist Manifesto become a reality.

As it stands now the Contitutionalists do not have a leader but events will develop one. Once that occurs, IF the leader is committed to our Constitution then things will get spirited.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:49 pm 35. sigintel:

How Technology Won The Presidency…part 1
http://gigaom.com/2009/04/14/how-technology-won-the-presidency-part-i/

http://www.aiim.org/Infonomics/Obama-How-Web2.0-Helped-Win-Whitehouse.aspx

Good storys on how the Dems wiz kids used the internet and mobile phones to ace the Republicans. We need to adopt these tactic’s and use them to network the country against the Big 0’s totalitarian plan. Nix ACORN et al via Twitter and FaceBook.

Apr 14, 2009 - 2:57 pm 36. Lifeofthemind:

Regarding the Homeland Security report.
We saw this before under Clinton. Most things in this administration are a rehash of the Bubba years, except for the bits that are worse. There was much hyperventilating in the press about “right wing militias.” Upon inspection they fairly uniformly turned out to be a collection of underachievers who would have a hard time taking over a corner pool hall. Unfortunately though the atmosphere did encourage, he was already unhinged, Timothy McVeigh. My advice is to keep doing the hard work of basic politics. Do not abandon the public square and do nothing that can be used to discredit the opposition.

Apr 14, 2009 - 3:03 pm 37. blert:

It’s a psychic Harper’s Ferry….

An inflection point has passed…

Even greater wounds upon the Constitution are a intended.

Right now I wish I could purchase an Election Default Swap.

BTW the Teleprompter scrolled an impressive rationalization today. Larry Summers can really write.

Tragically our wealth has been hijacked by the Wall Street Oligopoly. Read this:

http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/america-being-looted/16444

The level of self-dealing is breathtaking.

‘The buck stops here’ has been replaced by the Intaglio Marathon.

You have to give it to H: he’s re-invented the Blame-Fault Swap. (BFS)

That his crew (ACORN) and his pals (Frank, Dodd) are given innocence, halos while the evil Bush crowd takes arrows from every quarter ranks as the rankest of political hagiographies.

His fawning media lemmings might benefit from reading the Pied Piper. Therein the fate of those naifs who fall in line is made manifest. That a teleprompter has supplanted a flute does not change the tune.

Oh, well. The GWOT has become the Federal War on Privacy…

Apr 14, 2009 - 3:46 pm 38. Habu:

Identifying returning soldiers as potential terrorists should be totally repugnant to every American. The Left excepted.

The report is not simply a rehash of Bubbas antithesis toward the military but rather a totally unwarranted amplification and extrapolation of larger segments of the American public. To believe it wasn’t politically motivated is to lose sight of the Alinsky model that obama operates under.

He’s attempting to isolate various groups and pound on them.

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Attack, attack, attack from all sides, never giving the reeling organization a chance to rest, regroup, recover and re-strategize.

Take the time to review the Alinsky model for political turmoil, not the politics of running a Republic, but the politics of throwing sand in the machinery.
Here:
http://tinyurl.com/df9k2q

Apr 14, 2009 - 3:59 pm 39. Dan:

I share a birthday with Walter Mondale.

Do I get extra credit for that and stay OFF the right wing list?

Apr 14, 2009 - 4:01 pm 40. Charles:

20. marymcl:

‘Oldest English words’ identified
Macclesfield Psalter (PA)
Medieval manuscripts give linguists clues about more recent changes

Some of the oldest words in English have been identified, scientists say.

Reading University researchers claim “I”, “we”, “two” and “three” are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years.

Apr 14, 2009 - 4:10 pm 41. Lifeofthemind:

Habu,
Their intentions are probably as bad as you fear, but their competence is possibly as bad as I expect.
Either way the prudent thing to do is to remain calm and act … well act prudently.

Dan,
You get one free little blue pill.

Apr 14, 2009 - 4:13 pm 42. blert:

The oldest word is ‘no.’

Mom invented it.

It even worked on Dad.

Apr 14, 2009 - 4:22 pm 43. JMH:

The oldest word is ‘no.’

Mom invented it.

It even worked on Dad.

Not very well, else he wouldn’t be “Dad.”

But hopefully it will work well on Congressional Democrats. We need to put the fear of 2010 into them, so they’ll start distancing themselves from, and blocking enactment of, Obama’s impoverishment programs.

