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It's over. There was a time maybe when cinema could have improved society, but that time was missed.

quote by Jean-Luc Godard
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian

My heart beat

It all seems like today
Ages have passed by…

My heart missed a beat
When I first saw you
When you stretched out your hand
When you spoke to me first
When you said you look good
When you stood talking for hours
My heart missed a beat

My heart missed a beat
When I met you
When we started dating
When we went on shopping
When we spent time in each other’s company
When we were in each other’s arms
My heart missed a beat

My heart missed a beat
When I wanted to say something
When you found that life was miserable
When you thought I should live with you
When you enjoyed my company
When you proposed to me
My heart missed a beat

My heart missed a beat
When I felt your love
When we first had a talk
When we had a long walk
When we never heard the waves on the shore
When we knew we loved each other
My heart missed a leap

My heart missed a leap
When I lost words
When you found them for me
When you touched me first
When you blew in my ears
When you kissed me first
My heart missed a beat

My heart missed a beat
When I saw the ring
When we decided
When we finalized things
When we knew everything was fine
When we heard the revolt

[...] Read more

poem by Leena Bose
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

[...] Read more

poem by Nyein Way
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Low Society

A judge a dentist or physician
In this low society
Trade ambition for position
In this low society
Have you heard its in the stars
Next july we collide with mars
Have you heard it in the bars
In this low society
No more pay and lots of leisure
In this low society
Low society
Im just doing what I can
In this low society
But Im an incidental man
In this low society
I give away what others sell
The secrets yours so never tell
cos if you do youll go to hell
Low society
Side by side and always tired
All for one and no-one hired
All thats left is love inspired
Low society
And when the party is complete
And youre still standing on your feet
The taste of victory is sweet
Low society
And darling dont forget
In this low society
To turn off your t.v. set
In this low society
The most important thing at all
In this low society
Is not to stand too tall
In this low society
In this world that never learns
I can see rome as it burns
All the passion and the power
Turns to ash within an hour
No more play and no more pleasure
In this low society

song performed by Heaven 17
Added by Lucian Velea
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Great Poets Missed Never Met

Great poets missed
never met
never engaged
artistic in conversation

we missed William Shakespeare
John Milton, Edmund Spenser
who wrote 'The Faerie Queene';
John Done long gone but not forgotten

we missed Francois Marie Arouet
better known as pen name Voltaire
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
and macabre master Edgar Allan Poe

we missed the romantic poets
Shelley, Keats, Lord Byron
all dead within three years
of each others tragic deaths

we missed William Blake
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye”

we missed the lake poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Wordsworth who
quarrelled irrevocably parted

we missed Robert Browning
wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow
Italian Dante Gabriel Rossetti

sister Christina Georgina Rossetti
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman
Lewis Carroll who took us in concepts
‘Through the Looking-Glass’ allusions

we also missed Wilfred Owen pacifist
T.S. Eliot walking ‘The Waste Land’
Siegfried Sassoon slaughter survived
Wystan Hugh Auden a man of a lit wit

William Carlos Williams upon ‘a red
wheel barrow’ so much depends spins
Sylvia Plath into ‘The Bell Jar’ while
Allen Ginsberg stalks Walt Whitman

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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They'll None of 'Em Be Missed

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list - I've got a little list
Of social offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed - who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs -
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs -
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat -
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like THAT -
And all third persons who on spoiling TETE-E-TETES insist -
They'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!

There's the nigger serenader, and the others of his race,
And the piano organist - I've got him on the list!
And the people who eat peppermint and puff it in your face,
They never would be missed - they never would be missed!
Then the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone,
All centuries but this, and every country but his own;
And the lady from the provinces, who dresses like a guy,
And who "doesn't think she waltzes, but would rather like to try";
And that FIN-DE-SIECLE anomaly, the scorching motorist -
I don't think he'd be missed - I'm SURE he'd not be missed!

