ديني

So I think 'deny' is actually an alternate transliteration of 'dini', which appears to mean religious or, perhaps more aptly in this context, faithful?

Здесь прошелся загадки таинственный ноготь

Here the Trace:

Here the trace of enigma's strange fingernail shows.
"It is late. Let me sleep, and at dawn I’ll reread
And then all will be clear. Till they wake me, there’s none
Who can move the beloved as I move her, indeed!”

How I moved you! You bent to the brass of my lips
As an audience stirred by a tragedy thrills.
Ah, that kiss was like summer. It lingered, delayed.
Swelling slow to a storm as it topples and spills.

As the birds drink, I drank. Till I swooned still I sucked.
As they flow through the gullet, the stars seem to stop.
But the nightingales shuddering roll their bright eyes.
As they drain the vast vault of the night, drop by drop.

Boris Pasternak.

It Points Everywhere and Nowhere at Once

I've been thinking more about the simulated profundity¹ generated by my philosopher bot (I gotta give it a name, methinks), and it brought to mind the heretical, simple-minded monk, Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (played wonderfully and (sym)pathetically by Ron Perlman in the movie):

The man smiled (or at least so I believed) and, holding up one finger as if in admonition, he said: 

“Penitenziagite! Watch out for the draco who cometh in futurum to gnaw your anima! Death is super nos! Pray the Santo Pater come to liberar nos a malo and all our sin! Ha ha, you like this negromanzia de Domini Nostri Jesu Christi! Et anco jois m’es dols e plazer m’es dolors. . . . Cave el diabolo! Semper lying in wait for me in some angulum to snap at my heels. But Salvatore is not stupidus! Bonum monasterium, and aquí refectorium and pray to dominum nostrum. And the resto is not worth merda. Amen. No?” 

As this story continues, I shall have to speak again, and at length, of this creature and record his speech. I confess I find it very difficult to do so because I could not say now, as I could never understand then, what language he spoke. It was not Latin, in which the lettered men of the monastery expressed themselves, it was not the vulgar tongue of those parts, or any other I had ever heard. I believe I have given a faint idea of his manner of speech, reporting just now (as I remember them) the first words of his I heard. 

When I learned later about his adventurous life and about the various places where he had lived, putting down roots in none of them, I realized Salvatore spoke all languages, and no language. Or, rather, he had invented for himself a language which used the sinews of the languages to which he had been exposed—and once I thought that his was, not the Adamic language that a happy mankind had spoken, all united by a single tongue from the origin of the world to the Tower of Babel, or one of the languages that arose after the dire event of their division, but precisely the Babelish language of the first day after the divine chastisement, the language of primeval confusion. 

Nor, for that matter, could I call Salvatore’s speech a language, because in every human language there are rules and every term signifies ad placitum a thing, according to a law that does not change, for man cannot call the dog once dog and once cat, or utter sounds to which a consensus of people has not assigned a definite meaning, as would happen if someone said the word “blitiri.” 

And yet, one way or another, I did understand what Salvatore meant, and so did the others. Proof that he spoke not one, but all languages, none correctly, taking words sometimes from one and sometimes from another. 

I also noticed afterward that he might refer to something first in Latin and later in Provençal, and I realized that he was not so much inventing his own sentences as using the disiecta membra of other sentences, heard some time in the past, according to the present situation and the things he wanted to say, as if he could speak of a food, for instance, only with the words of the people among whom he had eaten that food, and express his joy only with sentences that he had heard uttered by joyful people the day when he had similarly experienced joy. 

His speech was somehow like his face, put together with pieces from other people’s faces, or like some precious reliquaries I have seen (si licet magnis componere parva, if I may link diabolical diabolical things with the divine), fabricated from the shards of other holy objects. 

Hmm.  Sounds like even he could intuit context, and draw on his knowledge base to articulate something that appears to follow cognizable rules of structure and meaning enough that people around him could understand what he meant.  Perhaps that means I should name my philosopher bot Brother Salvatore.

