Sunday, March 29, 2009

Mutatis Mutandis;

California Jones had worked well past lunch. He knew that, like (going from indications) Hollywood script writing, there was only so far a man could go on unsolicited efforts. Thereafter solicitation was in order.

The Latin for solicit was hard to say good things about - circumvent seemed to be the best transliteration. He could understand Solicitors circumventing, and solicitation was circumventing decorum, but what of charitable door-to-door solicitations? Oh well, they were pretty well hated too, so he would avoid THAT like the plague.

He dug out yet another unsolicited effort and polished for a time.
There was a man in Russia, named Rasputin, who studied very deeply and discovered the answer to all of Russia's problems. He was a man of letters, and familiar with what the French called 'le chiffre indechiffrable,' back then.

He had a close working relationship with the royal family, but he wanted to be certain before he unleashed the fruits of his labors on the entire nation of Russia. His wisdom led him to consult a holy man named Makariy, in far away Verkhoturye; he did not want anyone to misuse the information so he coded it.

His messenger was intercepted by spies of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church who killed the messenger and hid the message. After Rasputin's death, Prince Yusipov's men were able "by dint of much effort," to obtain the solution of the cryptogram. They were convinced of Rasputin's hidden wisdom and brought the ground breaking results to the Prince. Because they did not want the Prince to know who had written it, they told him they had found the cryptogram in his mother's effects, and obtained the password by psychic telepathy.

The Prince looked at the encrypted source and compared it with the result, and immediately declared it to be "AN AMERICAN TRAP!" to all and sundry... and that is why all Americans, when they think the KGB has intercepted their letters, laugh and say...

'poor bastards!'
Hmmm... he regarded the product critically. Was it truly finished?

Charlie knew that most people (his teachers not excepted,) relied upon individuals failing the reflexive test of all imperatives. The paradox of self-reference (Asimov had been clear enough about THAT one,) did not exempt one, it was simply a pitfall. The case that he honestly worried about was even more troublesome: Recursive manifestations of reflexive imperatives.

He circled his idea warily, wondering IF he would get stuck in a loop from THIS one. Take a safe case and apply IT _first_, he told himself. Was _Satan_ a 'poor bastard?' He HAD a message straight from God, unencrypted. True, he had looked at it and declared it to be a trap, but who was his authoritative audience? Either the worst person in the Universe was not a 'poor bastard,' OR (he paused...) the 'poor bastards,' were not the worst people in the Universe.

He investigated further. If a Satan_IST looked at the same message, he'd declare it trap city, like steam escaping from a cooking Lobster shell, and take it straight to Satan for review. Uh-uh... in the JOKE, he could clearly see the Prince was the ruler, and HE had been the one to declare a trap. If a Satan_ist called "trap!" and yet was not the ruler...

How did the saying go... "There is truth in humor, but not humor in truth?" It parsed grammatically, and was not an obvious paradox, but was meaning encapsulated? It appeared to be a syllogistic statement of contrapositive, but the lingual "in," made even an Euler diagram challenging. Challenging? Try Impossible!

It was _funny_ AND it was true; in _that_ order!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Corruptissima Re Publica Plurimae Leges ;

Charlie peered at the open black-faced Masterlock in his hand. Eve had been the kind of girl who liked hair-of-the-dog for breakfast. She had implored him to certify any messages addressed directly to _her_, by placing them in a lockbox certified by the Masterlock in question. There did not appear to be any way to deceive the process, but then Charlie had been reasonably confident that there had been no way to deceive the Diffie-Hellman key exchange the day before. His confidence in the perennial availability of deceit was more than he had estimated.

If they missed each other at the cafeteria at lunch, he'd be bummed... most girls just gave him something they'd give ANY guy to make him feel special; Eve had easily managed to make him believe that he _was_, in spite of herself. He hung it from the cross-bar in his closet; he didn't want to have to explain an accidental locking in person.

