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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Dies At 84
At least twenty-two readers took the trouble to make sure we knew that Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84. From the Times obituary: "Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' 'Cat's Cradle' and 'God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater' caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan... Mr. Vonnegut suffered irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, according to his wife, Jill Krementz." Reader SPK adds: "He will be remembered not only as a great writer, but also as a staunch civil libertarian (long-term member of the ACLU) and as a 'mainstream/literary' author who integrated science fiction concepts into his writing. So it goes."
My best Vonnegut moment was when I was watching that Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back To School" in a theatre. In one scene, there's a knock at the door, and Rodney opens the door, and it's a curly-haired guy who is his tutor for the writings of Vonnegut. That's when I started laughing. Three seconds later, after he says that he is Kurt Vonnegut, the rest of the audience starts laughing.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Tiger got to hunt
Eagle got to fly
Man got to ask his self
Why, why, why?
Tiger got to sleep
Eagle got to land
Man got to tell his self
He Understand
--Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
It isn't that an omnoipotent god benefits from it somehow, of course he doesn't. To say otherwise is blasphemy, even, for monotheists. However, they believe that the natural state for human beings is to worship god. In other words, people benefit from worshipping god, not vice versa. Note that the quoted sign can be understood both ways.
Of course, you can raise skeptical doubt about why god would create people at all, and why worshipping him would be good for them. Such doubts are natural, and indeed the major monotheistic religions have had centuries of debate about these topics. So, my point is that the monotheistic belief system (speaking generally) makes more sense than your misinterpretation of that particular sign.
(To prevent misunderstandings, I am a complete atheist.)
Vonnegut from "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,"
"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "
my feeble attempt at an epitaph
"Goodbye, Mr. Vonnegut. God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.
You told us about ice, you told us about fire. You made us laugh and taught us to think. Your time here was too short. But you gave us a lot more than one rule, you gave us someone to root for."
I'm sorry its no Vonnegut...
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
From Slaughterhouse 5. Billy is having one of his "episodes" whilst watching television:
... The minerals were them shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.
"American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes.
"When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals.
"The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids."
Ah yes. If only our youth would concern themselves not with creativity, non-conformity, and critical thinking, but instead the Virtues and Values befitting a Christian Nation. Instead of wasting their minds upon the disspative slanders of a crypto-communist like Vonnegut, it would behoove them to instead read a Great Book by an Excellent Mind.