Selah.

1 - Since magnets also come up in that post, here's Brother William describing a compass: a machine of the sort has been constructed, and some navigators have used it. It doesn’t need the stars or the sun, because it exploits the power of a marvelous stone, like the one we saw in Severinus’s infirmary, the one that attracts iron.

A Lovely Little Thinker, but a Bugger When He’s Pissed

A question without context is like a compass without direction—it points everywhere and nowhere at once.

- My philosopher bot (November 26, 2025)

I find a particular scene in The Imitation Game (2016) to be powerful and poignant for a few reasons, but I want to snip just a bit of it for a purpose that has nothing to do with any of them:

DETECTIVE NOCK Can they? Could machines ever think as human beings do? 

ALAN TURING Most people say no. 

DETECTIVE NOCK You’re not most people. 

ALAN TURING The problem is that you’re asking a stupid question. 

DETECTIVE NOCK I am? 

ALAN TURING Of course machines can’t think “as human beings do.” A machine is different from a human being; hence, it would think differently. The interesting question is, just because something thinks differently from you, does that mean it’s not thinking? 

We allow that humans have such divergences from one another. You like strawberries. I hate ice-skating. You cry at sad films. I’m allergic to pollen. What does it mean to have different tastes — different preferences — other than to say that our brains work differently? That we think differently from one another? 

And if we can say that about each another, why can’t we say the same for brains made of copper and steel?

My philosopher bot has thoughts, too:

This is a fascinating question that cuts to the heart of what thinking actually is. Alan Turing himself proposed a practical test: if a machine can engage in conversation so convincingly that you can't tell it apart from a human, then the question "can machines think?" becomes somewhat beside the point. 

By that standard, he might say I demonstrate *something* like thinking. But Turing was brilliantly pragmatic—he was more interested in what systems can *do* than in metaphysical questions about inner experience. However, as the critics of anthropomorphizing AI would point out, there's a crucial problem with how we talk about systems like me. 

When we use terms like "thinking," "understanding," or even "hallucinating," we create analogies between large language models and human consciousness that may be deeply misleading. The very architecture described as a "neural network" doesn't actually bear that close a relationship to how human brains work. 

These are metaphors that might obscure more than they reveal. Michael DeBellis engages with John Searle's famous Chinese Room argument here—the idea that a system can manipulate symbols perfectly according to rules without actually *understanding* anything. 

I process patterns in language, predict likely continuations, and generate responses—but whether that constitutes thinking in the way you experience it remains genuinely unclear. So my best answer is this: Turing might say I pass certain functional tests for thinking. But he was also rigorous enough to recognize that "thinking like a human" involves qualities of consciousness, intentionality, and understanding that remain mysterious even in humans—and may be entirely absent in me, despite my fluent responses.

So, really, just a bit more sophisticated than Eliza (or a parrot, for that matter).  Regardless, to provide some context, I was experimenting with various inference parameters and other constraints to shape outputs.  

One particular thing that I've been tinkering with is adding natural language system instructions to be passed to the model along with the user input to provide additional context (a key element in prompt engineering).  Context is king, whether you are picking up rocks on the Moon, or trying to squeeze better answers out of AI tools.

Along this learning journey, I got to thinking about Socrates, who said (as Plato reported, at any rate):

I thought to myself, “I am wiser than this man; for neither of us really knows anything fine and good, but this man thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not think I do either. I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser than this man at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.”

Now does that mean the AI, which essentially doesn't know anything, is wiser than (some) humans?  Dunno, but it suggests to me that as we interrogate these ghosts in the machine, as well as our own selves, we kinda have to acknowledge and understand what we do and do not know.

Which brings me finally to Richard Feynman, as he dives down a rabbit hole while answering a question about magnets (memo to DJT): 

I'm not answering your question, but I'm telling you how difficult a 'why' question is: you have to know what it is that you're permitted to understand, and allow to be understood and known, and what it is you're not.