And that NISI PRIUS nuisance, who just now is rather rife,
The Judicial humorist - I've got HIM on the list!
All funny fellows, comic men, and clowns of private life -
They'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!
And apologetic statesmen of the compromising kind,
Such as - What-d'ye-call-him - Thing'em-Bob, and likewise - Never-
mind,
And 'St - 'st - 'st - and What's-his-name, and also - You-know-who-
(The task of filling up the blanks I'd rather leave to YOU!)
But it really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list,
For they'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed!

poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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Helen and You and The ABC Cinema

In the evening after tea
of bread and jam
and a glass of milk
you went out

and met Helen
under the railway bridge
in Rockingham Street
next to the Duke

of Wellington pub
and she was waiting
there looking up
and down the street

and when she saw you
she waved and walked
towards you
where's your doll

Battered Betty?
you asked
mum's washing her clothes
and I didn't want

to bring her out
with nothing on
she said
no that wouldn't be decent

you said
where are we going?
she asked
I want to show you

the passages behind
the ABC cinema
you said
it's like a cavern

of dark passages
and once I saw a rat
running along by a wall
oh god

she said
putting a hand
to her mouth
not a rat

[...] Read more

poem by Terry Collett
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hyperactive

Shes got a date for lunch in Singapore,
Holds stock in I.B.M. and hates Dior.
She puts up her make-up on at 6.00am
She goes to work, gets home then puts it on again
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got so much energy;
Shes such an expert at surprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
she never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
The other dancers hypervantilate and start to sweat.
One look at her - I know the nights not over yet.
She says Where are we going now?
Her voice is sweet and soft.
I think she lost the key that turns her motor off.
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got so much energy;
Shes such an expert at surprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
And its a mystery how wild that girl can be;
Shes got do much energy;
Shes such an expert at suprising me.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
And shes so attracted to a wild romance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
she never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And Im persuaded by her argument.
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.
Shes hyperactive when she starts to dance.
She never missed a beat or missed a chance,
And more effective than a stimulant -
Shes hyperactive.

song performed by Robert Palmer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sanctity Of Dreams

Paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa
Ride a Harley through the heart of danger
Pick up a pen and fight a war for the right to dream
I was seventeen
Give up my house, sleep for nights on concrete
Meditate with all the bums on Vine Street
No more running, no more hiding in the house of the dead
I think I'll grow some dreads
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
I dream of loving, of the empty graveyard
I dream of Vegas and the transcendental wildcard
A place where noone waits to die before they go into the light
And just the blind have sight
I follow nothing but the compass of my instinct
No matter where it leads, I know it will take me to the brink
And leave me there by myself and all alone with my dreams
Can you hear my scream?
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Ooh ooh ooh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Oh-oh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society
Society will never dream like me
Society
Society
Society will never dream like me

song performed by Live
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Sanctity Of Dreams

Paint a moustache on the Mona Lisa
Ride a Harley through the heart of danger
Pick up a pen and fight a war for the right to dream
I was seventeen
Give up my house, sleep for nights on concrete
Meditate with all the bums on Vine Street
No more running, no more hiding in the house of the dead
I think I'll grow some dreads
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
I dream of loving, of the empty graveyard
I dream of Vegas and the transcendental wildcard
A place where noone waits to die before they go into the light
And just the blind have sight
I follow nothing but the compass of my instinct
No matter where it leads, I know it will take me to the brink
And leave me there by myself and all alone with my dreams
Can you hear my scream?
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Ooh ooh ooh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Oh-oh
I believe in the sanctity of dreams
No more running from these masqueraders
I believe that society will never dream like me
Never dream like me
Society
Society will never dream like me
Society
Society
Society will never dream like me

song performed by Live
Added by Lucian Velea
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Killin Time

People polishing guns
Theyve got nothing better to do
Though they think theyre having fun
Theyre just living to die, if they but knew
Now, now
All day long they sit at home
Waiting for the milk to come
Watch them turn into stone
Thinking bout the things they might have done,
Now, now
You missed the point, you missed the point
You really missed the point
Everybodys got to know
Loves the reason were here
No matter which way you go
Loves gonna meet you there
Killing time, killing time
Killing time, killing time
You missed the point, you really missed the point
Made me cry, I wonder why, why
You missed the point, you missed the point
You really missed the point

song performed by Cat Stevens
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wedding Day

Today you'll pick up all the pieces
And get on with your life
All I can hope is that you're happy
'Cause today you're someone elses wife
Right now I wish that I could turn back
And beg the hands of time
For the days that I remember (oh baby)
The days when you were mine
And if I never said I love you
It's cause the words got in the way

Now all I do is say I'm sorry
Sorry I missed your wedding day

I'll bet you looked good at the altar
I'll bet he knew the words to say
And the angels smiled when you walked down the aisle
You both knelt down to pray
As he put his ring on your finger
I know there's just one thing left to say

All I can do is say I'm sorry
Sorry I missed your wedding day

So Sorry

(solo)

