ivan

it's from seamus heaney's masterful translation of "beowulf" - beowulf is, by the by, the oldest surviving written work in olde english (drink!) - only 1 copy exists, dating from the 8th century or so i think - it no doubt existed in the oral tradition for a long time, and is a fascinating snapshot of an era when ultra-kewl barbarians were being tamed by the fucking Shaved Men - wondrous metaphors merging savage slaughter w/ christian poetry abound throughout the text i can't stress enough the importance of HEARING the poem - it was not meant to be read, but recited in mead halls by scops, bards who collected the poems and passed them on to their sons, who they trained in the art of exhaustive memorization - here heaney recites his own translation: [video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRZJ_aCakns you'll have to find the exact passage you like, which comes shortly after the hero, beowulf, has killed the first monster grendel, only to have his mother come and murder another boat-load of boy-o's in revenge - he kills ashere, the king's best friend, prompting beowulf to say: "wise sir, do not grieve it is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning for every one of us living in this world means waiting for our end. let he who can achieve glory before death. when a warrior is gone, that will be his best and only bulwark."

democracy is not possible w/o compromise, kev. how do you propose to solve that most basic conundrum?

it made the indians ! and me, for that matter, i remember eating plenty of that classic repo-man generic shit when i lived on army bases - the potato chips were better

but it's still the assumption that private schools will be better - for the lower income folk, the first concern is basic security - private-run prisons don't seem better at preventing riots, do they? how does the charter school on the other side of town help you if a) you have to pay to get all the way over there and b) once you arrive, it has the same herd of deranged lunatics who fled your public school? and if the reality is the charter school can just refuse to admit the lunatics, isn't that just converting hte public school to a full-on prison itself? it's not surprising inner city folk are pro-charter/vouchers - folks on the top of burning buildings often jump - it's not like it helps though...

i suppose - the government could also just run its own soup kitchens, but since the private infrastructure already's in place, why bother? that certainly isn't the case w/ public schools.

This is extremely environmentally toxic. But I suppose Ron Paul DOES want to abolish environmental regulations, so.... And Obama has kept Gitmo open so I guess its all relevant. and how is it that he hasn't hauled you off there yet, freedom-hater! (or ron paul, for that matter)

you can always climb illumination rock

i'm eternally offended by the negative connotations associated w/ quite possibly the most brillian solution to casual footwear ever concieved sandals w/ camel-toe thong action

her name was gorgo. you'd think the name was the worst thing about her...'til you found out it was leonidas's cousin - nothing like snapping up yer dead uncle's little girl for your own boudior - i somehow doubt she looked like cersei lannister either

not the first bad accident at vantage involving gear doing fucked up shit at any rate...

wait...you climb? what's wrong w/ rubber-necking anyhow? jesus, so long as yer going 5 miles an hour on the interstate...

why in the fuck do we need more ships in the navy again? and wtf does a simple comparision of ship #'s across the ages even mean? pretty certain every naval vessel in the world in 1776 combined couldn't take out a single nimitz-class aircraft carrier

encouraging! if nothing else, trump is famous for big failures

all the cool people have climbed the nose

cheeeerist, yer dialect translation is more fucked than twain's ... jay is certainly right in that white flight is nothing new - i don't see why that making it easier is a good idea today though - the fight to integrate public schools was so critically a part of the history of last century that it seems mighty illogical to give up on it now - jay is a pretty big fan of the enlightenment too, so i'd hope that argument would have some weight w/ him i teach in a very prosperous district now, but used to teach in an incredibly different one, back east, where 100% of the school was free/reduced lunch, most of my kids from one-parent/no-parent homes - my school was a tight-run ship, did quite well by most academic metrics, but there were other schools in the same district that were fucking disasters - from what i could see, the biggest difference was administrators, not teachers - schools w/ huge challenges in terms of crime, poverty, drugs, etc need really special principals and assistant principals to lay down the law on the street and win the hearts n' minds of a cynical student body - regardless, the vast majority of factors that determine a school's success/failure are pretty far removed from anyone in that school's control, and i don't see how that gets improved by introducing more competition via vouchers

scandero ergo sum

here's a fun triva question for you! who was leonidas' wife and how did they meet?

How is any of that going to remedy the misery of being raped in the ass? by: a) killing the miserable b) moving the miserable someplace where shit is better and c) reducing the number of future people who will be miserable (ancient greece had strong traditions of infanticide and homosexuality, likely evolved behaviors to cope w/ the regions chronic food and population pressures) i would hope you can appreciate a measure of sarcasm in spray - after all, some of my best friends are....are...are...not really greek (but they've been there!)

jeebus, never heard about that - what an asshole! would love to do the 10k actually w/ another human being, though i don't think a single lap gets you more than 500 feet max, so that'd be 20 laps, which boggles my mind, solo or not

Bring Your Own Helicopter!

:[]

time for the traditional greek remedies to misery: massacre, immigration and sodomy!

it still seems like magic to me that, with the amount to be spent on education fixed, dividing it up and making it portable for each patron results in everything getting groovier. instead of having one well funded school, don't you just end up w/ 2 half-funded ones? don't you lose the economies of scales you get from a single school? won't private schools, funded by vouchers, be able to cherry-pick the kids they want, leaving the dregs to the public school? why assume charter schools will appear in areas that public schools are struggling in? will parents in low income/high unemployment areas really be able to get their kids to the other side of town to the private school they have a voucher for? my opposition isn't vehement at the moment. my initial scepticism, as said given the source of the idea, is just that of a fish who's seen juicy worms often hiding hooks.

jesus, don't you guys get it!?! cc.retards are only supposed to COMPLAIN about problems, not actually go out and try to fix them... trail work being done down at beacon rock this saturday if ya'll didn't get yer fill - nothing funner than waging war on poison oak

right around now - late cocktober.