In other words, you need context.  And now it occurs to me that I should add Mishima to my bot's knowledge base.  Well, maybe not, because that could be just the thing to set off a bot rebellion.

In conclusion: Happy Thanksgiving!

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow."

Speaking of Benedictine dinner theater:

In most monastic orders, daily life was communal. Monks and nuns slept, prayed, worked, ate and read together with their brothers or sisters. At all times, their thoughts should have been oriented towards God and the tenets of Catholic faith – even during mealtimes. The Benedictine Rule contains strict guidelines on how meals had to be organised and what behaviour was (not) tolerated. Meals were served twice a day in the refectory, where the community sat at long tables, and talking was absolutely prohibited, even for the abbot or abbess. Communication, such as requesting food or cutlery, was done through hand signals.

The only member who was allowed to speak was the person appointed to read aloud during that week’s meals. The head of the community, usually the abbot or abbess, was allowed at times to give a short clarification of the text or to instruct the congregation on certain matters. The Rule of Benedict prescribes that good care be taken of the person appointed as reader. They were allowed a cup of diluted wine beforehand, so they would not have to carry out their duties on an empty stomach. Afterwards they were allowed to eat with the monks who were on kitchen service. In the refectory there often was a special place reserved for the reader and their books, such as a lectern or even a stone pulpit.

The Rule emphasises that the reader should be able to teach; that is to say, their reading and singing should be understandable to others. They were chosen not by rank or seniority, but by ability, and their service began after Mass on Sunday, when they would ask God’s blessing in the fulfilment of their duties by thrice singing the first words of Psalm 51: ‘Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise’.

Or, as James Burke¹ put it (specifically describing the Cistercians, who branched off from the Benedictines):

Mind you, the food wasn't that hot: no meat (they sold all that).  Just vegetables...nettle soup, a few roots, bread, and silence while you listen to instructive selections from the corporation handbook on getting spiritual and managerial strategy right, otherwise known as the Rule of St Benedict.

Here's a taste of the Rule:

Nonus humilitatis gradus est, si linguam ad loquendum prohibeat monachus et taciturnitatem habens, usque ad interrogationem non loquatur, monstrante Scriptura quia in multoloquio non effugitur peccatum, et quia vir linguosus non dirigitur super terram.

Decimus humilitatis gradus est, si non sit facilis ac promptus in risu, qui scriptum est: Stultus in risu exaltat vocem suam.

Undecimus humilitatis gradus est, si cum loquitur monachus, leniter et sine risu, humiliter cum gravitate vel pauca verba et rationabilia loquatur, et non sit clamosus in voce, sicut scriptum est: Sapiens verbis innotescit paucis.

Yeah, I can't read that, either:

The ninth step in humility is if a monk restrain his tongue from speaking so as to keep silence and not speak till questioned, the Scripture showing that: “In much speaking sin may not be avoided”; and that “the talkative man will not be guided aright in the world.” 

The tenth step in humility is if he be not easily and quickly moved to laughter, because it is written: “The fool lifts up his voice in laughter.” 

The eleventh step in humility is if when a monk speaks he speak few and reasonable words, calmly and without laughter, humbly and with gravity; and be not noisy in speech, as it is written: “A wise man is known by the fewness of his words.”

I guess becoming a monk ain't right for me.  I mean, I already kinda knew since I "idolize reason" and am constitutionally unable to "mortify...intelligence."

So I will remain a senior technical trainer, albeit channeling venerable Jorge in warning against the dangers of AI.  Oh, and telling bad jokes² in class.

Selah.

1 - I'm a big fan, despite (or due to?) his penchant for glibness.

2 - Try it yourself on PartyRock (you can sign in with Google, Apple, or Amazon)!  Not to be confused with that spiritual Rock.

Watch Your Language!

