wherever he be

Post #20,784 by a6l6e6x 12/8/01 2:36:57 PM Reply	wherever he be According to this [link\|http://wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/faq.html\|FAQ] of Tom's [link\|http://wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/\|fan's website] he is in your neck of the woods part of the year teaching at University of California at Santa Cruz with the remainder in Massachusetts. The site also has a nice [link\|http://wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/jmazner/lehrhtml.html\|annotated bio]. You would love this quote of Tom: "Another pervasive change in this country has been the decline of literacy. Admittedly, one always used to hear that a picture was worth a thousand words, but that was before they devalued the word." Streaming video, anyone? [link\|http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/vonbraun.htm\|The Wernher von Braun song] made we wonder if he attended the same public lecture by Wernher von Braun in Cambridge (MA) that I went to a year or two after Sputnik (1957). In the Q & A after the lecture Wernher von Braun (who then headed development of US rocket program) was asked how he justified developing the German V-2 rocket used to rain terror on Britain. Paraphrasing, he said "Well, I was advancing the science of rocketry.". "Besides, one has to do what one is asked for one's country.". A considerable amount of hissing followed from the (mostly MIT student) audience. [link\|http://wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/evening.html#elements\|Lyrics - The Elements.] But, you have got to hear it! Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #20,793 by Ashton 12/8/01 6:40:42 PM Reply	Gracias; links saved. Poisoning Pigeons in the Park is my fav for Ecology Day. Note that even here among the vestiges of Murican intelligentsia or something.. ecology is now deemed Pee Cee (that lovely blanket-malphism for er any of those issue-thingies we don't really want to -->\| Face) 'cause we'd have to change those consumption habits. So under-attended is the topic, that indeed some of the PeeCee stuff is even valid (believe we can blame that too on our kultur of forgetfulness?). For many it IS YAN Corporate $-game. Just as 9/11 spawned the auto industry's er Fire-sale.. on all the left-over UAVs: One's Patriotic Duty to Keeeep Spending on those maxed-out CeeCees, you Peepul. (Hydrogen.. betcha a couple measly million might get spent paying lip service. Meanwhile Dubya n'Dick n'Daddy and the boys.. make sure the Saudi-connection endures, [oil] remains King o' the financiers.. down to the last million barrels. Then a Cra$h Program [cost-plus contract natch] to do what -- we knew we should have started just after the 1973 GAS LINES.) {sigh} Alas, poor Wernher has lots of company. For deeming all science activity to be 'perfectly' ~amoral (er, leave it to our Statesmen to worry pretty little heads) .. Statesmen ?? .. all the countries were busily at work tryin to work out new bugs capable of devastating all homo-saps (and anything else is OK - just collateral). I gather that at least a few have found some organism-creation techniques as virtually promise a fully Doomsday-ready Super-bug. That is, I've heard this 'direction' mentioned obliquely, fortunately without specificity. Now if just One has that clue.. publish or perish. Winning is Everything.. Ah but Recognition! is even More than Everything [Else]. So, Tom has Our Song ready for that final triumph of ego over planetary survival. Too! Yup - ecology - who Needs that Crap !? Let's get that cel-fone brain implant --> Market reel soon, I say. (MP-3 attachment First, o'course). Wernher was a piker! compared to them Other researchers on Governments' payrolls. (Yeah, I've met some of those guys.. needed three showers afterwards.) Cheers, Ashton Mark Twain & Tom Lehrer would have made good dinner companions. Ever read his (posthumous!) analyis of The Damned Human Race ? He grokked to fullness. (But didn't dare publish that while still in a form to be.. burned at the stake by Puritans: a practical man.)
Post #20,838 by Meerkat 12/9/01 5:56:29 PM Reply	Goodbye Mom, I'm off to drop the bomb So don't wait up for me... Perhaps that's still scarily relevant. Anyway, just a quick 'Yay for Tom Lehrer' post, even if I am a little late to the party. Once upon a time I learned to play Poisoning Pigeons In The Park, my brother does a passable Lehrer singing impression, but in the years since I've lost my Lehrer songbook pout. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #20,839 by a6l6e6x 12/9/01 6:01:25 PM Reply	Re: Songbook [link\|http://wiw.org/~drz/tom.lehrer/evening.html\|Link to lyrics of some songs.] It's a start. Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

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