War and Peace

War Never Pays (Marx)
What pisses me off today? A dreadfully scary alternative to after-lunch soap operas. Naked Science, showing a history of guns and bullets and how we’re on the cutting edge of science, or perhaps even the bleeding edge insofar as we’re perfecting weapons of death. That’s not exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up, but oh well. Did you know that it’s preferable on the battlefield to wound rather than kill because saving a wounded comrade drains the opponents resources more than a kill? Listen and learn. In urban warfare, where average police shooting is done from closer than 10 feet, it’s best to kill and as quickly as humanly possible.

Creepy/Cool Fact:
I did learn something from the TV show. It seems that even if mortally wounded by a bullet in the heart, the bad guy is likely to keep going for another 20 seconds until his brain becomes starved for oxygen by the no longer pumping heart. Good to know.

The Art of Turning Poetry into Cliché
I believe gardens, even as small as a windowsill pot of basil provide, the opportunity to renew the soul. Here’s something about gardens that appears to illustrate that there’s nothing new under the sun. Or, perhaps it illustrates how close good advertising today is to the way the ancient Romans thought about relieving the stress of empire building in a peaceful garden. Horace said “Secretum iter, et fallentis vitae”. Spence translated that as follows: “A hid recess, where life’s day/in sweet delusion gently steals away.” Lovely sentiment. Now, let’s compare and contrast that with the Doubletree Hotel TV ads showing two large trees amid a tranquil urban oasis. “At the end of the day, all you want is to be comfortable”. Oddly, also a lovely sentiment.