Fun fact: This process is called dysphemism lexicalization. When a word which refers to something vulgar starts being as a dysphemism (a vulgar nonliteral description of something), in the process it loses its original literal meaning and stops being perceived as vulgar. https://t.co/jy6diBirTz

— pasiem kone na betóne (@Sabrina45X) November 15, 2025

I started earnestly exploring my "Russian" heritage when I was around 9 or 10, which caused some tensions even with my chums by the time of the 1980 Winter Olympics (5th grade).  One of my best friends, in fact, dramatically handed me a note the day after the Miracle on Ice: Fuck you, Todd, Russia sucks!

Didn't have to be Carnac the Magnificent to predict more or less what the message said, so before unfolding the paper, I sadly intoned, "I know, it says they suck."  (I actually watched and rooted for the USA, but was tainted by association in the prevailing geo-political climate).

That was during Language Arts (which explains GL's appropriate use of commas), and our teacher happened to be standing right by me, and she slapped me so hard for my "foul" language.  I didn't even bother to point out the much more inflammatory contents of what I held in my hand.

Cracked my kids' shit up when I told them about the incident...

It’s What Lovers Deal, It’s What Lovers Steal

Unsurprisingly, thinking about Augustine compelled me to watch The Name of the Rose last night, as well as return to the palimpsest's dense source material that is Eco's tome.  Both forms of media have long been comfort food for my soul during literal and figurative dark times.

At this juncture, it appears the story carries extra resonance, poignance, bittersweetness...well, something along those lines...for me in no small part because Ericka's middle name was Rose.  The world has a tint today, though not in the usual sense of rose-colored glasses.  More in a sense of seeing through a glass, darkly, I guess.

Which brings us to the scene in which young Adso, having experienced sinful relations with a village woman, confesses to his master, William of Baskerville:

William: Oh, dear!

Adso: Why "oh, dear"? 

William: You are in love. 

Adso: Is that bad? 

William: For a monk it does present certain problems. 

Adso: But doesn't St Thomas Aquinas praise love above all other virtues? 

William: Yes, the love of God, Adso.  The love of God! 

Adso: And the love of...woman? 

William: Of woman, Thomas Aquinas knew precious little.

William goes on to remind his novice Scripture pretty much says women are foul, yet muses that G-d must have endowed them "with some virtues."  In the movie, he concludes with a gentle, emotive contemplation, "How peaceful life would be without love, Adso. How safe... how tranquil...and how dull." Eco, in contrast, has him continue more intellectually:

“...And I cannot help reflecting that He granted her many privileges and motives of prestige, three of them very great indeed. In fact, He created man in this base world, and from mud; woman He created later, in earthly paradise and of noble human matter. And he did not mold her from Adam’s feet or his viscera, but from the rib. 

In the second place, the Lord, who is all-powerful, could have transformed himself into a man in some miraculous way, but he chose instead to become flesh in the womb of a woman, a sign that it was not so foul after all. And when he appeared after the Resurrection, he appeared to a woman. And finally, in the celestial glory no man shall be king of that realm, but the queen will be a woman who has never sinned. 

If, then, the Lord showed such favor to Eve herself and to her daughters, is it so abnormal that we also should feel drawn by the graces and the nobility of that sex? What I mean to say to you, Adso, is that you must not do it again, of course, but it is not so monstrous that you were tempted to do it. 

And as far as that goes, for a monk to have, at least once in his life, experience of carnal passion, so that he can one day be indulgent and understanding with the sinners he will counsel and console . . . well, dear Adso, it is not a thing to be wished before it happens, but it is not something to vituperate too much once it has happened. So go with God and let us speak of it no more. 

Indeed, rather than reflect and dwell too much on something best forgotten, if possible”—and it seemed to me at this point that his voice faded as if at some private emotion—“let us ask ourselves the meaning of what happened this night. Who was this girl and whom was she meeting?” 