You won't be walking through the door anymore
You won't be sleeping in this bed anymore
Tho' I swear I see your shadow waltz accross my floor
And I don't know if I can take it
Should we ever meet again
Cause I know that we'll be strangers
When he introduces friends

I tried to make it to the church now baby
A broken heart got in the way

All I can do is tell you I'm sorry
Sorry I missed your wedding day

I really hope you're happy baby
Tho' it's killing me to say
All I can do is say I'm sorry
Sorry I missed you're wedding day
Sorry I missed you're wedding
I'm sorry I missed you're wedding day
I'm sorry I missed you're wedding day
I'm sorry I missed you're wedding day

[...] Read more

song performed by Bon Jovi
Added by Lucian Velea
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A moment missed

Remember when I asked you out?
And how you shed a tear.
Remember how I told you.
That I'd stay for all those years.

Remember our first kiss?
Under a moonlit sky.
Remember the fireworks.
That shone in your eyes.

A smeared kiss.
A moment missed.

Remember all the promises?
That we never seemed to keep.
Remember all the times.
I held you when you'd weep.

Remember all the walks we took?
On the beach at midnight.
Remember when we were perfect?
And everything felt right.

A smeared kiss.
A moment missed.

Remember that rose I sent you?
For our schools winter dance.
Remember when we broke up?
And I begged for a second chance.

Remember when you got pregant.
And I stayed right by your side.
Remember how I bought that ring?
And took your hand in mine.

A smeared kiss.
A moment missed.

Remember when I became a dad?
And held my baby girl.
Remember how we fought for names.
And ended up with Pearl.

Remember her first birthday?
And that pretty teddy bear.
Remember her old blankie?
That she carried everywhere.

A smeared kiss.

[...] Read more

poem by Silence Dogood
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Cinema

You can have girls and girls
You can have boys and boys
You can have sex and violence
You can have space age toys
You can have anything that you think will fit
As long as its box office, as long as its a hit
Cinema, cinema
You can have birdmen and snowmen
You can have women in red
Hero taxi drivers talk about evil dead
Black hats and white hats you know what I mean
A flashdance welder and jesus in jeans
Cinema, cinema
Norma jean has gone with the wind
And well never, never see her no more
Jimmy dean you drove that machine
Chased a dream, chased a dream
Weve been up the junction, down the yellow brick road
Weve got beauty with beast
And a prince with a toad
Weve got future adventures
You believe man can fly
Put on your 3-d glasses
Get a shark in the eye
(mccafferty, sweet, charlton, ngnew)
Publishing copyright:m.a.c.s. music
Copyright 1986 nazareth (dunfermline) ltd., dunfermline

song performed by Nazareth
Added by Lucian Velea
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ladys Aid Society

In every little town and village too
Somewhere in the neighborhood
Youll find a little band of ladies who
Cant stop doing good
Good for the pigeons in the park
Good for the weekly tea
Good for the national bank where they keep their treasury
Were the ladies aid society
And were really a great bunch of girls
Were the ladies aid society
And soon well take over the world
Here they come marching down the street
Witgh their picket signs in hand
With their blue and white pleated uniforms
And their all girl five-piece band
Down with long haired singing groups
Down with the mayor too
And if you;re under 65 theyre down on you
Were the ladies aid society
And we just want to sell you the truth
Were the ladies aid society
And its time we clamp down on the youth
Were the ladies aid society
And were really a great bunch of girls
Were the ladies aid soicety
And soon well take over the world
Were the ladies aid society
And we just want to sell you the truth
Were the ladies aid society
And its time we clamp down on the youth

song performed by Monkees
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Man

