Why Worry?

Rationalist walks into a job interview.

Interviewer: "Have you any experience in the field, Mr...Leibniz?"

Rationalist: "WHAT IF I DON'T?"

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Reading a wee biography of Shane MacGowan which describes his childhood as "port-stained". Not "port-wine-stained", but worse.

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"I found out I'm gay, a few weeks ago in Oklahoma.
That sucked - I had no idea! Some guy in a bar told me, he said:
'Hey, you're a faggot!'

And I thinks:

'Ahh shit! How am I gonna tell my Dad? It was hard enough breaking it to him that I was an asshole. He's gonna hate this!'"

- Doug Stanhope

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MISSING: proper conception of male sexuality. If found, please return to

The Connoisseuse of Slugs - Sharon Olds

When I was a connoisseuse of slugs
I would part the ivy leaves, and look for the
naked jelly of those gold bodies,
translucent strangers glistening along the
stones, slowly, their gelatinous bodies
at my mercy. Made mostly of water, they would shrivel
to nothing if they were sprinkled with salt,
but I was not interested in that. What I liked
was to draw aside the ivy, breathe the
odor of the wall, and stand there in silence
until the slug forgot I was there
and sent its antennae up out of its
head, the glimmering umber horns
rising like telescopes, until finally the
sensitive knobs would pop out the
ends, delicate and intimate. Years later,
when I first saw a naked man,
I gasped to see that quiet
mystery reenacted, the slow
elegant being coming out of hiding and
gleaming in the dark air, eager and so
trusting you could weep.

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There's a list of philosophical blogs here which is a diverting thing itself - the titles are a mix of:

• the contemptibly arch ("Fides Quaerens Intellectum", "Atheist Revolution"),

• the in-jokey ("This Is Not The Name Of This Blog", "What Is It Like To Be A Blog?"),

• the poetic ("Warp, Weft and Way", "We Call Upon The Author To Explain") and

• the goofy ("Brain Hammer", "Scottish Nous")

- a fantastic encapsule of what philosophy does look like.

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This, recent of a friend, shames me with its purity and honesty. 

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"The thing with a lot of Guardian readers is that they think they could write the Guardian better themselves. Whereas Times readers think they could run the country better themselves."
- Caitlin Moran

"Goverment!!! Tread very carefully. It is just beggining.
The poor of Britain will start hitting back.
Take stock and be very careful how you approach or deal with this. Remember it was not the poor who created this situation. The austerity measures should be directed at those who caused them.
We are only here for 70 or so years so why make it difficult and nasty for people!!
Government!! You have so much to learn."
- apropos Millbank student protest.

(I should really stop reading online comments.)

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CURRENT PROJECTS

• an "Essay on Inarticulate Knowledge"

• Big thing on Chinese pop

• The perennial Lethbridge business.

• A series of cloze readings of pop songs.

• Some long poems I wrote on going round the Scottish universities' 2008 Open Days.

• Have started another blog, for disagreeing absolutely with myself. If it looks offensive to you:
  1) good, you're my kind of people and
  2) think what it is to write.

• Also a big ass rewrite of my first-year essay on vegetarianism (so it's not to be a whiny mess). Hybrid of ethics, ecology and economics planned, and contains a section on what I'm calling Sentimental Vegetarianism.

• also I appear to be at university.

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