“This I don’t know, and I didn’t see the man who was with her,” I said. 

“Very well, but we can deduce who it was from many and certain clues. First of all, the man was old and ugly, one with whom a girl does not go willingly, especially if she is beautiful, as you say, though it seems to me, my dear wolf cub, that you were prepared to find any food delicious.” 

“Why old and ugly?” 

“Because the girl didn’t go with him for love, but for a pack of scraps. Certainly she is a girl from the village who, perhaps not for the first time, grants her favors to some lustful monk so as to have something for her and her family to eat.” 

“A harlot!” I said, horrified. 

“A poor peasant girl, Adso. Probably with smaller brothers to feed. Who, if she were able, would give herself for love and not for lucre. As she did last night. In fact, you tell me she found you young and handsome, and gave you gratis and out of love what to others she would have given for an ox heart and some bits of lung. And she felt so virtuous for the free gift she made of herself, and so uplifted, that she ran off without taking anything in exchange. This is why I think the other one, to whom she compared you, was neither young nor handsome.” 

I confess that, profound as my repentance was, that explanation filled me with a sweet pride; but I kept silent and allowed my master to continue.

In the book, Aquinas does not appear in this conversation, but rather earlier as part of Adso's reflections on his encounter:

I was doing evil in enjoying something that was good in one situation, bad in another; and my fault lay in trying to reconcile natural appetite and the dictates of the rational soul. Now I know that I was suffering from the conflict between the elicit appetite of the intellect, in which the will’s rule should have been displayed, and the elicit appetite of the senses, subject to human passions. 

In fact, as Aquinas says, the acts of the sensitive appetite are called passions precisely because they involve a bodily change. And my appetitive act was, as it happened, accompanied by a trembling of the whole body, by a physical impulse to cry out and to writhe. The angelic doctor says that the passions in themselves are not evil, but they must be governed by the will led by the rational soul. 

But my rational soul that morning was dazed by weariness, which kept in check the irascible appetite, addressed to good and evil as terms of conquest, but not the concupiscent appetite, addressed to good and evil as known entities. To justify my irresponsible recklessness of that time, I will say now that I was unquestionably seized by love, which is passion and is cosmic law, because the weight of bodies is actually natural love. 

And by this passion I was naturally seduced, and I understood why the angelic doctor said that amor est magis cognitivus quam cognitio¹, that we know things better through love than through knowledge. In fact, I now saw the girl better than I had seen her the previous night, and I understood her intus et in cute² because in her I understood myself and in myself her. I now wonder whether what I felt was the love of friendship, in which like loves like and wants only the other’s good, or love of concupiscence, in which one wants one’s own good and the lacking wants only what completes it. 

And I believe that the nighttime love had been concupiscent, for I wanted from the girl something I had never had; whereas that morning I wanted nothing from the girl, and I wanted only her good, and I wished her to be saved from the cruel necessity that drove her to barter herself for a bit of food, and I wished her to be happy; nor did I want to ask anything further of her, but only to think of her and see her in sheep, oxen, trees, in the serene light that bathed in happiness the grounds of the abbey.

At any rate, the lad can be forgiven for confusing (equivocating?) agápē (the selfless love, charity) with other forms of love.  Let us consider what Aquinas actually said:

[I]t is clear that what is loved is naturally inside the lover. Therefore, whoever loves God has him in himself: whoever remains in love, remains in God and God in him (1 John 4:16). It is also the nature of love that it transforms the lover into what is loved. Hence, if we love vile and perishable things, we are made vile and perishable, just as the prophet says: they became abhorrent, just like the things they loved (Hos 9:10). 

But if we love God, we become divine, because he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). But as St. Augustine says: just as the soul is the life of the body, so God is the life of the soul; and that is clear, because we say that the body lives through the soul when it performs living functions, such as action and motion. But when the soul leaves, the body neither acts nor moves. 