George was lying in his trailer, flat on his back, watching a small portable T.V. His
dinner dishes were undone, his breakfast dishes were undone, he needed a shave, and ash
from his rolled cigarettes dropped onto his undershirt. Some of the ash was still burning.
Sometimes the burning ash missed the undershirt and hit his skin, then he cursed, brushing
it away. There was a knock on the trailer door. He got slowly to his feet and answered the
door. It was Constance. She had a fifth of unopened whiskey in a bag.
"George, I left that son of a bitch, I couldn't stand that son of a bitch
anymore."
"Sit down."
George opened the fifth, got two glasses, filled each a third with whiskey, two thirds
with water. He sat down on the bed with Constance. She took a cigarette out of her purse
and lit it. She was drunk and her hands trembled.
"I took his damn money too. I took his damn money and split while he was at work.
You don't know how I've suffered with that son of a bitch." "
Lemme have a smoke," said George. She handed it to him and as she leaned near,
George put his arm around her, pulled her over and kissed her.
"You son of a bitch," she said, "I missed you."
"I miss those good legs of yours , Connie. I've really missed those good
legs."
"You still like 'em?"
"I get hot just looking."
"I could never make it with a college guy," said Connie. "They're too
soft, they're milk toast. And he kept his house clean. George , it was like having a maid.
He did it all. The place was spotless. You could eat beef stew right off the crapper. He
was antiseptic, that's what he was."
"Drink up, you'll feel better."
"And he couldn't make love."
"You mean he couldn't get it up?"
"Oh he got it up, he got it up all the time. But he didn't know how to make a
woman happy, you know. He didn't know what to do. All that money, all that education, he
was useless."
"I wish I had a college education."
"You don't need one. You have everything you need, George."
"I'm just a flunky. All the shit jobs."
"I said you have everything you need, George. You know how to make a woman
happy."
"Yeh?"
"Yes. And you know what else? His mother came around! His mother! Two or three
times a week. And she'd sit there looking at me, pretending to like me but all the time
she was treating me like I was a whore. Like I was a big bad whore stealing her son away
from her! Her precious Wallace! Christ! What a mess!" "He claimed he loved me.
And I'd say, 'Look at my pussy, Walter!' And he wouldn't look at my pussy. He said, 'I
don't want to look at that thing.' That thing! That's what he called it! You're not afraid
of my pussy, are you, George?"
"It's never bit me yet." "But you've bit it, you've nibbled it, haven't
you George?"
"I suppose I have."
"And you've licked it , sucked it?"
"I suppose so."
"You know damn well, George, what you've done."

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Bukowski
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Superficial Society

So I'm not good enough to hang out with your friends
You say it's a bluff, it's no lie
You want to be cool and hang with both sides
But what would they say, I'm the fool
It's a superficial society
It's a bunch of bullshit can't you see
Why wouldn't you wake up to reality
I guess backstabbing ain't the way of life for me
Open your mind and close your eyes
To the things that really persist
It's not your hair or the things you wear
That makes someone socially exist
It's hard to find yourself sometimes
Around the people with a cool policy
Why don't you let yourself unwind
And leave that lame society
Superficial society
Superficial society
Superficial society
It's all superfical to me
Superficial society
Superficial society

song performed by Unwritten Law
Added by Lucian Velea
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Murder is Bad and Why?

The Man spoke:
'It is in the murdering' he said
that I find the most puzzlement.
Why should I or anyone not murder
one and all. It is, I think, human's basic instinct.

'Look' he said to the priest 'is not all of history;
more a story of murderous war than peace and tranquility?

'So what is most common to human nature?
Seems clear to me, humans murder their fellows, rest up during the peace
and, as soon as possible, get back to the murdering.'

The priest:

'Murder is wrong in God's eyes and in the eyes of society and
the murderer will pay with fire and brimstone, and the death penalty.
Ending murder is the bedrock of all society, even pirates have a code
that says don't murder your fellows.

Humm, said the man 'Society has several faces; it is ok to murder in war, but
not in peace. Where here is the consistency?
Even your God says do not take life but vengeance is mine and murdering in retaliation, he says, is mine. Seems murder is at best relative; sometimes the act of the monster and sometimes the act of the hero in war.
Who decides which is which; and I tell you father I see no hand of God in this but that of politicians. And no one will mistake them for God.

The Sociologist spoke then:

Well, here the point is clear; we kill those who threaten the peace and make society impossible by preying upon the weak. Without restraint bandits and warlords would rule, look abroad Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest. Rule by guns and by the strong is a recipe in the end for mankind's extinction. Therefore, we have the rule murder is not only bad, but stopping murder promotes the good.

The Little Girl:
I think God, and society makes murder bad to protect the children. I think God and society makes things crimes to protect us from adults who would be cruel and leave no one to grow up to inherit this earth.

The Democrat:
There lies the convincing point. Murder is bad because not murdering gives the species a better chance at survival. What species eat their young and have survived? None.
But the larger point is I think is that the genius needed for society to meet all its challenges cannot be predicted. Therefore, all must be preserved because no one can predict from where, or whom, critical keys to human survival will evince.
Take Einstein: who would have made the prediction that a math-challenged youngster would change the world? No one. So the point, kill no one since you are not God and can't know where human salvation will come from.

The Priest said:
Yes, and imagine the world, if Jesus had lived.

poem by Lonnie Hicks
Added by Poetry Lover
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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