the darkerside to rants

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, then he is weak – and this does not apply to god. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful – which is equally foreign to god’s nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them?

Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE)

The United States is locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusion. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another enthralls the country…despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class.

– Chris Hedges

I stumble through the wreckage
Rusted from the rain
There’s nothing left to salvage
No one left to blame
Among the broken mirrors
I don’t look the same
I’m rusted from the rain
I’m rusted from the rain

Dissect me until my blood runs down into the drain
My bitter heart is pumping oil into my veins
I’m nothing but a tin man, don’t feel any pain
I don’t feel any pain, I don’t feel any pain
I’m rusted from the rain

Go on crush me like a flower, rusted from the rain
Come on, strip me of my power, beat me with your chains
And if I’m the king of cowards, you’re the queen of pain
I’m rusted from the rain, I’m rusted from the rain

You hung me like a picture, now I’m just a frame
I used to be your lap dog, now I’m just a stray
Shackled in a graveyard, left here to decay
Left here to decay, left here to decay

I’m rusted from the rain

Go on crush me like a flower, rusted from the rain
Come on, strip me of my power, beat me with your chains
And if I’m the king of cowards, you’re the queen of pain
I’m rusted from the rain, I’m rusted from the rain

I’m rusted from the rain

guitar

Go on crush me like a flower, rusted from the rain
Come on, strip me of my power, beat me with your chains
And if I’m the king of cowards, you’re the queen of pain
I’m rusted from the rain, I’m rusted from the rain

Go on crush me like a flower, rusted from the rain
Come on, strip me of my power, beat me with your chains
And if I’m the king of cowards, you’re the queen of pain
I’m rusted from the rain, I’m rusted from the rain
The sun will shine again, I’m rusted from the rain
I’m rusted from the rain, the sun will shine again

I’m Rusted from the rain

Billy Talent

Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Susan Ertz

I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do so. I do not know, but I feel it happen and I am tormented.

CATULLUS, CARMINA, 85

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn’t.

Why don’t you come on back to the war, that’s right, get in it,
why don’t you come on back to the war, it’s just beginning.

Well I live here with a woman and a child,
the situation makes me kind of nervous.
Yes, I rise up from her arms, she says “I guess you call this love”;
I call it service.

Why don’t you come on back to the war, don’t be a tourist,
why don’t you come on back to the war, before it hurts us,
why don’t you come on back to the war, let’s all get nervous.

You cannot stand what I’ve become,
you much prefer the gentleman I was before.
I was so easy to defeat, I was so easy to control,
I didn’t even know there was a war.

Why don’t you come on back to the war, don’t be embarrassed,
why don’t you come on back to the war, you can still get married.

There is a war between the rich and poor,
a war between the man and the woman.
There is a war between the left and right,
a war between the black and white,
a war between the odd and the even.

Why don’t you come on back to the war, pick up your tiny burden,
why don’t you come on back to the war, let’s all get even,
why don’t you come on back to the war, can’t you hear me speaking?

There is a War – Leonard Cohen

I am seduced by trains. When one moans in the night like some
dragon gone lame, I rise and put on my grandfather’s suit. I pack a
small bag, step out onto the porch, and wait in the darkness. I rest
my broad-brimmed hat on my knee. To a passerby I’m a curious
sight—a solitary man sitting in the night. There’s something
unsettling about a traveler who doesn’t know where he’s headed.
You can’t predict his next move. In a week you may receive a
postcard from Haiti. Madagascar. You might turn on your
answering machine and hear his voice amid the tumult of a
Bangkok avenue. All afternoon you feel the weight of the things
you’ve never done. Don’t think about it too much. Everything
starts to sound like a train.

David Shumate

Even if your youth sucked, hearing the soundtrack from it down the years almost always cripples or caresses you. You can never tell which it’ll be until you hear it.

Unknown

Someone told me they read on a blog that two people had tattooed on their wrists the phrase “Hope gleams in the idiot heart,” a line from the Russian poet Mayakovsky that they found in my novel THE MARRIAGE OF STICKS. I have always loved the permanence of tattoos, the conviction by the person who gets one that they will be happy to have this thing on their body ten, twenty, thirty years from now. But besides the stupid tattoos I see all over the place today, I have yet to see or think of anything I would want on my skin forever. However hearing about this tattoo today I thought, that’s a pretty cool thing. A good permanent reminder that no matter what, there are almost always surprises around life’s corners and we should keep our heads up to see them coming.

Jonathan Carrol

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Seneca the Younger

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

George Bernard Shaw

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Epicurus

You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.

Carl Sagan

A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Albert Einstein

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Aldous Huxley