At a short distance from Bagdad a dervish, celebrated for his holiness, passed his days tranquilly in agreeable solitude. The surrounding inhabitants, in order to have an interest
Jean Meslier Portrait
in his prayers, eagerly brought to him every day provisions and
presents. The holy man thanked God incessantly for the blessings Providence heaped upon him. “O Allah,” said he, “how ineffable is Thy tenderness toward Thy servants.
In 2009 I visited Saudi Arabia for some work, and while I was there I experienced two absolutely wonderful concoctions. The first was a blood orange juice and strawberry smoothie with a bit of salt in it. The second was a mint lemonade. When I got home I did some testing, went through a bunch of lemons, sugar, and vodka, and finally reverse engineered this recipe.
Since Oligarchy Day (July 4th) is coming up, perhaps some of you might enjoy it.
Some men want fame and status, thinking that they would thus make themselves secure against other men. If the life of such men really were secure, they have attained a natural good; if, however, it is insecure, they have not attained the end which by nature’s own prompting they originally sought.
My high school had a couple of days of holocaust awareness, around about 1977 or so, when I was in 9th grade, I think. Elie Weisel came and spoke and we watched “Nacht Und Nebel”
This is my cornfield, which is about 100 yards from my bedroom window. It’s GMO – specifically, Roundup Ready.
… and to the management at Fort Abraham Lincoln, and to the ND Parks and Recreation Program Director. In case you want their address, the executive roles are listed here and the HQ address (according to the 2015 annual report) is:
Gate City Bank
PO Box 2847
Fargo, ND
58108-2847
The management at Fort Abraham Lincoln is:
The Mgt
4480 Ft. Lincoln Road
Mandan, ND 58554
Fort Abraham Lincoln’s website lists Mark Zimmerman at ND Parks and Recreation as the program contact at HQ:
Century Center
1600 E. Century Ave. Suite 3 PO Box 5594
Bismarck, ND 58506-5594
Remember: companies are people too.
We all have heard about H.B. 1523, which is a legislative fewmet that has been widely panned for doing what it’s obviously intended to do – allow people with “deeply held religious beliefs or moral convictions” to refuse service that violates those convictions. Widely interpreted as aimed at the LGBT, because it is, it then goes on to list agencies and services – DJs, adoption agencies, wedding cake makers, etc. that can be denied with impunity. That’s what most of us know, but there’s more…
Caine’s got a heartbreaking post over at Affinity.
Apparently some rather tone-deaf idiots think it’s a good idea to celebrate the history of the 7th Cavalry, and teach kids how to “enlist” in the unit that massacred between 150 and 300 Indians at Wounded Knee. You can comment on the event’s Youtube blurb or facebook page if you like. It’s sponsored by a bank, which probably hasn’t thought through the implications of where their money is being spent. You can write them a letter, too.
We’ve got Meslier on Monday and Voltaire on Friday. Our cups runneth over! Faire rire et danser!
I’m not going to post a Meslier every monday or a Voltaire every Friday. I’m just going to do that if I feel like it. But it’s nice to know that I can blog for 100 years here without my well running dry, if I am afraid of that happening. That doesn’t strike me as a likely outcome but having lifelines like these is particularly good.
Nobody should accept mediocrities-by-committee like Milo Yiannopolous in a world that once held Voltaire.
Epicurus muttered, “None of this affects me at all,” excused himself, and slipped out the back door practically unnoticed. That left the table unbalanced. On one side were the ancient worlders: Plato and Aristotle, heads together in deep discussion, and Socrates, who appeared to be gently questioning Miletus while Sextus Empiricus studiously withheld judgement on the proceedings.