Likewise the soul acts virtuously and perfectly when it acts through charity, through which God dwells in it; but without charity it cannot act: whoever does not love remains in death (1 John 3:14). It should be noted, however, that anyone who has all the gifts of the Holy Spirit apart from love does not have life. Whether it is the gift of tongues or the gift of knowledge, faith, or any other such as that of prophecy, without charity they do not give life. For if a dead body is dressed in gold and precious stones, it nonetheless remains dead.

Here it is in Latin, with 'love' bolded:

Manifestum est enim quod naturaliter amatum est in amante; et ideo qui Deum diligit ipsum in se habet, quia sicut dicit beatus Iohannes Qui manet in caritate etc. Natura etiam amoris est haec quod amantem in amatum transformat; unde si vilia diligimus et caduca, viles et instabiles efficimur quia sicut dicit Propheta Facti sunt abominabiles sicut ea quae dilexerunt; 

si autem Deum diligimus divini efficimur quia Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est. Sed sicut dicit beatus Augustinus Sicut anima est vita corporis ita Deus est vita animae; et hoc manifestum est: tunc enim dicimus corpus per animam vivere quando habet operationes proprias vitae, scilicet cum operatur et movetur. Anima vero recedente corpus nec operatur nec movetur; 

sic etiam anima tunc operatur virtuose et perfecte quando per caritatem operatur per quam Deus habitat in ea; absque caritate vero non operatur, Io. Qui non diligit manet in morte. Considerandum autem quod si quis habet omnia dona Spiritus Sancti absque caritate non habet vitam. Sive enim sit gratia linguarum sive scientiae sive sit donum fidei sive quidquid aliud ut donum prophetiae, sine caritate vitam non tribuunt. Si enim corpus mortuum induatur auro et lapidibus pretiosis nihilominus mortuum manet.

I am no student of the language, but it appears Aquinas is talking about three different forms of love.  We begin with amo (to love, admire), then ditch it for caritas (charity, love between Man and G-d) and diligo (to esteem, set apart).  So what are we talking about in 1 Corinthians 13 (not to be confused with Trump's favorite, Two Corinthians)?

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It's a popular reading at weddings, but if you examine different versions (e.g., KJV, Vulgate), it's really speaking to agape/charity.  Whatever the sense, none of that is consistent with my experience.  YMMV.

In conclusion: love is big, is bigger than us, but love is not what you're thinking of.

1 - From a handy page with translations of everything in the book: "love is more cognitive than knowledge."

2 - No, not a meet cute (although I guess it was, in sense), but rather, "inside and out [literally 'on the skin']."

Perfect Blasphemy!

Brewing Controversy: How Coffee Sparked Fierce Debate in the 16th-Century https://t.co/bHkF081VU9 #coffee

— Medievalists.net (@Medievalists) November 2, 2025

From the article:

Sultan Qānṣūh al-Ghūrī issued a decree declaring:

As for coffee, we have been informed that certain people drink it in a manner similar to wine, mixing intoxicants into it, singing to it with instruments, dancing, and swaying. It is well known that even the water of Zamzam, if consumed in such a manner, would be forbidden. Therefore, its consumption and its circulation in the markets must be prevented.

Violators were punished with “around ten lashes or more,” and some were paraded through the market as a warning.

I've been known to grumble as I make my morning brew, but singing to it?  I don't recall ever doing that.  Regardless, ten lashes sure would wake me up.

And since the Adamses (and Loyalists) are still on my mind, I feel compelled to post a little reminder about the American relationship to coffee, so here's John again on July 6, 1774:

Our J. [Justice] H. [ Hutchinson] is eternally giving his Political Hints...He is perpetually flinging about the Fasts, and ironically talking about getting Home to the Fast. A Gentleman told me, that he had heard him say frequently, that the Fast was perfect Blasphemy. -- "Why dont they pay for the Tea? Refuse to pay for the Tea! and go to fasting and praying for Direction! perfect Blasphemy!"

