recondite

reconnoitering

lex talionis

emoluments

odoriferous

ministrants

inundation

solemnity

feted

punster

lacuna

epicurean

promulgated

les savants ne sont pas curieux

madrigals

sedulously

conduces

sacerdotally

contiguity

propitiate

caparisoned

lecherous

virtuous old crones

solicitous

mulish obstreperousness

licentiousness

recuse

derisive

Hindenburg

socialistic

potentates

homuculoid

senior, mezzanine, equity (markets)

garrulous

seditious

tulipomania

fortuitous

aberration

Politburo-esque

harrumph (pissing contest)

anathema

bloviating

labyrinthine

castrato

rapacious

prosaic

alabaster (a euphemism for white people)

accoutrements

replete

prevaricator

Sisyphean

remunerative

vociferous

abstemiousness

inner compass

impetuous

rapprochement

innocuous

kibosh

Pyrrhic victory

unconscionable

sophistry

sordid

voluminous

obfuscation

poignantly

malign

contemptuous

salient

coup de grâce

imperiling

vacuous

dubious

obsequious

specious

evince

homology

apropos

circuitous

coterminous

plebiscite

Names

Hannah Arendt

Karatani

Derridean

Badiou

Heidegger

Lacan

AEsop

La Fontaine

Gods

Mardok & Ishtar

Quotes:

Will Durant, Oriental Heritage:

"Time sanctifies everything; even the most

arrant theft, in the hands of the robber's grandchildren, becomes

sacred and inviolable property... It spread the tentacles of its power and law over wider and

wider areas, and though it made external war more destructive than

before, it extended and maintained internal peace; the state may be

defined as internal peace for external war. Men decided that it was

better to pay taxes than to fight among themselves; better to pay

tribute to one magnificent robber than to bribe them all."

"Rights do not come to us from nature, which knows

no rights except cunning and strength; they are privileges assured

to individuals by the community as advantageous to the common good.

Liberty is a luxury of security; the free individual is a product

and a mark of civilization."

"Wherever, in the history of

civilization, woman has ceased to be an economic asset in marriage,

marriage has decayed; and sometimes civilization has decayed with it."

" There are no morals in diplomacy,

and la politique n'a pas d'entrailles; but there are morals in

international trade, merely because such trade cannot go on without

some degree of restraint, regulation, and confidence. Trade began in

piracy; it culminates in morality."

"An Egyptian legend relates that when the god Thoth revealed his discovery of the art of

writing to King Thamos, the good King denounced it as an enemy of

civilization. "Children and young people," protested the monarch, "who

had hitherto been forced to apply themselves diligently to learn and

retain whatever was taught them, would cease to apply themselves,

and would neglect to exercise their memories." `010516"

Let men find a way to record their thoughts and achievements, and thereby transmit them

more securely across the generations, and civilization would begin.

Perhaps it was because the Eastern Mediterranean lands were

rich in copper that vigorous new cultures arose, in the fourth

millennium B.C., in Elam, Mesopotamia and Egypt, and spread thence

in all directions to transform the world. `010653