He surveyed his room as he turned from the closet. The bed was already made, so he tossed the few articles of clothing laying about into the hamper, and showered up. He figured that he'd await a moment when he had something truly _memorable_ to say. He smiled inwardly; either that, or a memorable motel to recommend.

He was curious if anyone had added to the Clock-Tower collection, but the sun was up, so he turned his attention to a new batch of term papers.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Tu quoque Brute filii mihi? (Et tu Brute?)

Charlie was anonymous among a group of similarly anonymous students. To call them scholars might have been too generous; academics nonetheless. The curtain rose upon a large stage, in introduction to "Diglet: An experiment without Digitalis."

Charlie had not been sure of what his expectations should have been comprised, but Hamlet was a classic. Piglet had been the parody; Diglet appeared to be about a Virtual Childhood awakening to the reality of "the web." How bad could it be? He kept going over and over the scene from fiction in his head. Sean Courtney and his Archery teacher, playing "Strip 20 questions." The test was such that IF you got ALL 20 questions _correct_, the pot for all 20 articles, (whether clothing or other instructive artifact,) would go to the student - else it was winner take all, and the teacher could re-robe and leave without a word. The teacher who had recommended the Digital production was feminine, but not likely to succumb to such suggestions... too bad.

Within the first 20 minutes Charlie had decided that his favorite scene from Hamlet was the one in which Hamlet soliloquizes "...the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." Juvenile fascination with recursion and the reflexive case notwithstanding, he had to catch him SOMEHOW.

On stage, Turing came and went, with very little new material until they portrayed the perfect calculus of mapping an analog signal onto a digital continuum by exactly twice-over sampling. He had never known that sufficient data could be derived from so small a sample. The subject turned to the Diffie-Hellman key exchange. He enjoyed it from the very beginning...

The stage was divided into two villages. Stage left was Tribe "Histrionix," and stage right was Tribe "Melodrama." The Histrionixes and the Melodramas fought like Capulets and Montegues, with Histrionix faithful Bob pining fruitlessly after Melodrama faithful Alice. She dutifully mooned back, and Eve from the original "Evil Knievel" tribe came to their rescue. Neither trusted the messenger, so they made an Ellen Degeneres' style, "phone call to God."

Bob soon produced a Green Masterlock to which he had the combination. Eve arrived with a treasure chest with a hasp at either end of one side. Before the whole assemblage he scrawled,
"Meet me by the plastic tree near the left wing,"
...and put it ostentatiously in her chest. Eve lugged it over to Alice, and Alice peered hopelessly at the lock without observable progress. She used her own Red Masterlock to lock the opposing hasp, and Eve duly lugged it back over to Bob. Struck by apparent inspiration, he removed his Green lock, and smiled wickedly at Eve. He gave her a peck on the cheek and sent her packing back to Alice. Alice courtesied to the prospective courtesan, and removed her own restraint, opening her love letter with relish. She wrote her own reply rather more legibly.
"I'll love you until the clock strikes 9:37 PM."
...she inscribed. She locked her lock upon Eve's burdensome bureau, and they danced the dance in reverse.

Bob seemed satisfied with this response, and started a new conversation. This time he made a show of writing where Eve could not see, and the audience was put in suspense. Meanwhile, Eve had enlisted the help of two partners in crime, Adam and Steve. Adam contributed a Green lock of his own, while Steve produced a Red. When Bob locked his message in the box, Eve took it to the plastic tree and let Steve lock it with _his_ Red lock, returning soon thereafter. The charade was reproduced at the other end, with Steve removing his lock just as Bob had done, and Adam adding HIS _Green_ one. Alice duly pretended to be deceived. She attached her own authentic Red lock, and Adam bravely removed a lock he had added only moments before. Alice completed the charade of betrayal by removing her lock and responding to the challenge, "What is the highest purpose of Philosophy?" Adam, Eve and Steve had all three had opportunity to contemplate a persuasive answer to lull Bob into a false sense of security, but all for naught.

