wordless world

The TV on, no sound, yet I could understand everything.

what wealth is for

The sacred duty of the rich is preservation of cultural capital (art, architecture, libraries, etc.).

relatively succesful

I was top among the underachievers.

tongue oil

Talk is the lubricant of the mind. Thought, reading, and writing have their benefits, but there is nothing like articulation on the fly to clarify.

find a pulse

Pleasure is the pulse of life.

invasive species

Number one inimical invasive species: humankind.

flimsy

It proved to be a brittle kind of celebrity.

there's no there there

The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that we’ll have a lot to talk about when we get there.

neither here nor there

locus-pocus

word problem

The news account stated: ‘X was found sleeping in a restroom’. That kind of makes sense.

whose money

When I hear someone say ‘I want keep more of my money’ or ‘The government wants to take all my money’, I want to ask that person to take a bill from his wallet or her purse and to read it: That bill has ‘The United States of America’ printed on it, and the only reason it’s worth more than the paper it’s printed on is because a strong government supports the rule of law, infrastructure, security, education and the social programs that give value to that currency. That money is a gift of your good government.

just say no

Why does society confuse the lack of prohibition of an act or a thing with the promotion of that act/thing? Society could decriminalize narcotics and at the same time promote drug avoidance and addiction rehabilitation programs, and do so at a cost far less (in dollars and lives lost) than is spent on interdiction, prosecution and incarceration.

oversimplified

To simplify is to lie.

jealous city

A city afflicted by skyscraper envy.

liberal media bias

If a person pursues a field that requires openminded attention and thoroughgoing inquiry, like journalism, it’s natural that they’d be liberal-minded. The narrow and closed-off conservative mindset need not apply.

no hero here

Is it possible to be a hero on the side waging an unjust war?

gold bug, gold slug

Gold is an inert metal, and an inert investment, in the sense that gold merely holds value: It doesn’t have the creative and generative economic value of an equity or bond investment.

last parking place

Two things that create dead space in cities: parking garages and cemeteries.

divisible eye

To update a 60’s protest chant: “The whole world is watching different channels!”

discomfiting thought

Comfort mongers among us.

only ankle deep

The rich claim they’re being soaked when the bottoms of their pants’ legs get wet.

slack learning curve

Some workers think that experience is knowing where the restrooms are and how much time you have for lunch.

one myth too many

Show me a self-made man, and in seconds I’ll scratch through to the social clay from which he was molded.

scar shaped like a smile

To see gloating global capitalism get its comeuppance was almost worth the financial pain of 2008-2009.

nothing obscured

Birds will alight on the branch that gives them the best vantage point.

nostalgists

Either they are aghast at the present or afraid of what lies ahead.

not mass enough to ignite

Remember, Earth, that planets are but failed stars.

untested

If you trust, you don’t need to test.

utter clutter

To live through a catastrophe in which everything has been taken away from you except your life. After that, all life must seem a dream cluttered with things, people and events.

house lust

I am desirous of a very large house so that I can have houseguests, and never see them.

paradise wasted

It’s sad to think of a place called Paradise after the fall. A place of great beauty and bounty that just goes on and on, all wasted, with no one there to experience it.

weak tea

What the American middle class most lacks is a sense of appreciation.

skip a step

Young (Gen Z) job candidate to the interviewer: ‘Take me to your loser.’

not front row seats

All kinds of horrors can happen until people’s clothes start to get spattered.

no better

This I can do; I can do no better.

perceived perfect

Don’t demand, rather prefer perfection, ever aware part of it is perception.

skin deep

How can I say this without being insensitive to the hours he spent under the needle, but he was someone who thought of a tattoo as a life-long accomplishment.

scared myself

Sometimes I think I’m scary sane.

o save us uncle sam

Those who are first to complain about ‘big government’, who claim that the private sector is more effective and efficient in all ways, are the same people now complaining that the government isn’t acting fast enough, isn’t using its vast resources, to solve the disastrous Gulf oil spill.

not me

In any error or act, the last thing we see is our complicity.

rat-a-tat-tat

Sprayed with automatic weapon-fire, I was having difficulty connecting the dots.

cast as extras

In any sufficiently complex notion of God, people simply become superfluous.

people trump ideas

The problems begin when one puts ideologies before people. People will complicate that which ideologies want to simplify.

past imperfect

Memory is imagination with a history.

seen enough

There have been countless UFO sightings and yet no confirmed contact with aliens has occurred. Quite possibly they’ve seen enough and are avoiding us.

serfdom

Serf to the fictional fiefdom of the self.

to go that far

To die in a place so wild or unnavigable your body will never be recovered.

proud flesh

Healed before the scars remembered where to leave their marks.

