Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

-- Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

This via Sled Press at Sixteen Tons -- Thank you. It helps tonight.

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#extremecivilisation

Life or art? Who imitates who?
Art installation at Tate Modern
August 20, 2015

George Monbiot, author and blogger at the UK Guardian, recently launched the hashtag #extremecivilisation and invited suggestions. Here, for your reading pleasure, is an excerpt from his blog at the Guardian listing some of the modern breakthroughs by today's geniuses which are sure to make our lives better and easier on planet Earth.

There may be flowing water on Mars. But is there intelligent life on Earth?
~George Monbiot

A couple of weeks ago I launched the hashtag #extremecivilisation, and invited suggestions. They have flooded in. Here are just a few of the products my correspondents have found. All of them, as far as I can tell, are real.

An egg tray for your fridge that syncs with your phone to let you know how many eggs are left. A gadget for scrambling them – inside the shell. Wigs for babies, to allow “baby girls with little or no hair at all the opportunity to have a beautifully realistic hair style”.The iPotty, which permits toddlers to keep playing on their iPads while toilet training. A £2,000 spider-proof shed. A snow sauna, on sale in the United Arab Emirates, in which you can create a winter wonderland with the flick of a switch. A refrigerated watermelon case on wheels: indispensable for picnics – or perhaps not, as it weighs more than the melon. Anal bleaching cream, for… to be honest, I don’t want to know. An “automatic watch rotator” that saves you the bother of winding your luxury wrist-candy. A smartphone for dogs, with which they can take pictures of themselves. Pre-peeled bananas, in polystyrene trays covered in clingfilm; Just peel back the packaging.

#extremecivilisation

Useful information category

I found this post from craigslist to be not only hilarious but an interesting way to deal with corporate brush-off.

I attacked a company today
Reply to: anon-52441932@craigslist.org
Date: Wed Dec 15 10:00:36 2004

And I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

The office manager comes to me with a bill from a phone company that's slammed us. You know, they call, talk to someone, and then pretend that we've green lighted a meaningless charge. Bastards!

So I get the bill. I call the customer service number. The recording says to leave a number; they'll call back in 2 days. Right.

Stupidly though, they left a fax number. It's just like they had dropped their pants and exposed their flaccid gentiles for my abuse. Time for a humiliating kick in the corporate crotch.

I prepare a document on my computer. It has my name and phone number in large letters. Beneath that, I insert a large, toner-sucking graphic. I then copy the page and re-insert it into the document. 60 times.

Next I print this document....to my fax modem. From there, the 60 pages are directed towards their unsuspecting fax machine. I hit the resubmit button 5 or 6 times for good measure, thus queuing about 300 pages. I wait.

About 20 minutes later, an anxious voice on my phone asks for my account number. From his pain reflected in his tone, I know that my well placed kick to their firms groin has met the exposed meat. Pain and embarrassment is being felt and spread around. He quickly tells me that my account has been cleared and canceled, and we don't have to pay the bill. I smirk as I hear him squirm, his humiliation complete.

Fax machines are the testicles of just about any company. If a company gives you grief, attack the fax, and no matter how big they are, they'll drop to the ground, curl up in a fetal position, and beg for mercy.

It always works.

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