Great Taco Truck Art
(Scott Beale / LaughingSquid.com)
Wonderful [ab]use of Red, Yellow and Green!
James, Job (and Alinsky) sum it up pretty well
Henry James once wrote, “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it again forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.” Henry James’s statement is an affirmation of that of Job: “The life of man upon earth is a warfare …” [Job 7:1, Douay-Rheims Bible.] (quoted from "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky)
Lyin' Lynda is the personification of an unreliable narrator
The literary device of the "unreliable narrator" was used in several medieval fictional Arabic tales of the One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights.[4] In one tale, "The Seven Viziers", a courtesan accuses a king's son of having assaulted her, when in reality she had failed to seduce him (inspired by the Qur'anic/Biblical story of Yusuf/Joseph). Seven viziers attempt to save his life by narrating seven stories to prove the unreliability of the courtesan, and the courtesan responds by narrating a story to prove the unreliability of the viziers. (Pinault, David (1992), Story-telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, p. 59, ISBN 9004095306 , Wikipedia entry for "Unreliable narrator")
Twenty-three years of practice... and she still can't get it right!
In Mark Twain's words (an excerpt from his essay "On the Decay of the Art of Lying"):
Lying is universal--we all do it. Therefore, the wise thing is for us diligently to train ourselves to lie thoughtfully, judiciously; to lie with a good object, and not an evil one; to lie for others' advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, maliciously; to lie gracefully and graciously, not awkwardly and clumsily; to lie firmly, frankly, squarely, with head erect, not haltingly, tortuously, with pusillanimous mien, as being ashamed of our high calling. Then shall we be rid of the rank and pestilent truth that is rotting the land; then shall we be great and good and beautiful, and worthy dwellers in a world where even benign Nature habitually lies, except when she promises execrable weather.
And... from an Alinsky interview, 1972:
This liberal cliche about reconciliation of opposing forces is a load of crap. Reconciliation means just one thing: When one side gets enough power, then the other side gets reconciled to it. That's where you need organization –– first to compel concessions and then to make sure the other side delivers. If you're too delicate to exert the necessary pressures ... you might as well get out of the ball park. ... No issue can be negotiated unless you first have the clout to compel negotiation.
No comments:
Post a Comment