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I was a Political Science major.

quote by Harry Shearer
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The Scout Toward Aldie

The cavalry-camp lies on the slope
Of what was late a vernal hill,
But now like a pavement bare-
An outpost in the perilous wilds
Which ever are lone and still;
But Mosby's men are there -
Of Mosby best beware.

Great trees the troopers felled, and leaned
In antlered walls about their tents;
Strict watch they kept; 'twas Hark! and Mark!
Unarmed none cared to stir abroad
For berries beyond their forest-fence:
As glides in seas the shark,
Rides Mosby through green dark.

All spake of him, but few had seen
Except the maimed ones or the low;
Yet rumor made him every thing-
A farmer-woodman-refugee-
The man who crossed the field but now;
A spell about his life did cling -
Who to the ground shall Mosby bring?

The morning-bugles lonely play,
Lonely the evening-bugle calls -
Unanswered voices in the wild;
The settled hush of birds in nest
Becharms, and all the wood enthralls:
Memory's self is so beguiled
That Mosby seems a satyr's child.

They lived as in the Eerie Land-
The fire-flies showed with fairy gleam;
And yet from pine-tops one might ken
The Capitol dome-hazy-sublime-
A vision breaking on a dream:
So strange it was that Mosby's men
Should dare to prowl where the Dome was seen.

A scout toward Aldie broke the spell. -
The Leader lies before his tent
Gazing at heaven's all-cheering lamp
Through blandness of a morning rare;
His thoughts on bitter-sweets are bent:
His sunny bride is in the camp -
But Mosby - graves are beds of damp!

The trumpet calls; he goes within;
But none the prayer and sob may know:

[...] Read more

poem by Herman Melville
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Love Science

Ive been around the world, Im going around again
I got a new word up, gonna lay it on my friends
Im still too young, Ive got these emotions in my blood
But when I grow up, gonna be a scientist of love
Working on, love science
Got to know, love science
Show the world, love science
How to be a scientist of love
Tell my friends, love science
Take a chance, love science
Give it up, love science
Im a scientist of love
Feel the power, love science
Study hard, love science
Know the truth, love science
Be a scientist of love
Choose a plan, love science
Pick em up, put em down, love science
Bring it on home, love science
Got to be a scientist of love
Hey you!
Sometimes you get screwed up, and youre looking for a cure
But you dont want to see just another amateur
I know the kind of expert you must be thinking of
Go out and find yourself a scientist of love
Some say that loves a game, a random circumstance
Im not the type to leave that kind of thing to chance
You might sit back and wait, but Im taking off the gloves
Im gonna crack this case like a scientist of love
1, 2, 3!
If loves what we want, if loves what we need
Why cant we make love from suspicion and greed?
If loves what we want, if loves what we need
Why cant we make love?
Ive got no time to waste just waiting for the bus
This is the place, the space to get down and serious
School is in, the lab is open for research
I do declare that love is a walking, talking church
Ive got to quell the beast, be a credit to my sex
Ive got to give at least as much as I expect
Cant get no rest til I discover what I need
Gotta start somewhere, that why I believe, believe, believe
Believe the word, love science
Party down, love science
Thinking hard, love science
How to be a scientist of love
Place to place, love science
Hour to hour, love science
Cant hold back, love science
Got to be a scientist of love

[...] Read more

song performed by Todd Rundgren
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The Ballad Of The Ice-Worm Cocktail

To Dawson Town came Percy Brown from London on the Thames.
A pane of glass was in his eye, and stockings on his stems.
Upon the shoulder of his coat a leather pad he wore,
To rest his deadly rifle when it wasn't seeking gore;
The which it must have often been, for Major Percy Brown,
According to his story was a hunter of renown,
Who in the Murrumbidgee wilds had stalked the kangaroo
And killed the cassowary on the plains of Timbuctoo.
And now the Arctic fox he meant to follow to its lair,
And it was also his intent to beard the Artic hare...
Which facts concerning Major Brown I merely tell because
I fain would have you know him for the Nimrod that he was.

