12/07/2009

What's your stance on the repetition of themes in Led Zeppelin lyrics? Eh? On Zep II, RAMBLE ON has a line, "I've been this way ten years to the day." Then TEN YEARS GONE shows up on PHYSICAL GRAFFITI. Missed that, did you? You and Satchel Paige?

I wandered. We were up to "bleeding heart liberal," always used as an insult in American discourse. I've been looking into it. My conclusion is that, except for stone hearted psychopathic killers, virtually every person alive on the face of the Earth is a bleeding heart liberal, but with this proviso - they are such only in terms of their own private morality. Which is quite a different thing than once's stance toward overall social policy in a society consisting of hundreds of millions of people, don't you think?

The foremost articulator of sympathy-based ethics in Western civilization, David Hume, wrote "Even though I consider myself heterosexual, I am only able to achieve sexual satisfaction by watching lesbians eat each other." Whoops, wrong quote. Actually what he wrote was, "Moral distinctions are not derived from reason. Moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense." Get it? Figure it out, I'm too much engulfed in other morasses today.

What do you want? What is it that you seek? Some pristine insights on learning? OK then:

From Victor Gruen I learned that comfortable social surroundings maximize business opportunities.

From Ray Kroc I learned that you can make millions and millions of dollars in real estate when you disguise it as something having to do with hamburgers.

From Sam Walton I learned the miracle of satellite inventory.

From Ann Wroe, Peter Robb, and Sebastian D. Grazia I learned that Robin Collingwood has the wrong ideas about history.

From Joe Gandolfo I learned...

From Carl Sewell I learned...

From Chainsaw Al Dunlap I learned...

Are you bored yet?