Factotum

I'm no preacher but I can tell you this -- the lives that people lead are driving them crazy, and their insanity comes out in the way they drive.

-- Charles Bukowski (1975)

After Forever

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave.
Is God just a thought within your head, or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death, do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope - do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth; yes I've seen the light, and I've changed my ways.
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days.

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say if they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize that God is the only way to love.

Is your mind so small that you have to fall in with the pack wherever they run?
Will you still sneer when death is near and say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ.
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced.
Will you be so sure when your day is near - say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down; now you can't retrieve.

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone.
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one.
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate.
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes, I think it's too late.

-- Tony Iommi / Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath) 1971

Again a Game... Again

Take my hand
Colors seem so black inside your head
Does everything reflect the time you spend?

So tired of thinking
You hide your face
Don't ask me to excuse

...

Save your words
They're never there for those who try
A stranger in a world, no longer mine

Sometimes I'm feeling used
I'll change my place
I'd sooner be excused

...

There are times I confess I'm not easy to accept
So come find, I'll react
I'm a reason to be there

I'm only laughing...

-- Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) 1984

backwards society

We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and our banks destroy the economy.

-- Michael Ellner (1997) & Chris Hedges (2010)

Reason or Rhyme

Why must you shed such tender tears
In the evening of your years?
No other love could stem the tide
Of the loneliness I hide.
Open your heart and let me live!

No reason or rhyme, by chance or design...
Just a dance to the music of time.

-- Bryan Ferry (2010)

Tomorrow

Tomorrow never comes.
What kind of fool do they take me for?
Tomorrow, a resting place for bums,
A trap set in the slums.  But I know the score.

Tomorrow, as they say, all work and no play.
What do they take me for?
Tomorrow, an awful price to pay.
I gave up yesterday, but they still want more.

-- Lottie Pendlebury (Goat Girl) 2018

Political correctness effects

Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

-- Theodore Dalrymple, Our Culture, What's Left of It  (2005)