[ExI] the ambiguously evil british have leaked julian assange's address

[Darren Greer]

*Completely unrelated, Bill, to your post ending with The Road Not Taken.
But it reminded me of this one, which was my favorite Frost poem for a few
years in high school. It was just bitchy enough for an adolescent malcreant
.

A Considerable Speck*

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 (Microscopic)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt--
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 7:37 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 3:16 AM, spike wrote:
> > Here's what I want from you guys: think carefully and hard, the way I
> know
> > you can.  Think of all the *unintended consequences* of Julian Assanges
> > work, both good and bad.  The notion of good and bad doesn't necessarily
> > collapse down to one number positive or negative; it is too complex for
> > that.  So let it be a complex number, with a real good/evil axis and an
> > imaginary good/evil axis if you wish, or multiple categories or
> > circumstances.
> >
> >
>
> As Darren wrote, everything you do has unintended consequences.
> Fortunately some results are good as well as bad. So sometimes things
> turn out better than expected, rather than worse than expected. Life's
> like that. So enjoy the good outcomes, just as you have to suffer the
> bad outcomes.
> (Even though being 'unexpected', neither is really down to your decision).
> :)
>
> What is much more subtle is *not* doing something.  You anticipate
> something bad coming, but do nothing to stop or divert it. You can't
> be publicly blamed, because nobody else saw it coming and nobody knows
> of your insight. But you know.
>
>
>
> The Road Not Taken
>
> Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
> And sorry I could not travel both
> And be one traveler, long I stood
> And looked down one as far as I could
> To where it bent in the undergrowth;
> Then took the other, as just as fair,
> And having perhaps the better claim,
> Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
> Though as for that the passing there
> Had worn them really about the same,
> And both that morning equally lay
> In leaves no step had trodden black.
> Oh, I kept the first for another day!
> Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
> I doubted if I should ever come back.
> I shall be telling this with a sigh
> Somewhere ages and ages hence:
> Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
>    I took the one less traveled by,
>    And that has made all the difference.
>
>  Robert Frost
> 1874-1963, written in 1916
>
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-- 
"In the end that's all we have: our memories - electrochemical impulses
stored in eight pounds of tissue the consistency of cold porridge." -
Remembrance of the Daleks
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