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THE HORIZON WHERE THINGS DISAPPEAR
IS THE HORIZON WHERE THINGS APPEAR

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With The Sound Off All News Reporters Look The Same

February 18, 2007                                          © 2007 JAN COX

"Yes," admitted the visiting physician, "a mountain range can be in robust health while harboring within unruly rocks and pebbles--but of what use is this information to the likes of you?"

The way to "tell the future" (even the past) is to be able to tell the present. That's right, I mean the plain old, everyday, unadorned, unadulterated "present."
(Where ordinary prognosticators and historians run awry is in looking in the wrong directions.)

And from a reader comes this letter: "While I have enjoyed your News I do feel that you may be too quick in what I perceive to be your blanket dismissal of the hermit's life. Might you reconsider your views?"

One man would never say "although"
when he could just as easily say "while."
At least he never failed to do so while he was alive.

Looking down on the village below, the King thought,
"There is no civilization
without the introduction
of individual street addresses."
(Some of you may recognize the appearance of discrete thought
lurking about in his Grace's words.)

If it is the thinking of the collective
that drives your actions,
then your memory of them is not personal and individual.

Another law applicable to the city which no one over there knows about, cares about, or even misses, now that it's not gone: "Things that can apparently be rendered more complex through talk can also be made more silly."

Over near the financial district a man confided to a complete stranger: "I suppose that ultimately the educated class' greatest contributions to civilization will be seen as the development of literary criticism, ballroom dancing, and inflatable dolls."

A certain old city sorehead
says he looks on progress
as little more
than a form of revenge
directed toward him personally.

For Your Ears Only: Men are inclined to believe their escape attempts are more significant than they actually are. With the ordinary, this itself is of no particular consequence,
but you might find it useful to remember.

The man with the Whisper Stand down in the alley was today sotto voicing the following: "Is not man's greatest glory his inconsistency?!!"

During the thirty seconds allotted to the featured speaker he stated, "Man's intellect has its counterpart in the natural world
in the rain forests."
Later, over coffee, he admitted that he wasn't at all certain
this was the final word on the matter, but merely as far as he'd gotten with it.

The ole man told the kid, "Lad, you do realize that as long as rats can explain being rats they'll remain so?!!"
(One strange guy over in Strangeland strangely thought, "Boy, it's bad enough being me without having to reaffirm it!")

Jan's Daily
Pass-Me-The-Remote
News
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