Light Blue Light

She does not catch
Your dreams at night
No pretty lamp
That shines a light

Protects your thoughts
Makes monsters hush
The butterfly
With daddy's wish

Let it be there
Right next to you
When father's there
It's force times two

Learn this by heart
When day is done
A soft voice says
Sleep little one

Butterfly Dreams

I wonder whether it still works,
Whether it has kept its energy
Whether it was cut off
Whether it flows
Or is just floating?

We will see.

Where are those eyes

Where are those eyes
The serene form
Of your blessed
Happy and loving face

The ivory hand
The beautiful breast
Which when I think of them
Make of me a fountain?

(old Italian poem)

Heart with Joy

I just need my baby's arms
Wound around me tight
The candles all aglow
But with my baby far away
What good is mistletoe

Please make these reindeer hurry
Well their time is drawing near
You wanna make me happy and fill my heart with joy

Purple Squirrel

Baffled animal lovers are trying to explain why a PURPLE squirrel has turned up in the grounds of the school.

Teachers and pupils thought the rodent, who they have named Pete, may have fallen into purple paint or had a run-in with some purple dye.

Pete the purple squirrel has become a legend among staff and pupils at the school he visits. But people who have seen the squirrel say they do not believe this explains its even colouring.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1099282/Pete-purple-squirrel-leaves-animal-lovers-baffled.html

Ad Absurdum

Amusing Ourselves to Death

We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

(Foreword from Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death")