Thursday, December 31, 2009

Disclaimer

Disclaimer from the book Evasion.


Wiki says:
"Evasion is a book that spun off from a zine of the same name. It was published by CrimethInc. in 2003. The book comprises 108 pages of slightly revised text from the original zine (95% of which is retained) along with 162 pages of new material.[1] The author is not named in the book, but is referred to elsewhere as "Mac", "the Evasion Kid", or "Mac Evasion." He later wrote a column in the zine heartattaCk and has been identified as "Nigel Davis" in one bibliography.[2]

Evasion catalogs the travels and exploits of a straight-edge vegan young man who decided to not get a job or go to school after high school, despite his parents' wishes. Deciding that his life, freedom, and time were too valuable to be wasted working in a job he would despise, to build profits for a company, he stepped outside of the confines of a traditional role in society."

Complete book online, here or with pictures here.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

On Bullshit (by H.G. Frankfurt)

"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory..." (Frankfurt introduction to On Bullshit)


Monday, December 28, 2009

St. Augustine

"Suppose, then, we were wanderers, and could not live happily away from our homeland, and that we felt wretched in our wandering, and wishing to put an end to our misery, determined to return home. We find, however, that we need transport, either by land or sea, in order to reach our homeland, the object of our enjoyment. But the beauty of the country through which we pass, and the very pleasure of the motion, charm our hearts, and turning these things which we ought to use into objects of enjoyment, we become unwilling to hasten the end of our journey; and becoming engrossed in a factitious delight, our thoughts are diverted from that home whose delights would make us truly happy. Such is a picture of our condition in this life of mortality".


Green, R. P . H., ed, Augustine: De Doctrina Christiana, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1995, pp.15–6;