Apr 14, 2009 - 4:29 pm 44. CPT. Charles:

As much as I find this DHS report to be a steaming pile of insult on my front walk, I’m wondering if it’s appearance is to:

a] to incite improvident speech among the main ‘voices’ of the Right…

b] an attempt to ’scare off’ sympathetic democrats [...don't hang out with those right-wing freaks...] from tomorrow’s public protests…I suspect the ‘powers that be’ want the numbers of those crowds to be as low as possible.

What say you?

Apr 14, 2009 - 5:16 pm 45. blert:

Read Alinsky’s rules at Habu’s link.

It’s straight from the punch list.

Apr 14, 2009 - 5:17 pm 46. LFMayor:

Habu: thank you sir.

40. Lifeofthemind: ” … well act prudently”.
Spot on. Network, seek out those trusted people, stockpile, teach, learn and get off your duff and and exercise. There’s lots of work to be done, lots to prepare.

Bogie: that’s a very moving quote. My oldest is at band practice right now for a Sat. concert, but this Sunday she, her sisters and I shot 10/22’s. I hope she doesn’t have to play fife and drum before it’s over.

JMH: Yeah, I’m worried too. Try making yourself a YoooTube playlist of 80’s one hit wonders and roll it while you reload, works for me.

Apr 14, 2009 - 6:01 pm 47. Lifeofthemind:

CPT. Charles, Concur
Anyone who starts spinning calls for violence or racial theories should look in the mirror and know that they have let their enemy get within their OODA loop. Once they do that they can no longer be part of the public fight, they have effectively made themselves a casualty in the struggles to come. Also they have potentially damaged their hosts club, which is bad manners.

Apr 14, 2009 - 6:02 pm 48. marymcl:

Charles @39

Well, I’m not a linguist but I don’t believe those claims. For one thing, I don’t think computer models are a worthy replacement for the kind of painstaking scholarship that someone like Tolkien brought to the subject. He thought the study of archaic languages was incomplete without their literature and believed the division into separate fields of study did a great disservice to both. He championed that view his entire career, though it wound up being “a long defeat” in the end. I think a study like this one makes his point. In any case, whatever communicative noises people may have been making ten thousand years ago, they weren’t speaking English.

Apr 14, 2009 - 6:31 pm 49. Lifeofthemind:

marymcl,
Even 10,000 years ago they thought about Courage and Fear and Good and Evil, they looked at the stars and wondered and they saw a girl dance in a meadow full of flowers, and they believed.

Apr 14, 2009 - 6:55 pm 50. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn:

Apparently there’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear.

I had it on the best authority that it was always going to be that first they’d take Manhattan, thennnn they’d take Berlin.

I’ll check my notes.

Belisarius

Belmarsh

Ah, how often it is that its the third entry… Who will Bell the Cat?

Apr 14, 2009 - 6:59 pm 51. Habu:

The Alinsky socialists have the numbers and the political power and muscle to do what they want. Their acolytes don’t know anything but to follow their leader, which they will do.

Some citizens want to wish away the problem by temporizing in hopes that 1933 won’t come around again. Well it didn’t work then and it’s not going to work now.

This suppuration from the Left has been in the making for decades. Any level of our culture you wish to discuss you will find a dumbing down of the mores of this nation and a contortion of it’s values and legal system.
Somewhere there WAS a tipping point. Now, long sense crossed, the infection has become almost totally systemic and it is killing this country. Somewhere someone must make a stand.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Patrick Henry

Constitutionalists do your duty and stand for your rights.

Apr 14, 2009 - 7:42 pm 52. dging:

Amen, brother

Apr 14, 2009 - 7:51 pm 53. marymcl:

LotM @48

Yes, I imagine they did

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:03 pm 54. Charles:

47. marymcl:

Charles @39

I don’t find it to be a tough proposition– that You or I — are some of the oldest words in the English language–or any language for that matter. We know for example, that I am is at least 3500 years old because of the incident on Mt Horab where God spoke to Moses from the burning bush. Its not hard to infer that the new word here is not –either You or I — but rather Pharaoh.
Exodus 3
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you [a] will worship God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am . [b] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

bible gateway

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:07 pm 55. marymcl:

Charles @39 – What I’m saying is I’m skeptical of their conclusions because I don’t trust their method and what’s more I don’t get what they’re after. Words just floating around loose don’t matter much, they have to combine with other words to make something of themselves.

Apr 14, 2009 - 8:48 pm 56. Unsk:

Blert @ #36

Many of Wall Street’s most successful hedge funds are run by short seller’s:
Soros, Julian Robertsen, Jim Chanos, John Paulsen and Phillip Falcone. These guys almost to a man support Obama. These guys also made billions or near billions in the collapse. Gee, I wonder why?