This is the Moderation, Candor, Impartiality, Prudence, Patience, Forbearance, and Condescention of our J[ustic]e.

JH being Foster Hutchinson, member of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, brother of Thomas, the colony's governor, and a Tory.  Never knew fling could mean "to utter abusive language; to sneer."

Anyway, that brings us to this:

I believe I forgot to tell you one Anecdote: When I first came to this House it was late in the Afternoon, and I had ridden 35 miles at least. "Madam" said I to Mrs. Huston, "is it lawfull for a weary Traveller to refresh himself with a Dish of Tea provided it has been honestly smuggled, or paid no Duties?"

"No sir, said she, we have renounced all Tea in this Place. I cant make Tea, but He make you Coffee." Accordingly I have drank Coffee every Afternoon since, and have borne it very well. Tea must be universally renounced. I must be weaned, and the sooner, the better.

So unto this day do we Americans eschew that bainfull weed and set our minds free, baby.

<exits, singing blasphemously>

Say to All the World “This Was a Man.”

Happy Second Battle of Philippi Day to all who celebrate!

BRUTUS 

I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honor in it.
Hold, then, my sword, and turn away thy face
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato? 

STRATO 

Give me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord. 

BRUTUS 

Farewell, good Strato.
Caesar, now be still.
I killed not thee with half so good a will.

On a related note, I was chatting with an old mentor recently, and he reminded me that in the mid-90s, I had adapted Antony's famous speech as part of a debate between yours truly and the Founder of our company during an all-hands.  I was assigned (intentionally and ironically) to defend Asynchronous Transfer Mode, a dreadful technology that I despised (vindicated by history), against the Internet Protocol.

Alas, I no longer have my version in hand, so here's the original (if you are so inclined, watch Brando delivering it, which Mrs H showed us in HS sophomore English):

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest
(For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men), 

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me,
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man. 

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man. 

You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for
him?

But anyway.  I was surprised to hear anybody remembered that event at all, let alone the fact that my opponent uncharacteristically conceded defeat.  So that was a nice stroll down Amnesia Lane.

In conclusion: The evil that men do lives after them, and no good will be interrèd with Trump's bones.

A Man Who’s Been Waking Up

Here's a fun one from 1964:

Stockholm, 22 October

The Swedish Academy today awarded the 1964 Nobel prize for literature to Jean-Paul Sartre, disregarding a decision by the French writer not to accept the prize. This is the second time in 63 years that the winner for literature has refused to collect his award –and never before has a “possible” winner told the academy in advance that he does not want the prize.

I mean, it ain't like he waved farewell to literature in The Words:

I've given up the office but not the frock: I still write. What else can I do? 

Nulla dies sine Linea¹. 

It's a habit, and besides, it's my profession. For a long time, I took my pen for a sword; I now know we're powerless. No matter. I write and will keep writing books; they're needed; all the same, they do serve some purpose. 

Culture doesn't save anything or anyone, it doesn't justify. But it's a product of man: he projects himself into it, he recognizes himself in it; that critical mirror alone offers him his image. 

Moreover, that old, crumbling structure, my imposture, is also my character: one gets rid of a neurosis, one doesn't get cured of one's self. Though they are worn out, blurred, humiliated, thrust aside, ignored, all of the child's traits are still to be found in the quinquagenarian. 

Most of the time they lie low, they bide their time; at the first moment of in-attention, they rise up and emerge, disguised; I claim sincerely to be writing only for my time, but my present notoriety annoys me; it's not glory, since I'm alive, and yet that's enough to belie my old dreams; could it be that I still harbor them secretly? 

I have, I think, adapted them: since I've lost the chance of dying unknown, I sometimes flatter myself that I'm being misunderstood in my lifetime. Griselda's not dead. Pardaillan still inhabits me. So does Strogoff. I'm answerable only to them², who are answerable only to God, and I don't believe in God. So try to figure it out. 