Now Skipper Grey and Deacon White were sitting in the shack,
And sampling of the whisky that pertained to Sheriff Black.
Said Skipper Grey: "I want to say a word about this Brown:
The piker's sticking out his chest as if he owned the town."
Said Sheriff Black: "he has no lack of frigorated cheek;
He called himself a Sourdough when he'd just been here a week."
Said Deacon White: "Methinks you're right, and so I have a plan
By which I hope to prove to-night the mettle of the man.
Just meet me where the hooch-bird sings, and though our ways be rude
We'll make a proper Sourdough of this Piccadilly dude."

Within the Malamute Saloon were gathered all the gang;
The fun was fast and furious, and the loud hooch-bird sang.
In fact the night's hilarity had almost reached its crown,
When into its storm-centre breezed the gallant Major Brown.
And at the apparation, whith its glass eye and plus-fours,
From fifty alcoholic throats responded fifty roars.
With shouts of stark amazement and with whoops of sheer delight,
They surged around the stranger, but the first was Deacon White.
"We welcome you," he cried aloud, "to this the Great White Land.
The Artic Brotherhood is proud to grip you by the hand.
Yea, sportsman of the bull-dog breed, from trails of far away,
To Yukoners this is indeed a memorable day.
Our jubilation to express, vocabularies fail...
Boys, hail the Great Cheechako!" And the boys responded: "Hail!"

"And now," continued Deacon White to blushing Major Brown,
"Behold assembled the eelight and cream of Dawson Town,
And one ambition fills their hearts and makes their bosoms glow -
They want to make you, honoured sir, a bony feed Sourdough.
The same, some say, is one who's seen the Yukon ice go out,
But most profound authorities the definition doubt,
And to the genial notion of this meeting, Major Brown,
A Sourdough is a guy who drinks ... an ice-worm cocktail down."

"By Gad!" responded Major Brown, "that's ripping, don't you know.
I've always felt I'd like to be a certified Sourdough.

[...] Read more

poem by Robert William Service
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Death Of The Middle Class

Oligarchs and Banksters tighten financial screws
In a bold attempt to kill the global Middle Class
Heads of State unable/unwilling to halt this ruse
The “Great Depression of 1929” we soon surpass

ROTMS

By Andrew Gavin Marshall - Global Research

We now stand at the edge of the global financial abyss of a ‘Great Global Debt Depression, ’ where nations, mired in extreme debt, are beginning to implement ‘fiscal austerity’ measures to reduce their deficits, which will ultimately result in systematic global social genocide, as the middle classes vanish and the social foundations upon which our nations rest are swept away. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where is this road leading? These are questions I will briefly attempt to answer.

At the heart of the global political economy is the central banking system. Central banks are responsible for printing a nation’s currency and setting interest rates, thus determining the value of the currency. This should no doubt be the prerogative of a national government, however, central banks are of a particularly deceptive nature, in which while being imbued with governmental authority, they are in fact privately owned by the world’s major global banks, and are thus profit-seeking institutions. How do central banks make a profit? The answer is simple: how do all banks make a profit? Interest on debt. Loans are made, interest rates are set, and profits are made. It is a system of debt, imperial economics at its finest.

In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System, with the Board located in Washington, appointed by the President, but where true power rested in the 12 regional banks, most notably among them, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The regional Fed banks were private banks, owned in shares by the major banks in each region, which elected the board members to represent them, and who would then share power with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

In the early 1920s, the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in the United States as the premier foreign policy think tank, dominated by powerful banking interests. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created to manage German reparations payments, but it also had another role, which was much less known, but much more significant. It was to act as a “coordinator of the operations of central banks around the world.” Essentially, it is the central bank for the world’s central banks, whose operations are kept ‘strictly confidential.’ As historian Carroll Quigley wrote:

'The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.'

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed as a secretive global think tank, comprising intellectual, financial, corporate, political, military and media elites from Western Europe and North America, with prominent bankers such as David Rockefeller, as well as European royalty, such as the Dutch royal family, who are the largest shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, whose CEO attends every meeting. This group of roughly 130 elites meets every year in secret to discuss and debate global affairs, and to set general goals and undertake broad agendas at various meetings. The group was initially formed to promote European integration. The 1956 meeting discussed European integration and a common currency. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bilderberg Group told European media last year that the euro was debated at the Bilderberg Group.