almost malapropism

Almost a malapropism except it makes sense: Devise and conquer.

low down

A sewer worker in the necropolis.

friend demand

Make too many friends and you forfeit your own life.

after the fall

Felled, but feeling better.

utilitarian time

Last time I looked the fifty dollar Timex told the same time as the fifty-thousand Rolex.

from haunt to hunt

I was haunted enough by to begin hunting for.

spot visible from space

In May 2010, scientists noticed that Jupiter had mysteriously lost one of its great cloud belts. At the same time, if on one of Jupiter’s moons an observer would've turned his telescope toward planet Earth, he would have noticed a ‘great dark spot’ developing on the surface of one of our seas.

known by your army

It’s been said that a language is a dialect with an army. If so, then perhaps a religion is a cult with an army.

can't countenance

Janus became jealous of his other face.

right to gripe

Only voters have the right to complain about their government.

round and round

We can only watch as the teleology chases its tail.

gangland

Pure capitalism is organized crime. A corporation is nothing more than a governmentally licensed gang.

stuck thought

A teacher stuck in the things he was taught.

video: inverse reality

As the characters in video games get more fit, sculpted and athletic, the game players become more sedentary, amorphous and obese.

more and less

I know more than I think I do—and so much less than I should.

ad in

In the 21st C, who would have imagined that the computer industry’s biggest player (Google) would be a major advertising concern with a technology arm.

gritty reality

The digital sand castle began to pixilate, to disintegrate and crumble.

polar forces

Civilization arises from two inimical and polar forces: market and art.

bidirectional bootstrap

Letting down a bootstrap to pull up one less fortunate.

renewed ruins

At the tourist destination the renovations to the ruins were going well.

tyrant defined

Tyrant: A leader whose head can’t be turned other than by a noose.

win the days

To have won the days between then and now is enough.

social wisdom

No matter the extent or depth of one’s knowledge, wisdom cannot be attained in a state of aloneness. Wisdom is a social phenomenon. It requires that one’s knowledge be deployed interpersonally or socially toward some good. That good may be artistic, scientific, altruistic, practical, etc., but wisdom is always instrumental and not isolate.

first failed translation

The translation problem between languages pales before the struggle to translate the material world into any language.

mapped or lived

Determinism is a mapping of history. While free will exists only in the present.

immortal flaw

Immortality would be a bore. The best life ends in due course.

law's call

The first order of the law is to create clarity in human relations. Perhaps it's not a paradox that the legal code has grown so complex.

so over

Lots of things are ‘so over’ before I knew they’d started.

desire piqued

When your desire is piqued, ask what you’re being sold.

light-footed

To tread lightly upon the land.

function compunction

Function is style.

speed of sound

Stop and recall ‘343 meters per second’ (the speed of sound) before you speak.

close call with extinction

When observing politics in action it's worthwhile to consider that only by coordination of efforts and mutual cooperation did early humans make it out of the Pliocene era.

final things

Religion’s greatest lie is to deny the finite.

telling light

Putting a light on darker aspects of history is enough. To expose is to judge.

human measure

Time is human measure of change, be it creation or decay.

people problem

Another utopia spoiled by people.

sequentially challenged

I was discussing history with a prophet.

life exiled

Not dead, but exiled from life.

above & below

Nuclear energy cannot be on the table while the waste product is being swept under it.

slaves to custom

People will claim inculcated customs are matters of their choosing.

all in all

Always all is almost all; there is never an absolute all.

irreflective

In a room full of fools one can never find a mirror.

swerve

The velocity of life so easily swerves to violence.

day's end

The sunset makes philosophers of us all.

city limits

Traffic constrains suburbia. More, wider roads only serve to stimulate sprawl.

wing and

He argued forth on a wing and a priori.

ship of state

A good ship of state must make repairs while underway.

manners / morals

Manners are morals on a small scale. Morals are manners at large.

work is

Work is worth.

placeholder

Without a passion a person is a placeholder.

sense of pace

In these times we substitute a sense of pace for a sense of place.

purposeful

Pleasure is consequence of purpose.

cemetery use

Cemeteries are for the living.

timeless fashion

To be fit and clean should be fashion enough for anyone.

hedgerows

There is much living in those hedgerows.

quick study

The aphorism: Too brief to teach.

and yet

The whole history of philosophy lies in the phrase, “And yet..."

monuments

Monuments make the city.

flowing, flowering

Life flowing, at times flowering, and that’s enough.

come waltzing

A lovely couple: They went waltzing into the mosh pit of life.

self light

The self is important only in so far as it sheds light on ‘being’.

gated minds

The college campus was a gated community.

new road

The walls of the old city are the roads of the new.