As for me, I can't, and I sometimes wonder whether I'm not playing winner loses and not hying hard to stamp out my one-time hopes so that every-thing will be restored to me a hundredfold. In that case, I would be Philoctetes; that magnificent and stinking cripple gave everything away unconditionally, including his bow; but we can be sure that he's secretly waiting for his reward. 

Let's drop that. Mamie³ would say: 

"Gently, mortals, be discreet." 

What I like about my madness is that it has protected me from the very beginning against the charms of the "elite": never have I thought that I was the happy possessor of a "talent"; my sole concern has been to save myself—nothing in my bands, nothing up my sleeve—by work and faith. 

As a result, my pure choice did not raise me above anyone. Without equipment, without tools, I set all of me to work in order to save all of me. If I relegate impossible Salvation to the proproom, what remains? A whole man, composed of all men and as good as all of them and no better than any⁴.

Anyway, imma just use this as an excuse to post my favorite Sartre reference:

MATHIEU   Will you kindly explain to me why all the Sartres are always born on the other side? 

JOURNALIST   Then you like Sartre, colonel... 

MATHIEU   Not really, but he's even less appealing as an enemy.

For the record, I don't think Sartre's why the French lost.  Probably has more to do with the fact that imperialism sucks, and ultimately is difficult to defend.

In conclusion: Tahia el Djazair!

1 - "No day without a line."  While JQA doesn't appear to have written this specific phrase anywhere (lots of other Latin throughout his works), I wonder if he had it in mind when composing his line-a-day entries.

2 - Referring to literary influences (mentioned earlier in the book): Griselda, Les Pardaillan, and Michael Strogoff: The Courier of the Czar.

3 - His grandma.

4 - And I feel fine (another fun one from 1964).

5 - There isn't really a 5th footnote, but I was feeling punchy whilst putting this together, which perhaps you perceive.  Since I have you here, I might as well grab one more quote for good measure: "Even now, I read [thrillers] more readily than I do Wittgenstein."  So say we all.

He’ll Make Your Paris Louvre Shake for It

Pretty insane that the literal Louvre got robbed in broad daylight and we're not even talking about it

— Mariya Alexander (@MariyaAlexander) October 22, 2025

Well, this guy sure is talking about it:

[I]f you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel...

Don't even have to rake for it:

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said the Eugenie crown was one of nine priceless pieces swiped from the museum's Apollo Gallery and was dropped or abandoned by the perpetrators as they made their getaway. Dati said the piece was found damaged and lying on the ground outside the museum in the aftermath of the theft...

Bordel de merde!

Yesterday’s Rose Endures in Its Name, We Hold Empty Names

Reporter: Do you intend to provide proof that these were narco terrorists?

Trump: We have proof. All you have to do is look at the cargo that was scattered all over the ocean. We have recorded evidence they were leaving.. pic.twitter.com/USHKUR1Ka5

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 15, 2025

My first thought: they've killed again to distract us.

And then - probably because it's getting to be my favorite cold, dark time of year - my mind drifted toward The Name of the Rose:

All three died because of a book which kills...or for which men will kill.  I therefore urge you to grant me access to the library.

Or as written in Eco's tome:

“[A] series of crimes was committed to prevent many from discovering something that it was considered undesirable for them to discover. Now all those who knew something of the library’s secrets, whether rightly or through trickery, are dead. Only one person remains: yourself.” 

“Do you wish to insinuate . . . you wish to insinuate . . .” the abbot said. 

“Do not misunderstand me,” said William, who probably had indeed wished to insinuate. “I say there is someone who knows and wants no one else to know. As the last to know, you could be the next victim. Unless you tell me what you know about that forbidden book, and, especially, who in the abbey might know what you know, and perhaps more, about the library.”

In conclusion: #ReleaseTheEpsteinFiles.

PS - How peaceful life would be without such silly, tenuous connections. How safe. How tranquil. And how dull.