In 1973, David Rockefeller, Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Steering Committee of the Blderberg Group, formed the Trilateral Commission with CFR academic Zbigniew Brzezinski. That same year, the oil price shocks created a wealth of oil money, which was discussed at that years Bilderberg meeting 5 months prior to the oil shocks, and the money was funneled through western banks, which loaned it to ‘third world’ nations desperately in need of loans to finance industrialization.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two dozen members of the Trilateral Commission into his cabinet, including himself, and of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was his National Security Adviser. In 1979, Carter appointed David Rockefeller’s former aide and friend, Paul Volcker, who had held various positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Treasury Department, and who also happened to be a member of the Trilateral Commission, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. When another oil shock took place in 1979, Volcker decided to raise interest rates from 2% in the late 70s, to 18% in the early 80s. The effect this had was that the countries of the developing world suddenly had to pay enormous interest on their loans, and in 1982, Mexico announced it could no longer afford to pay its interest, and it defaulted on its debt, which set off the 1980s debt crisis – collapsing nations in debt across Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia.

It was the IMF and the World Bank came to the ‘assistance’ of the Third World with their ‘structural adjustment programs’, which forced countries seeking assistance to privatize all state owned industries and resources, devalue their currencies, liberalize their economies, dismantle health, education and social services; ultimately resulting in the re-colonization of the ‘Third World’ as Western corporations and banks bought all their assets and resources, and ultimately created the conditions of social genocide, with the spread of mass poverty, and the emergence of corrupt national elites who were subservient to the interests of Western elites. The people in these nations would protest, riot and rebel, and the states would clamp down with the police and military.

In the West, corporations and banks saw rapid, record-breaking profits. This was the era in which the term ‘globalization’ emerged. While profits soared, wages for people in the West did not. Thus, to consume in an economy in which prices were rising, people had to go into debt. This is why this era marked the rise of credit cards fueling consumption, and the middle class became a class based entirely on debt.

In the 1990s, the ‘new world order’ was born, with America ruling the global economy, free trade agreements began integrating regional and global markets for the benefit of global banks and corporations, and speculation dominated the economy.

The global economic crisis arose as a result of decades of global imperialism – known recently as ‘globalization’ – and the reckless growth of– speculation, derivatives and an explosion of debt. As the economic crisis spread, nations of the world, particularly the United States, bailed out the major banks (which should have been made to fail and crumble under their own corruption and greed) , and now the West has essentially privatized profits for the banks, and socialized the risk. In other words, the nations bought the debt from the banks, and now the people have to pay for it. The people, however, are immersed in their own personal debt to such degrees that today, the average Canadian is $39,000 in debt, and students are graduating into a jobless market with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that they will never repay. Hence, we are now faced with a global debt crisis.

To manage the economic crisis, the G20 was established as the major international forum for cooperation among the 20 major economies of the world, including the major developing – or emerging – economies, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China. At the onset of the financial crisis, China and Russia’s central banks began calling for the establishment of a global currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This proposal was backed by the UN and the IMF. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese and Russian central banks cooperate with the Western central banks through the Bank for International Settlements – which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently said was the principle forum for “governance of central bank cooperation” and that the G20 is “the prime group for global economic governance.” In 2009, the IMF stated that the BIS “is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” The President of the European Union, appointed to the position after attending a Bilderberg meeting, declared 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” The 2009 Bilderberg meeting reported on the desire to create a global treasury, or global central bank, to manage the world economy. In 2009, prior to the Bilderberg meeting in fact, the G20 set in motion plans to make the IMF a global central bank of sorts, issuing and even printing its own currency – called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – which is valued against a basket of currencies. In May of 2010, the IMF Managing Director stated that “crisis is an opportunity, ” and while Special Drawing Rights are a step in the right direction, ultimately what is needed is “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features.” Thus, we see the emergence of a process towards the formation of a global central bank and a global currency, totally unaccountable to any nation or people, and totally controlled by global banking interests.

In 2010, Greece was plunged into a debt crisis, a crisis which is now spreading across Europe, to the U.K. and eventually to Japan and the United States. If we look at Greece, we see the nature of the global debt crisis. The debt is owed to major European and American banks. To pay the interest on the debt, Greece had to get a loan from the European Central Bank and the IMF, which forced the country to impose ‘fiscal austerity’ measures as a condition for the loans, pressuring Greece to commit social genocide. Meanwhile, the major banks of America and Europe speculate against the Greek debt, further plunging the country into economic and social crisis. The loan is granted, to pay the interest, yet simply has the effect of adding to the overall debt, as a new loan is new debt. Thus, Greece is caught in the same debt trap that re-colonized the Third World.