But what kind of person is a short seller; a blackhearted destroyer that’s who. These people aren’t building anything; they profit from tearing apart companies and their investors. Inflicting pain and creating chaos. They also profit tremendously from smears and market manipulation. And manipulate they did, with no one to stop them, because their friends are in charge of the markets.

The fact that all the big investment banks were involved in naked short selling is even more distressing when you figure all the Treasury Secretaries from Clinton on to Obama ( including Bush) were from those very same investment banks. None of these guys favored tax cuts, (even Bush’s guys). None favored market transparency or reform of the markets. None were strong Capitalists. None did anything to stop the easing of capital reserve requirements of investment banks or the abuses of the CDS. And it’s hard to say that these guys didn’t know what was going on.

The oligarchy has successfully hidden behind the complexity and opaqueness of our financial system and just pulled the strings.

Apr 14, 2009 - 11:42 pm 57. Agoraphobic Plumber:

“But what kind of person is a short seller; a blackhearted destroyer that’s who.”

Disagree. I’ve never personally shorted anything directly in my life…I don’t have the capital to be playing in the market. But it’s one of the soundest defensive investment practices there is. You can’t lose all your money like you can going long. Plus, these guys don’t MAKE stocks go down. They just predict it. And in a lot of cases, that’s not all that difficult to do.

NAKED short selling, you have a point. People making money should always have to put up their own money to make it. Ditto with insider trading, but then that’s bad going long as well.

Apr 15, 2009 - 6:59 am 58. cornfuzed:

9. Habu: about your birthday ? need you ask ?

Apr 15, 2009 - 8:24 am 59. Doug:

Sorry, missed thread.

Apr 15, 2009 - 9:11 am 60. Habu:

cornfuzed

Now that I’ve received The Diamond Encrusted Order of the Eagles with Gold Medallions, Crossed Poniards, and a big black,red, and gold ribbon, hell I don’t care.

I just feel good about life. Lots to be thankful for. I feel like the rajah who just roasted a big elephant.

But thanks for noticing. Have a nice day.

Apr 15, 2009 - 1:27 pm 61. Marie Claude:

Charles, MaryMcl,

if you are attentive at how a young child develops its language, you get a key on how the expression of the “I” and “you” evolved.
This could applied for the beginning of the humankind too.

A young child when he talks of itself doesn’t say I, but rather its name, eg suzy wants cake, then me wants cake, finally I want cake.

The fact that this child says “suzy” means that she is imitating what she heard, that she is referring to the object suzy that she see in a mirror, just useful to indicate that she wants something.
She could have imitated another language, hand signs, eyes glances…
That was the case for primitive civilisations, humans only need a few key sounds that referred to a precise object to express their needs. There was no space for expressing a personal emotion. If you still know elder couples, they hardly talk of their emotions, but they can be read through gestures, or glances

the “I” means that she has become counscious of herself, that she can “create” an emotion in order to influence her “cour”.

The “I” in history of Art appeared at Renaissance, when Dürer made the first autoportrait. Before, painting only concerned religious or mythological themas. From a codified art and artesancraft, painting became “liberal” (free) and “intellectual” the autoportrait of Dürer is a representation of what he wanted that he others saw and understood of him, a person with a certain social statut, with a certain style, which was personal to the artist. The fact that he had this personal and intelligent expression of himself, allowed him to participate to the ideas exchanges of the society where he lived and thus influence it.From then the painters became personalities that could compete with scientists, philosophes, writers, often the artist was them altogether.

So the expression of the “I” and or “you”, means that you have reached the abstraction grade, that words don’t only mean a concrete object, but that you can influence your environment.

sorry a bit long, but my “dada”

Apr 15, 2009 - 9:19 pm 62. Lifeofthemind:

Marie Claude,
Isn’t it amazing how all of a sudden your English improved?

Apr 15, 2009 - 10:32 pm 63. Marie Claude:

may-be cuz the conversation had a higher level too

Apr 15, 2009 - 10:48 pm 64. marymcl:

Marie Claude – I’m happy to help raise the level of conversation. Also I agree. Common sense says the word ‘I’ denotes a state of self-reflection and abstraction we don’t start out with but rather mature into. Funny you should mention Durer – I’ve got a print of the hare hanging on the wall in front of me

Apr 16, 2009 - 7:09 am

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