The skit had gotten a little long, but the answer (a large sign provided by Alice for the occasion,) confirmed the two were more in tune with each other than the interlopers; the impostors had been on the same sheet of music, but it had gotten "pretty black," and they could not play the score. The gig was up; it was time to face the Music and pay the piper.
"Earth Girls are Easy!"
...was the chosen non-sequiter.

Charlie joined in the standing ovation... he had to stand up just to get another look at Eve. He pondered that the whole production would have ended more quickly, and possibly more dramatically if he had been allowed to smash the hinges opposing the locks. He then could have used the padlocks as hinges in their own right, and the message would have been evident to all. He liked clandestine trysts but this cloak and dagger stuff, with partisans and patriots, was entirely too much drama.

Eve was receptive, and they made their way to McDonald's for a cone.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

A Posse Ad Esse;

Charlie began taking notes on the "Venus" controversy. Aphrodite and Venus were apparently in a competition for virtue and virility. The Romans wrote Odes... the Greeks wrote what could be loosely termed as Ballads. The Romans had no real appreciation of happy endings... the Greeks wouldn't even LOOK at Roman efforts; the Latin rhymes for Venus were lacking. A creative soul would have figured out a way to name Venus directly, and speak to the virility discussion, where most of the Latin efforts centered on the chastity and virtue of the Roman beauty; they wouldn't even name her as a fellatrice. The Romans refused to even NAME their adversary.

Odd, he observed, you spell THAT word with a 'u!'

He decided to call it an evening. The Romans were a peculiar lot, and the bellicose nature of ALL their colonies could hardly be a coincidence.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Causa Sine Qua Non;

The Cliff's Notes edition was green, not the traditional yellow, but helpful; no more so than the run of the mill, but certainly no less. He regretted that he did not have a learning disability; if he DID, these nuggets of knowledge would not be so easily obtained, and he would be less inclined to forget them. He started taking notes.

The mode of citations among the ecclesiastical scholars was interesting - they all agreed to memorize the Torah, and after that, your specialty was the extra stuff you knew. Jesus and his gang (ecclesia, not militia) had quite a repertoire. It was interesting that they borrowed the Greek club name, but neglected the greatest Governmental invention ever - they must have thought the the natural extremes of Monarchy offer better odds on a long shot than the more moderate Democratic gamble.

In order not to embarrass the Priests, people didn't specify a citation exactly, but rather stipulated "...it is written." After you translate from Hebrew into Greek (Aramaic dialect - they used Coinae for legal stuff,)from Aramaic to Coinae, Coinae to Latin, and Latin to English, it was hard to find the citation from the reference section. He found several "study" editions that had citations in them. Thompson's chain didn't do citations much, but had Mr. Thompson's scripture chains in numbers in the study section. Charlie made a note to try and buy one with wide blank margins for his own notes, good citations and a complete concordance in the back. An exhaustive one was impossible, but if you represented each word once (after throwing out all the thees, thous, ands, if, buts and intos Etc,) it was adequate... as long as you knew ALL the words in the verse you were trying to find.

Charlie branched out. Gideon's was a translation authorized in violation of the Pope by King James I of England. To his surprise this was not the one trying to get a divorce - that was King Henry the Eighth, but James was the guilty party. He dated it to 1604, the early 1600's but academically speaking already the 17th Century. King James failed to predict the future and make it come true BOTH, just like Greek Cassandra, and skipped the CRUCIAL Academic step of translating into Latin first. His pragmatism was well rewarded, and the Authorized Edition is more reprinted than any other.... he did a quick computation in his head and balked at his estimate. What were they doing... eating the things? Oh yes... they burned a bunch in Russia, and had to import all knew copies.

Other translations attempt to use recent jargon and colloquialisms to better catch the meanings of the original. As he delved more deeply into what is called "textual criticism," (that branch of science where Scholars and Archeologists try to certify the authenticity of The Ovid, The Textus Receptus, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Aesop's Fables and similar old texts,) he discovered that before Gutenberg, the job of Scribe was a profession just like Doctor or Lawyer. Their qualifications included taking inventory of the number of lines, the number of words, letters in columns and rows, and finally a count of some kind on the diagonal. In this regard, the Library on the Banks of the Dead Sea was remarkable in one thing - it had ONLY ONE TEXT, but (colloquially speaking) Millions of them!