At the recent G20 meeting in Toronto, the major nations of the world agreed to impose fiscal austerity – or in other words, commit social genocide – within their nations, in a veritable global structural adjustment program. So now we will see the beginnings of the Great Global Debt Depression, in which major western and global nations cut social spending, create mass unemployment by dismantling health, education, and social services. Further, state infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, railways, prisons, hospitals, electric transmission lines and water – will be privatized, so that global corporations and banks will own the entirely of national assets. Simultaneously, of course, taxes will be raised dramatically to levels never before seen. The BIS said that interest rates should rise at the same time, meaning that interest payments on debt will dramatically increase at both the national and individual level, forcing governments to turn to the IMF for loans – likely in the form of its new global reserve currency – to simply pay the interest, and will thus be absorbing more debt. Simultaneously, of course, the middle class will in effect have its debts called in, and since the middle class exists only as an illusion, the illusion will vanish.

Already, towns, cities, and states across America are resorting to drastic actions to reduce their debts, such as closing fire stations, scaling back trash collection, turning off street lights, ending bus services and public transportation, cutting back on library hours or closing them altogether, school districts cutting down the school day, week or year. Simultaneously, this is occurring with a dramatic increase in the rate of privatizations or “public-private partnerships” in which even libraries are being privatized.

No wonder then, that this month, the Managing Director of the IMF warned that America and Europe, in the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, face an “explosion of social unrest.” Just yesterday, Europe experienced a wave of mass protests and social unrest in opposition to ‘austerity measures’, with a general strike in Spain involving millions of people, and a march on the EU headquarters in Brussels of nearly 100,000 people. As social unrest spreads, governments will likely react – as we saw in the case of the G20 in Toronto – with oppressive police state measures. Here, we see the true relevance of the emergence of ‘Homeland Security States’, designed not to protect people from terrorists, but to protect the powerful from the people.

So while things have never seemed quite so bleak, there is a dim and growing beacon of hope, in what Zbigniew Brzezinski has termed as the greatest threat to elite interests everywhere – the ‘global political awakening’. The global political awakening is representative of the fact that for the first time in all of human history, mankind is politically awakened and stirring, activated and aware, and that generally – as Zbigniew Brzezinski explains – generally is aware of global inequalities, exploitation, and disrespect. This awakening is largely the result of the information revolution – thus revealing the contradictory nature of the globalization project – as while it globalizes power and oppression, so too does it globalize awareness and opposition. This awakening is the greatest threat to entrenched elite interests everywhere. The awakening, while having taken root in the global south – already long subjected to exploitation and devastation – is now stirring in the west, and will grow as the economy crumbles. As the middle classes realize their consumption was an illusion of wealth, they will seek answers and demand true change, not the Wall Street packaged ‘brand-name’ change of Obama Inc., but true, inspired, and empowering change.

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech in which he spoke out against the Vietnam War and the American empire, and he stated that, “It seems as if we are on the wrong side of a world revolution.” So now it seems to me that the time has come for that to change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) .

poem by Ray Lucero
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Alive By Science

Respirators ventilators
High and holy legislators
Give me agony
Pure agony
Vegetation indignation
Endless one-way conversation
Aint living to me
And when I lose all my self-reliance
Dont keep me hooked up to no appliance
Dont keep me (if you love me)
Yeah dont keep me
Alive by science
I hear an angel banging on my door
Big daddy on the top floor
Shouting free
You gotta be free
This is my life cest mon affiare
Fat ladys singing
I dont stand a prayer
Now be a love and pull the plug on me
Now babe if you be true to our aliance
Please dont pump my lungs without my compliance
Dont keep me
Yeah dont keep me
Alive by science
And when I lose all my self-reliance
Dont keep me hooked up to no appliance
Dont keep me
Yeah dont keep me
Alive by science
I beg you bady dont keep me (alive by science)
Yeah baby dont keep me (alive by science)
Oh baby dont keep me (alive by science)
Aw baby dont keep me (alive by science)
Oh dont keep me (alive by science)
Shoo bop oh bo de oh yeah (alive by science) family members mortgage lenders give me agony (alive by science)
Im stuck in bed seeing red (alive by science)
Blood flows but my brian is dead (alive by science)
To be or not to be (alive by science)
Baby dont keep me (alive by science)
Dont you dare keep me (alive by science)

song performed by Gino Vanelli
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Major Barbara

