To Quote At Length: Bertrand Russell

"That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.  Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."

A Poem for Monica:

When did you become such an old soul?

It seems here, right before my eyes, the transformation has officially been completed.

In a world of frustration and emptiness, I found solace in your voice.

What did I do to be so lucky?  Surely I’ve done nothing for the world to deserve such benevolence.

Yet, there you are.  You’ve pulled me through the toughest of times.

All of a sudden, I feel as though you are the older one.

In reality, we scratch each other’s back.  I remember the days we played and laughed and cried, together.

It will always be that way, because we’ve got one another to do the dirty work.

So when it’s your turn to cry, I’ll be there.

When it’s your turn to feel pain, as the human condition inevitably necessitates, you will not be alone.

And neither will I.

The world will crumble and implode before our eyes, but it won’t matter because we’ll have what matters most buried deep inside our hearts.

Bound to each other by the invisible benevolence of chance, I thank my lucky stars that my little sister is also my best friend.

Incalculably indebted in such an enigma; this is a thing that cannot come undone.

To Quote At Length: Howard Zinn

"... We must not accept the memory of states as our own.  Nations are not communities and never have been.  The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex.  And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners."

- A People's History of the United States