Figures... paper has ALWAYS been the biggest expense of printing.

Argumentum ad baculum;

Charlie came back from an extended lunch of Taco Bell and lemonade refills. He had used the time to reflect upon his progress, and decided to skip to the back of the book and read the ending.

The details of the trial were illuminating. For one thing, there was less than $20 at issue - the only technicality he could have asked for was that it was a capital offense. It was kind of cool where he told an open mic to China that Pilot himself thought HE was the king of the Jews. Other than that, he DEFINITELY needed the Benefit of Counsel. The benefit of the doubt might have helped too, but then presumption of innocence was only as Roman as "I cannot prove a negative." That's probably why they wouldn't rubber stamp his execution. Good execution though - screw-ups were apparently commonplace, and they had to break their legs to get them to die before sundown. The Hollywood documentary on his passions might be instructive; might be some nudity too, he reflected - Gandhi had been a real disappointment in THAT regard.

Argumentum ad consequentiam;

Charlie had free time on his hands, so he took himself down to the library where it was cool and quiet. His trusty Gideon's was in his hand, and he was borderline happy.

Jesus' Will was complicated, and certainly not traditional - for example, it included itinerary not just for him, but all his Campaign supporters as well. In fact if it was not all helpfully collected together in a chapter, it would have been confusing. It was sad that he was such an unsuccessful Politician - his agenda might truly have helped matters. It was weak on economics, but then can anyone lured into Iure actually BE a good economist? This Jesus character seemed to be running for the Ecclesiastical Principality of Messiah. The Chair of the board of Messiahs got to tell the Jews what to do nationally, and didn't have to roll the Urim and Thumim dice. These appeared to have gone missing with the Ark of the Covenant (according to a commentary on the commentary,) and the Jewish Mafia didn't want ANYONE screwing up their gig. He was scared of the Romans too, but this cowardice was apparently for some other reason than death - he refused the Royal Kingdom in favor of Royal Priesthood. It is instructive to know that Geeks employ the electronic philosophy of Phreqs to a social application instead. Jesus' Geek credentials were not obvious, but his observation at the end of Mt 5 (47th sentence,) was curious - Charlie had seen this too. He decided that he would take special notes next time he attended the ecumenical club.

Verbatim;

Charlie reviewed the letter of rejection. It read as follows:

Saint Francis University
Fake letterhead division
Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Phone:310.434.7300
Fax:310.434.7377

February 14th, 2009



Via U.S. Mail
Charles Jose Valet Jones
101 2nd street #101
Dallas, TX 75248



RE: SCRIPT IDEA

Encl: 1 letter

Dear Mr. Jones,

Thank you for submitting information on the above-referenced project to US. We are returning, unread, your submission and all enclosures included with it. Your mailing was examined only to the minimal extent needed to determine its nature. No notice was taken of its literary content.

While we sincerely appreciate your interest in sending material to us, it is our policy, based on legal and other considerations, not to read or consider unsolicited submissions of any font. Please do not send additional materials, or resend these materials, as they will similarly be returned to you unread.

Sincerely,


The Establishment


He was quite angry himself, but he did not put it in an envelope and address it to Santa. He only did THAT when he wanted to be a real NAZI bastard about it, and leave records for _Historical_ evidence! This appeared to be mere histrionics... he sacrificed a couple of map pins and tacked it up on the wall. As wallpaper, it was aesthetically inferior: that would make a GOOD criticism.

Argumentum ad captandum;

In University there was no "Principle's Office." When sent to Coventry, the President wrote you personally. He was truly moved with anger, but the thesaurus did not seem to support his premise adequately. Charlie's letter to the Dean of Admissions requesting special treatment, (political and unabashed,) had not been well received.