Major
Major barbara sits in the fields
And waits for her crops to grow
She sits in a chair
She made out of wood
So many, many years ago
Major, why dont they grow
Youve given them water and hope
Major, why wont they grow
She waits all day
And hopes through the night
For a new day that might show
A bright yellow sun
Thatll make the crops come
And let the old days go
Major, why wont they grow
Youve given them water and hope
Major, why wont they grow
Major
Look out in your fields
Tell me what do you see shinin through
Major
Look after your fields
And your fields will look after you
Yes they do
Yes they do
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Major, why wont they grow
Youve given them water and hope
Major, why wont they grow

song performed by Aerosmith
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A poem, on the rising glory of America

LEANDER.
No more of Memphis and her mighty kings,
Or Alexandria, where the Ptolomies.
Taught golden commerce to unfurl her falls,
And bid fair science smile: No more of Greece
Where learning next her early visit paid,
And spread her glories to illume the world,
No more of Athens, where she flourished,
And saw her sons of mighty genius rise
Smooth flowing Plato, Socrates and him
Who with resistless eloquence reviv'd
The Spir't of Liberty, and shook the thrones
Of Macedon and Persia's haughty king.
No more of Rome enlighten'd by her beams,
Fresh kindling there the fire of eloquence,
And poesy divine; imperial Rome!
Whose wide dominion reach'd o'er half the globe;
Whose eagle flew o'er Ganges to the East,
And in the West far to the British isles.
No more of Britain, and her kings renown'd,
Edward's and Henry's thunderbolts of war;
Her chiefs victorious o'er the Gallic foe;
Illustrious senators, immortal bards,
And wise philosophers, of these no more.
A Theme more new, tho' not less noble claims
Our ev'ry thought on this auspicious day
The rising glory of this western world,
Where now the dawning light of science spreads
Her orient ray, and wakes the muse's song;
Where freedom holds her sacred standard high,
And commerce rolls her golden tides profuse
Of elegance and ev'ry joy of life.

ACASTO.
Since then Leander you attempt a strain
So new, so noble and so full of fame;
And since a friendly concourse centers here
America's own sons, begin O muse!
Now thro' the veil of ancient days review
The period fam'd when first Columbus touch'd
The shore so long unknown, thro' various toils,
Famine and death, the hero made his way,
Thro' oceans bestowing with eternal storms.
But why, thus hap'ly found, should we resume
The tale of Cortez, furious chief, ordain'd
With Indian blood to dye the sands, and choak
Fam'd Amazonia's stream with dead! Or why,
Once more revive the story old in fame,

[...] Read more

poem by Hugh Henry Brackenridge
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 8

And now the Angel, from the trembling sight,
Veil'd the wide world–when sudden shades of night
Move o'er the ethereal vault; the starry train
Paint their dim forms beneath the placid main;
While earth and heaven, around the hero's eye,
Seem arch'd immense, like one surrounding sky.
Still, from the Power superior splendors shone,
The height emblazing like a radiant throne;
To converse sweet the soothing shades invite,
And on the guide the hero fix'd his sight.
Kind messenger of Heaven, he thus began,
Why this progressive labouring search of man?
If man by wisdom form'd hath power to reach
These opening truths that following ages teach,
Step after step, thro' devious mazes, wind,
And fill at last the measure of the mind,
Why did not Heaven, with one unclouded ray,
All human arts and reason's powers display?
That mad opinions, sects and party strife
Might find no place t'imbitter human life.
To whom the Angelic Power; to thee 'tis given,
To hold high converse, and enquire of heaven,
To mark uncircled ages and to trace
The unfolding truths that wait thy kindred race.
Know then, the counsels of th'unchanging Mind,
Thro' nature's range, progressive paths design'd,
Unfinish'd works th'harmonious system grace,
Thro' all duration and around all space;
Thus beauty, wisdom, power, their parts unroll,
Till full perfection joins the accordant whole.
So the first week, beheld the progress rise,
Which form'd the earth and arch'd th'incumbant skies.
Dark and imperfect first, the unbeauteous frame,
From vacant night, to crude existence came;
Light starr'd the heavens and suns were taught their bound,
Winds woke their force, and floods their centre found;
Earth's kindred elements, in joyous strife,
Warm'd the glad glebe to vegetable life,
Till sense and power and action claim'd their place,
And godlike reason crown'd the imperial race.
Progressive thus, from that great source above,
Flows the fair fountain of redeeming love.
Dark harbingers of hope, at first bestow'd,
Taught early faith to feel her path to God:
Down the prophetic, brightening train of years,
Consenting voices rose of different seers,
In shadowy types display'd the accomplish'd plan,
When filial Godhead should assume the man,
When the pure Church should stretch her arms abroad,
Fair as a bride and liberal as her God;

