The Virtual Stoa

Born 24 August 1922, Brooklyn, NY; died earlier today, Santa Monica, CA.

Over here.

My friend Raj, now in the New York Times bestseller list for the second week running, addresses claims that he is, in fact, the Messiah.

Testing

Luke 2:9: And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. [via]

Our beloved cat Enkidu is dead. He was last seen alive on Monday 16 November, and was found dead at the Jericho boatyard the following day, cause of death unknown. He was four and a half years old. Full tribute over the fold.

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Since the platitudinous nonsense that is broadcast as ‘Thought for the Day’ on Radio 4 each morning presumably contributes in some small way to the fact that ours is, basically, a secular society, why are the atheists or the humanists (or whatever they want to call themselves) so keen to get in on the act? It’s not as if they’d be allowed to broadcast non-platitudinous non-nonsense, I take it, as the slot’s not supposed to be controversial or partisan, and it’s difficult to do n.-p. n.-n. without running a severe risk of being c. or p.. So it’d be platitudinous nonsense, as before, but coming from the secular rationalists or agnostics (or whatever they want to call themselves), instead of coming from the ranks of the God-squad. And the foreseeable result of that would be that listeners would be put off non-theism then, to just the same extent as ‘TftD’ puts them off theism now. I must be missing something, somewhere along the line, but right now I just can’t see what it is.

Over here.

Perhaps everyone else has seen this, but I’ve just noticed that the splendid Daily Mail-o-Matic has been updated to include 2009 bogeymen. Have the PC Brigade Had Sex with the Queen? Could Alistair Darling Molest Common Sense and Decency? Are the Unions Impregnating the Countryside?

Also, the postmodernism generator is much more sophisticated than it was last time I looked.

The view from my window, a few minutes ago (apologies for crappy camera phone pic):

Chris Harman died last night, after a heart attack in Cairo. More over at Lenin’s Tomb; Socialist Unity; Luna 17.

Asterix, series pictographica in toto orbe terrarum nota, mense Octobri exeunte quinquaginta annos complevit. Quod iubilaeum in Francogallia variis expositionibus, concentibus aliisque eventibus institutis, quin etiam propria tessera epistulari edita, publice celebrabatur. Ad honorem anniversarii semisaecularis etiam novus libellus pictus et divulgatus est, qui inscribitur: ‘Dies natalis Asterigis et Obeligis – Liber aureus’.

From Nuntii Latini [obviously]

It is, however, all very funny. Over here.

slapnickgriffin.co.uk

Listening to the radio here in Cambridge, the adverts all seem to be public health announcements of one kind or another, warning us against unprotected sex, too much salt in our soup, and driving our cars into fens. Has the recession meant that no-one’s buying radio spots at all, so government agencies (or whatever) are just block-booking them all on the cheap, or is Cambridgeshire a much, much more dangerous and debauched (and, I suppose, salty) place than I’ve been led to believe hitherto?