The school was an Athletic powerhouse, and Alumni loved to contribute to the cause. Since the school was officially Governmental, he had merely suggested improving profitability by applying for a Charitable Institution license. Then the Alumni could write the contributions off, on their taxes, as Charitable Contributions. Other than that, by his calculations, his own per semester outlay multiplied by the number of students in the school, divided by the number of Professors OUGHT to adequately feather everyone's nest (who was in on it,) in four or five semesters. They could probably even go into Academics if they invested in a laboratory, some salts and alkalies, and hired research Staff. The research should go well too; all you do is have the PhD students deliver lectures, as _well_ as grade the tests.

Charlie sighed. The letterhead was genuine!

Argumentum ad crumenam;

The commentary didn't beat about the bush much (he smiled momentarily at the double entendre.) The fifth chapter got right to his campaign platform. He re-read it with a different purpose in mind; Nope, it wouldn't exactly break the budget either - failed as a communicator though; his audience was the old "eye for an eye," crowd. This radical "seek the best interest of the country and only kill the BAD enemies" was radical stuff! It was a little like watching the movie Titanic, but in the horror genre. You knew what happened in the end, but instead of any lip-service to historical record, these heroes did ALL the wrongs things just when you hoped they wouldn't. It would take a _Very_ liberal campaign manager to attempt to learn anything from _this_ one! Hollywood could definitely improve on it - in the movies everybody was beautiful and happy, just like in the ads, and the good guys always win! He reflected on his Aunt's observation that "nice guys finish last." Coming from her, it had had quite a different connotation. Hmmm.... she probably had meant for him to get the message.

A Postiriori;

Charlie next proceeded to a convenience store, to stimulate the economy and pay for convenience. He had well understood the urgings of the Bush Administrations that if the people _stop_ spending money, the velocity of money in the system will slow down - he learned that in Economics; "The only way to increase velocity of transfer of funds in the system is AFT's." However, he _needed_ the Scientific Journal he was searching for, and the Library had beefed up security. He had gone back to "Steal this book!" for reference, but apparently some other free thinker was using it. The Journal was for purposes of deception.

He was genuinely worried about being called "disingenuous." The word had the connotation of insincere,and he sincerely wanted to do well. He contemplated the various synonyms of insincere; prevaricate was hide the truth by lying about it; obfuscate was hide the truth by saying something else; disinformation was hiding the truth by informing someone else... it was easier just to say "disingenuous is smart people pretending to be dumb." He would disabuse as many people as possible by undeceiving them.

He had an old copy of Playboy for when he wanted to study during Frat parties, and a February Sports Illustrated for all purpose occasions. He needed the Journal so he could study in class. He pondered for a moment what scientific periodical would pass muster in the most classes. A manual of style, for use in writing white papers was his best bet. He swore mentally. The convenience store was not so convenient after all - he'd have to go to a brick and mortar division of the publisher.

His initial observations of the Current section of his Gideon's convinced him that it was about a Hispanic character named "Jesus." Must have been interesting back then, what with the Romans and the Greeks all fighting about the "Venus" controversy. As nearly as Jones could verify, Jesus had been a Greek, telling the Jews what for. Hell of a political commentary! It was just like Xenophon said; To be taken seriously, Politicians HAVE to acknowledge God.

To get a bank loan, a business plan is helpful but not a guarantee ;

When Charlie next took up his efforts, the plan had coalesced in his brain to follow the pioneering lead of those who had made a profitable business venture of the Bible. THEN he'd use the Latin to make his term papers sound IMPORTANT for the Frat boys and Sorority chicks; they'd hire you for telling people what to do profitably after they inherited. The Bible was not _supposed_ to be a business plan, so he took a while in the Library for some online research. Jimmy Swaggert was an old profit, and he had been excoriated as not using the Bible correctly. If by "correctly," you meant Charity, _everyone_ could agree. It was like the infallibility of the Pope, though; not all for the same reasons:

The Catholics believed the Pope was infallible because he wasn't married. The Protestants believed the Pope was infallible because he didn't have a wife to tell him his mistakes. Charlie wasn't sure if this proved the Pope was unmarried, or merely that the Pope was Catholic, but of _this_ he was certain: Everyone agreed about it!