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Space Oddiity

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five,
Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell me wife I love her very much she knows"
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you....
"Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.

song performed by David Bowie
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Space Oddity

[David Bowie]
Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills
And put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition
And may God's love be with you
Ten, nine eight, seven, six, five
Four, three, two, one, liftoff
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know
Whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule
If you dare
This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculair way
And the stars look very different
Today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do
Though I'm past 100,000 miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows
Which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much,
She knows
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead,
There's something wrong
Can you hear me Major Tom
Can you hear me Major Tom
Can you hear me Major Tom
Can you....
Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

song performed by Helloween
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Political World

We live in a political world
Where love dont have any place
Were living in times where men commit crimes
And crime dont have a face
We live in a political world
Icicles hangin down
Wedding bells ring and angels sing
And clouds cover up the ground
We live in a political world
Wisdom is thrown into jail
It rots in a cell misguided as hell
Leaving no one to pick up the trail
We live in a political world
Where mercy walks the plank
Life is in mirrors, death disappears
Up the steps into the nearest bank
We live in a political world
Courage is a thing of the past
Houses are haunted, children arent wanted
Your next day could be your last
We live in a political world
The one we can see and feel
But theres no one to check, its all a stacked deck
We all know for sure that its real
We live in a political world
The cities are a lonesome fear
Little by little, you turn in the middle
Youre never sure why youre here
We live in a political world
Under the microscope
You could travel anywhere and hang yourself there
Youve always got more than enough rope
We live in a political world
Turning and a-thrashing about
As soon as youre awake youre trained to take
What looks like the easy way out
We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all
Its turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall
We live in a political world
Everythings hers and his
Climb into the flame and shout gods name
But youre not even sure what it is

song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Am A Scientist

Hehehe
Hihihihihihihiii
I got it
Woohoowoo
Woohoowoo
Got it got it
Woohoowoo
In me the scientist
Always get stuck on always trying this
I try to live on science alone
Analysis and freaky sensitivity
We've gotta live on science alone
I got it Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
We've gotta live on science alone
Religiously I'm speaking on the science 'cause
We've gotta live on science alone
I'll tell you what mathematically I'm having it
I want to live on science alone
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
We've gotta live on science alone
In me the scientist
Always stuck on always trying this
I try to live on science alone
Analysis and freaky sensitivity
We've gotta live on science alone
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
'Cause I can live on science alone
We've gotta live on science alone
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist

song performed by Dandy Warhols
Added by Lucian Velea
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Scientist

Hehehe
Hihihihihihihiii
I got it
Woohoowoo
Woohoowoo
Got it got it
Woohoowoo
In me the scientist
Always get stuck on always trying this
I try to live on science alone
Analysis and freaky sensitivity
We've gotta live on science alone
I got it Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
We've gotta live on science alone
Religiously I'm speaking on the science 'cause
We've gotta live on science alone
I'll tell you what mathematically I'm having it
I want to live on science alone
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
We've gotta live on science alone
In me the scientist
Always stuck on always trying this
I try to live on science alone
Analysis and freaky sensitivity
We've gotta live on science alone
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Woohoowoo
Yeah uh I am a scientist
'Cause I can live on science alone
We've gotta live on science alone
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist
Yeah uh I am a scientist

song performed by Dandy Warhols
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Columbiad: Book IX

