Merciful Heaven!

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... O, but man, proud man!
Drest in a little brief authorithy...



His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
—William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act. 2, Scene 2



...O, but man—proud man—with a little, brief power in his hands...
He mimics the essence of God like an angry ape, playing such awful tricks that the angels weep. If they had mortal bodies like us, they'd laugh themselves to death.











Meanwhile in the jungle:



I wonder why?

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It's so hard to say goodby to yesterdays

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The House speaker could become first high-level US official to visit Mars.





I kid the House speaker. 😌

According to Erikson's stages of psychosocial development, there is a series of eight stages that a developing individual passes through from infancy to late adulthood.

The last stage is retrospection: people look back on their lives and accomplishments. They develop feelings of contentment and integrity if they believe that they have led a happy and productive life. If they look back on a life of disappointments and unachieved goals, they may instead develop a sense of despair.

I wonder... 😐

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People ask the strangest questions

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Can Siri and Google talk to each other?



Of course they can!



Who wants to know?



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Yeah, sure...

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This is not creepy at all...




And neither was this:



Because, you know, nothing says rules-based international order^TM and speaks for the "open character of international institutions based on universal values and transparency," like an €8 million bunker for "secret talks."



But what do I know?

If you ask me, the whole thing seems like an exercise in futility.



I mean, everyone knows that should anyone have any desire to find out what is being said during those "secrets talks," all one needs to do is ask the Danes. Or the Poles.

— 🌿 —
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Pinocchio wanted to become a real world leader...

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But the naive and trusting Pinocchio falls into the clutches of the wicked Honest John.





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Doorways in the Sand...

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White Man's Burden?

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The gathering oddly reminds me of that scene in Hergé's 1935 masterpiece, Tintin and the Blue Lotus (aka Tintin in China):



The scene is referred thusly in London Review of Books:



And here is the whole scene (pages 6 through 7):




I know, right?



Where is Mark Twain when we need him?

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The Chess Players

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The painting on the wall?



Why, yes, of course, it is an original. Like all of the paintings displayed here.

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 11 3/4 x 16 3/4 in. (29.8 x 42.6 cm)

The depiction is a present-time whimsical revisitation by the artist of his famous earlier 1876 composition, and was gifted to The Wulfshead on March 2022.

The standing figure observing the chess game is Bill Kristol, who co-founded, in 1997, along with Robert Kagan, the Project for the New American Century, generally considered to be a mainly neoconservative think tank. The seated player studying the chess board is Joe Biden, the sitting President of the United States of America in 2022 at the time the painting was made. Emphasizing Kristol's status, the artist placed Kristol centrally, with the vanishing point behind Kristol's head.

Related Entry:


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