Everyone agreed the Bible was for Charity too, and this was Swaggert's failing as a bible. As a businessman he was instructive, and Charlie thumbed through to the relevant citation: Malachi 3:8.

He reflected on the use of the first person. This verse likely _belonged_ in the bible - God seemed to have said it himself! ...if the bible was from God - postage from there and delivery addresses back then without zip codes? God himself might have had his problems.

Statistics had been HARD. When was it ever not? Right after the tests, he thought rhetorically, but never mind that. Now he was free to follow his latest passion. Charlie's passions were not like those of his namesake on TV - Charlie on TV was a man and a half. California Jones was but a man; his passions on the other hand were legendary amongst those who knew him. In fact, once his passions had been so inflamed that there were those who only knew _OF_ him - they knew about his passions too! Charlie had but two methods of study:

1. Get interested in the topic under discussion.
2. Manage to have a _really_ HOT teacher. Van Halen knew this method, and wrote a Rock Anthem about it. Personally, Charlie wished it had been a ballad; it would have been longer, and it would have had a happy ending.

He turned to his fledgling business effort anew. The only other REALLY famous bible verse was John 3:16. He located it (it actually was easier than his text books, because the verses were numbered individually. Geology text books on the other hand... I'll say no more.) He read it all in one breath - it was short. It had the old universal theme of a love story, and you could SEE that this was why it was so popular. Academically, though, it was worthless. The grammar (for example,) was archaic (he knew this word from his efforts with the dictionary explaining detention.) The "so" in "so loved the world," belonged in the phrase "God loved the world SO much," unless this author purported to instruct a person the manner in which God implemented his love. Unlikely; the mind of God was not available in the Library for citations. He did not jade his attentions by gorging himself on content - a burger should be an excellent excuse to flirt with the cashier.

Juvenal was Juvenile!

He started with a famous one. He scanned the lines looking for Academic subjects. It seemed to be written by a medieval serf - he didn't LIKE his LORD, but he knew better than to complain - the last line said he didn't expect to _ever_ get away. On the whole, it was a pretty good speech though; hmmm... when DID speech writing start? The second two verses blamed one of the other servants, so these were no good for citations. He would keep this one in mind and keep searching.

Ad Hoc is 'For the purpose of...'

Three days had passed, and California's contribution to the Charles' tradition had not tampered with the Clock Tower's contents. He had found a Douay bible, and a Gideon's. The Gideon's was a donation from his corporate sponsor, and he treasured it. All he had to do to quote Latin NOW, was to look up the phrase he wanted in Gideon's and cite the self-same passage in the Douay. If he got caught, he had a plan: Put the Douay Translation right back in the library, but not where he had found it. He would put it in the History section. The only one who could POSSIBLY give him away was Dewey!

Monday, March 9, 2009

Cogito Ergo Sum!

California Jones furrowed his brow. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. He had seen a number of Hollywood sacrifices that taught him the meaning of sacrifice. Mainly he had learned that study was not an Olympic Sport (otherwise, Olympic effort also required sacrifice.) His application of this had been financial. If the Client of an Educational Institution needed to make the purchase of his time, he would bank it in advance. The Movies used teams to excel at the last minute of an otherwise carefree semester, waiting until the last minute to study like IRL racing car drivers competing to out brake each other. He finally employed flash cards. They were not employed in the pedestrian application of boredom - these had the meanings on the same side as the quotation, and were shuffled according to a rule based system until they appeared humorous. Then they were re-shuffled until profound. This traded time for knowledge in a way that suited him, and he proceeded to write.

Cura te ipsum "Cure thyself." Good advice for a car mechanic, he thought.

Abusus non tollit usum "Abuse is no argument against proper use" Still good advice for a car mechanic.

Civis Romanus sum. "I am a Roman citizen" Probably not a car mechanic.

Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. "I am human, so nothing that is human is foreign to me." A car mechanic not a car.