The Argument

Vision suspended. Night scene, as contemplated from the mount of vision. Columbus inquires the reason of the slow progress of science, and its frequent interruptions. Hesper answers, that all things in the physical as well as the moral and intellectual world are progressive in like manner. He traces their progress from the birth of the universe to the present state of the earth and its inhabitants; asserts the future advancement of society, till perpetual peace shall be established. Columbus proposes his doubts; alleges in support of them the successive rise and downfal of ancient nations; and infers future and periodical convulsions. Hesper, in answer, exhibits the great distinction between the ancient and modern state of the arts and of society. Crusades. Commerce. Hanseatic League. Copernicus. Kepler. Newton, Galileo. Herschel. Descartes. Bacon. Printing Press. Magnetic Needle. Geographical discoveries. Federal system in America. A similar system to be extended over the whole earth. Columbus desires a view of this.

But now had Hesper from the Hero's sight
Veil'd the vast world with sudden shades of night.
Earth, sea and heaven, where'er he turns his eye,
Arch out immense, like one surrounding sky
Lamp'd with reverberant fires. The starry train
Paint their fresh forms beneath the placid main;
Fair Cynthia here her face reflected laves,
Bright Venus gilds again her natal waves,
The Bear redoubling foams with fiery joles,
And two dire dragons twine two arctic poles.
Lights o'er the land, from cities lost in shade,
New constellations, new galaxies spread,
And each high pharos double flames provides,
One from its fires, one fainter from the tides.

Centred sublime in this bivaulted sphere,
On all sides void, unbounded, calm and clear,
Soft o'er the Pair a lambent lustre plays,
Their seat still cheering with concentred rays;
To converse grave the soothing shades invite.
And on his Guide Columbus fixt his sight:
Kind messenger of heaven, he thus began,
Why this progressive laboring search of man?
If men by slow degrees have power to reach
These opening truths that long dim ages teach,
If, school'd in woes and tortured on to thought,
Passion absorbing what experience taught,
Still thro the devious painful paths they wind,
And to sound wisdom lead at last the mind,
Why did not bounteous nature, at their birth,
Give all their science to these sons of earth,
Pour on their reasoning powers pellucid day,
Their arts, their interests clear as light display?
That error, madness and sectarian strife
Might find no place to havock human life.

To whom the guardian Power: To thee is given
To hold high converse and inquire of heaven,
To mark untraversed ages, and to trace
Whate'er improves and what impedes thy race.
Know then, progressive are the paths we go
In worlds above thee, as in thine below
Nature herself (whose grasp of time and place
Deals out duration and impalms all space)

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Science is Unscientific

The Professor rose from his chair.
He moved the book to the middle
Of the table as he stood up.

"Now, listen! " he said in an amicable voice.
"Science prides itself in being factual,
objective, precise, unbiased, detached
and verifiable, free from introversion,
a way of knowing things without added colours
and portraying accurately the physical world
in its own light".

The Turtle was sipping his ginger ale.

"Oh, this description of science is nothing
but a myth", he said. "As I see it,
even the most magnificent accomplishments
of science involve emotions,
an individual sense of wonder and curiosity,
the psychological experience of the rapturous
and the mystical. Consequently,
a paradoxical and built in property
of science concerns
its own unscientific disposition.
And therefore, in my opinion,
science is thoroughly unscientific."

"Nonsense", the professor objected.
"If science were really unscientific,
as you claim, it could not produce
nuclear energy, airplanes, or computers.
And it could not put
astronauts on the moon".

"Well, I indeed never stop to wonder,
How is it possible that with so little knowledge
humans can accomplish so much? "
the Turtle said.

And then he added:
"But, you should not
confuse science with technology".

"I don't get your point", the Professor said,
"because you still did not provide me with
a good justification of your negative view
of science".

"Look! Science stands on very shaky

[...] Read more

poem by Paul Hartal
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Children of Our Age

We are children of our age,
it's a political age.

All day long, all through the night,
all affairs--yours, ours, theirs--
are political affairs.

Whether you like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin, a political cast,
your eyes, a political slant.

Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don't say speaks for itself.
So either way you're talking politics.

Even when you take to the woods,
you're taking political steps
on political grounds.

Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines a moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
And though it troubles the digestion
it's a question, as always, of politics.

To acquire a political meaning
you don't even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein feed, or crude oil,

or a conference table whose shape
was quarreled over for months;
Should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one?

Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.

poem by Wislawa Szymborska
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Melody In Soft Gilded Brown (Revised)

There's always a heroine playing the ivories in my heart,
she plays Schubert's Impromptu in A-flat major beautifully
tonight - light-flashing notes, rolling whirlpools encircling
a melody in soft gilded brown

I follow in dance, turning whorls twirling, move to and
fro, up and down, weave musical lines in my heart until
circles heave in emotion, reach a peak and melody gilded
in soft velvet brown breathes tranquil serenity

My heart's secret place engulfs everyday life, revels in
memory of every great love, assigns delight to everyone,
each ray of sunshine, all moonbeams safe in a place
where no blight of being can touch - a Platonic world

Perfect of ideas where beauty remains an ideal
calling the dreamer forth - briefly adorning the
face of every smiling human being…

No.4 in A-flat major

The fourth Impromptu, in A-flat major, actually begins in
A-flat minor, though this is written as A-flat major with accidentals. The opening theme consists of cascading
arpeggios followed by murmuring chordal responses.
These are repeated and developed, going through C-flat
major and B minor before finally reaching A-flat major.
A subordinate theme is accompanied by the arpeggio figure,
varied with triplets. In the central section, in C-sharp
minor, the arpeggios are replaced by a chordal accompaniment venturing into the major mode towards its conclusion, but
reverts to the minor. The opening section is repeated and
the work ends in A-flat major. The tempo marking is
Allegretto.

http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impromptus_%28Schubert%29

poem by Margaret Alice Second
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After A Wedding.

After singing in the choir
at the major’s daughter’s wedding

you were all invited
to the posh reception

and you watched
the other guests

move around
the gardens and marquees

feeling rather out
of your class and league

and then she came
along side you and said

maybe one day
we can get married

like the major’s daughter
and have children

and be happy
and not have to feel

out of our class
and utterly lonely

and not have
my mother breathing

down my neck
to marry some schmuck

and you said
who knows maybe

and you smiled
and she put her arm

through yours
and you walked together

amongst the guests
and other members

of the church choir
beneath the summer sun

[...] Read more

poem by Terry Collett
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Blinded By Science

Blinded by science, Im on the run
Blinded by science, where do I belong?
Whats in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, Im on the run
I worry bout the world that we live in
Im worried by all the confusion
I wonder bout the lies Ive been reading
I wonder where this madness is leading
Is this a road going nowhere?
Or is someone leading us somewhere?
I cant believe were here for no reason
There must be something we can believe in
Blinded by science, Im on the run
Im not an appliance, so dont turn me on
Whats in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, Im on the run
Whats in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, Im on the run
I worry bout the world that we live in
Im worried by all the confusion
I wonder bout the lies Ive been reading
I wonder where this madness is leading
Is this a road going nowhere?
Is someone leading us somewhere?
I cant believe were here for no reason
There must be something we can believe in
Blinded by science, Im on the run
Im not an appliance, dont turn me on
Whats in the future, has it just begun
Blinded by science, Im on the run
Blinded by science, Im on the run
Im blinded by science, on the run

song performed by Foreigner
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ashes To Ashes

Do you remember a boy that's been in such an early song, I heard a rumor from
ground control
oh no don't say it's true, They got a message from the action man "I'm happy
hope your happy too" iv loved all iv needed love, sorted details following
The shriking of nothing is killing us, visions of jap girls in synthisis and i
aint got no money and i aint got no hair and im hoping to kick but this planet
is glowing
Ashes to ashes funk to funky, we know major Toms a junky strung out on hevans
high leading an all time low
Time and again i tell myself ill stay clean tonight but these little green
wheels are following me oh no not again im stuck with a favluble friend im
happy hope you happy too one flash of light but no smoking pistol
iv never done good things
iv never done bad things
iv never done anything out of the blue
Want an axe to break the ice i wanna come down right now
Ashes to ashes funk to funky, we know major Tom's a junky strung out on heavens
high leading an all time low
My mama said to get things done you better not mess with major Tom
My mama said to get things done you better not mess with major Tom
My mama said to get things done you better not mess with major Tom
My mama said to get things done you better not mess with major Tom
My mama said to get things done you better not mess with major Tom

song performed by A Perfect Circle
Added by Lucian Velea
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