nothing lasts forever, everything ends, everyone dies

So, the company I work for decided to close its offices in the city I live in. I'm out of a job within a few weeks, so here I am, in the middle of the night, watching music videos courtesy of youtube.com on company time.

And completely randomly, I fall on a video by Type O Negative titled 'Everything Dies'.


'Well I loved my aunt. But she died. And my uncle Lou. Then he died.'

These guys really know their way around words, don't they? They crack me up every times. :)

Still on the subject of Mark Twain, you'll have noticed I only quoted the first part of his text from Wikiquote. That's because that was what was in the comic. The first, and unquoted part, is also topic of our recent political history.

Quote:
Against our traditions we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war, a war against a helpless people, and for a base object — robbery. At first our citizens spoke out against this thing, by an impulse natural to their training. Today they have turned, and their voice is the other way. What caused the change? Merely a politician's trick — a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads: Our Country, right or wrong! An empty phrase, a silly phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, it was thundered from the pulpit, the Superintendent of Public Instruction placarded it in every schoolhouse in the land, the War Department inscribed it upon the flag. And every man who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor — none but those others were patriots. To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?
- Mark Twain

You'll remember the labelling trick was used in the US in the last decade very often to call a lot of people 'unamerican', 'anti-american' and other things in the same vein. It is obviously not a new trick.

Freedom

The other day I was struck while reading something that was scanned from a comic book of all places.
Captain America was telling Spider-Man what keeps him going on. It is a quote from Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain).

I have tracked down the original quote (from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mark_Twain#Papers_of_the_Adams_Family ; thank you wikiquote!)

Here it is:

For in a republic, who is "the Country"? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is "the country?" Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.

In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country — hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.

Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.

This Republic's life is not in peril. The nation has sold its honor for a phrase. It has swung itself loose from its safe anchorage and is drifting, its helm is in pirate hands.

-Mark Twain


And this, I feel, is exactly what is wrong with today's democracies. The fact that nobody wants to think or take responsibilities for themselves. Everyone crying to the government to fix every little things, including what others think and do. And that people have come to believe in an innate right of the government to rule over everyone.


I think I'll go have a sandwich now.

And a good day to you!

Woke up early today. Logged into SL. Checked out the news.
New violence in Bangladesh. Vice President of the US advocating torture in interrogation. Forest fire in California kills 4 firefighters. A bus crash in Nepal kills 42.

Right. Business as usual.

And I sometimes think I should read the news more regularly.

Meanwhile, on the home front, I am tempted to switch to Linux permanently already. Just have to make sure all my storage is accessible in Linux and that I can share them in the home network with the other windows stations.

I also tried to order a new ebook reader from ebookwise.com, but the checkout form kept refusing my street address of all things.

All this is boring and unoriginal. I need to find some good stuff to talk about.

Jonnie out for now!

Hey I hurt.. I'm still alive

Today I don't have to work, and I got a good night's sleep.
Been toying with Linux. Installed Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft). It works almost perfectly, the only minor problem I've been having is the fact the jack-sensing feature of my audio chipset is not handled by the linux audio, so I can't use the front panel jacks to plug my headphone and had to reach back and unplug my spkeaers to plug in my headphones.
Like I said, minor.
I can play videos (I installed VLC, which is an awesome application). I can play music. I installed the SecondLife client and am current logged in, with all features working right.
In other words I am wasting the day. Ahhh, *sigh* That feels so good to do nothing constructive and just toy around.