Proximus sum egomet mihi "I am closest to myself" A policeman, not a car mechanic.

Non fui, fui, non sum, non curo. "I was not, I was, I am not, I don't care." NFFNSNC.

Sum quod eris; fui quod es. "I am what you will be. I was what you are." also NFFNSNC

To Sum up: To be incognito use Greek Summation. He scrawled a capital Sigma, and replaced the paper in the SD card holder. He would have it back to the school clock tower before sunrise.

Friday, March 6, 2009

De Iure;

For those who have chosen Law:

Jurisprudence is more important than Judicial Activism. Prudent juries will employ Jury Nullification judicially.

Per deums should accommodate the search for Truth!

To be trite about it, consensus facit legem; de minimis non curat lex; cursus curiae est lex curiae.

In the face of this logic the question of Juvenal is instructive: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

For those who linger behind in class, I'll ask you this: If Diplomacy is largely the skill of the orchestration of timing, would Juvenal have used this moment to say "Carpe Diem?" I suspect that Horace would not.

Tempus Edax Rerum;

To ad lib is an abbreviation of Ad Libitum.

If time were free, we would not need to change. To change occasionally advantages propagation of the species. To this end we must procreate. Our excuse for procreation will be heredity.


Take a deep breath: Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit, cras amet.




If we attribute this to Bacchus we likely plagiarize. Likewise, the Greek Hedonists failed to find veritas in vino by excess. To paraphrase, "In all things moderation; even moderation." This apparent self-consistency is really paradox.

For review; when Ciscero wrote: "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis," warning was not the salient feature of his topic.

Caveat Emptor;

The word Epistemology is Greek. They attempted to monopolize the industry with Episteme and Doxa.

We seem to have addressed Vox Populi.

It does not rule out Vox Populi, Vox Dei.

If we develop the taste for truth that the man-eater has for salt, our knowledge may at least be dangerous. This suggests that mastery of Jargon is more important than Jargon.

If "words have meaning," than an avoidance of the contra-positive might prefer to say: Verba docent, exempla trahunt.

If it is necessary to speak ill of the truth, call it "Aletheia." A suitable Russian expletive is "Pravda." Nevertheless, when affirming the positive try to be a sentient about it as possible.

The contra-positive should ALWAYS be available for comparison.

In vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte.

Before Virtue can be defined, vice must be understood.

Amphibolia will not be restricted to the amphora.

Ne quid nimis - enough Latin. Vice is vice; call it a vice. Laziness is worse than self indulgence. Apathy is worse than mistakes. Memento audere semper.

In racing cars, horses and women, let finishing the race govern risk taking. In learning from mistakes, don't over document - it's officious; don't lose sight of FINISHING.

Let history do some of the work - if Caesar is better known than Juvenal, the audience has spoken. Only disagree if you disagree with the audience. As noted, do not neglect the lessons of Juvenal.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

In Vino Veritas;

Before Chaos can be addressed, we must agree upon the virtues that govern order.

The selective processes on this chapter (characterized by the consent of the governed,) will prioritize Truth at least this much:

Our applications of "wino" will be for purposes of "weritas." This encourages responsible explanations and responsible drinking.

The learned macro-illustration from "Get Smart" will be from Novus Ordo Seclorum: 'Chaos is opposed to "Control!"' In experimentation, we should give appropriate value to control groups.

Other than that, truth should observe: Fabricando fit faber. Choose Law and Medical degrees; don't learn mistakes.

Tempus Fugit;

The fugitive nature of time is not adequately noted by the populace.

Since the populace cannot be convinced of this, we must follow a NOTABLE example of history. The founding fathers of America did not wait for history to change on their behalf, else they would have fallen prey to Cicero: "Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis." They banded together and changed history. They identified the value of Egalitarianism, and relegated it to Government. They learned the lessons of history enough to know them, but were not emulsified by sophist absorption.

We will value time symbolically with Rolex. The band will symbolize our UNITY.

Let courage rise with danger: Tempori parce!