Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
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Hektor's son, the admired, beautiful as a star shining,
whom Hektor called Skamandrios, but all of the others
Astyanax—lord of the city – since Hektor alone saved Ilion.
Hektor smiled in silence as he looked on his son, but she,
Andromache, stood close beside him, letting her tears fall,
and clung to his hand and called him by name and spoke to him: "Dearest,
your own great strength will be your death, and you have no pity
on your little son, nor on me, ill-starred, who soon must be your widow;
for presently the Achaians, gathering together,
will set upon you and kill you; and for me it would be far better
to sink into the earth when I have lost you, for there is no other
consolation for me after you have gone to your destiny–
only grief; since I have no father, no honored mother.
It was brilliant Achilleus who slew my father, Eëtion,
when he stormed the strong-founded citadel of the Kilikians,
Thebe of the towering gates. He killed Eëtion
but did not strip his armor, for his heart respected the dead man,
but burned the body in all its elaborate war-gear
and piled a grave mound over it, and the nymphs of the mountains,
daughters of Zeus of the aegis, planted elm trees about it.
And they who were my seven brothers in the great house all went
upon a single day down into the house of the death god,
for swift-footed brilliant Achilleus slaughtered all of them
as they were tending their white sheep and their lumbering oxen;
and when he had led my mother, who was queen under wooded Plakos,
here, along with all his other possessions, Achilleus
released her again, accepting ransom beyond count, but Artemis
of the showering arrows struck her down in the halls of her father.
Hektor, thus you are father to me, and my honored mother,
you are my brother, and you it is who are my young husband.
Please take pity upon me, then, stay here on the rampart,
that you may not leave your child an orphan, your wife a widow,
but draw your people up by the fig tree, there where the city
is openest to attack, and where the wall may be mounted.
Three times their bravest came that way, and fought there to storm it
about the two Aiantes [the two Ajaxes] and renowned Idomeneus,
about the two Atreidai [Agamemnon and Menelaos] and the fighting son of Tydeus [Diomedes].
Either some man well skilled in prophetic arts had spoken,
or the very spirit within themselves had stirred them to the onslaught."
Then tall Hektor of the shining helm answered her: "All these
things are in my mind also, lady; yet I would feel deep shame
before the Trojans, and the Trojan women with trailing garments,
if like a coward I were to shrink aside from the fighting;
and the spirit will not let me, since I have learned to be valiant
and to fight always among the foremost ranks of the Trojans,
winning for my own self great glory, and for my father.
For I know this thing well in my heart, and my mind knows it:
there will come a day when sacred Ilion shall perish,
and Priam, and the people of Priam of the strong ash spear.
But it is not so much the pain to come of the Trojans
that troubles me, not even of Priam the king nor Hekabe,
not the thought of my brothers who in their numbers and valor
shall drop in the dust under the hands of men who hate them,
as troubles me the thought of you, when some bronze-armored
Achaian leads you off, taking away your day of liberty,
in tears; and in Argos you must work at the loom of another,
and carry water from the spring Messeis or Hypereia
all unwilling, but strong will be the necessity upon you;
and some day seeing you shedding tears a man will say of you:
'This is the wife of Hektor, who was ever the bravest fighter
of the Trojans, breakers of horses, in the days when they fought about Ilion.'
So will one speak of you; and for you it will be yet a fresh grief,
to be widowed of such a man who could fight off the day of your slavery.
But may I be dead and the piled earth bide me under before I
hear you crying and know by this that they drag you captive."
So speaking glorious Hektor held out his arms to his baby,
Who shrank back to his fair-girdled nurse's bosom
screaming, and frightened at the aspect of his own father,
terrified as be saw the bronze and the crest with its horse-hair,
nodding dreadfully, as be thought, from the peak of the helmet.
Then his beloved father laughed out, and his honored mother,
and at once glorious Hektor lifted from his head the helmet
and laid it in all its shining upon the ground. Then taking
up his dear son be tossed him about in his arms, and kissed him,
and lifted his voice in prayer to Zeus and the other immortals:
"Zeus, and you other immortals, grant that this boy, who is my son,
may be as I am, pre-eminent among the Trojans,
great in strength, as am I, and rule strongly over Ilion;
and some day let them say of him: 'He is better by far than his father,'
as he comes in from the fighting; and let him kill his enemy
and bring home the blooded spoils, and delight the heart of his mother."
To refuse to own up to and admit the possibility of spirit people influencing and intervening human affairs is to persist living in a childish state of fantasy and unreality, and in which no real solution to our most serious moral and social quandaries -- outside of hopes for a future life after death-- can ever be found.
Today I received in the mail a petition requesting my signature to help bring about the rescinding of Roe vs. Wade. At first, I admit, I was somewhat stunned. Overturn Roe vs. Wade? Now don't misunderstand. I am against abortion and infanticide as much as anyone could be. But will re-criminalizing abortion effect this end? The plain fact of the matter, and sadly enough to say, is that it wouldn't. Murder, and that is what widespread and casual abortion is, and along with other gross and most depraved viciousness originates with and from criminal spirit people. They, as they see it, have a vested interest in debasing humanity to the most abject and lowest level of immorality, and one way they can hope to do this is by encouraging among us a policy of murder; with abortion being merely one form of. The more debased we are, the more powerful their sway and reign over us is or will be.
If then you ignore the presence and influence of such a powerful, if seemingly invisible, lobby and faction in our midst, what good does it do to tell and preach to people that they ought to behave and be good? It's like telling people to eat their fruits and vegetables, and then not warn, admonish, and prohibit them from ingesting cyanide. So that while people will, with all good and worthwhile intention, ask us to stop abortion; meantime, we have blatant promotion of the occult and sorcery, even efforts to make vampirism alluring and attractive, emanating from "Hollywood" and the mass media; not to mention a continual war on intellectuals, religion, and rational thinking and discourse generally. And though anti-abortionists decry the killing of babies, we hear little or no denunciation of this advocating and celebrating the occult by the very public, multi-billion dollar mass media. George Bush, Jr., for example, you would think would be counted among the pro-life people. And yet at one Christmas during his administration, they had decorations up at the White House, in effect, advertising Harry Potter. What then is the point? Either wake up and deal with criminal spirit people, and who are the fount of all this intellectual pollution and rabid moral decay, and do so rationally and scientifically, or else give it up, don't bother, and instead eat, drink, and be merry; while otherwise sit around and wait for "the end times" to solve all our problems.
The Great OZ, as it turned out, was this little man behind the curtain; working mechanical controls that created a formidable and terrifying illusion. All right, apply the same concept to threatening and or grandiose spirit people, and ,you see, it's much the same idea. Like regular people, a spirit person could only be so great and powerful insofar as his mind is great and powerful, and yet it is a mind -- just and essentially like you and I or anybody as such has or is potentially capable of having -- all the same. Now to me this is a no brainer. Yet it seems there will ever be people who cannot grasp this very simple, yet true, explanation of why things are as they are.
Was Dr. Pepper really established in 1885, or is it, after all, one of those Phil Tucker kind of things?
["String Quintet in E Major, Op.11 No.5 "Minuet" - Luigi Boccherini (1775)"]
"Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
~John 7:24
How can one not be of the truth and yet somehow still be in reality? And yet we all know people who claim to have a most compelling opinion and perspective on great matters, but who we also know avoid impartial reasoning and a closer scrutiny of facts. In a word, they are fatally incoherent, illogical, and contradictory in their views, yet assure us they love peace, the planet, and mankind. Some of these same sorts even go so far to accept the conventional (i.e., mass media propagated) wisdom that if you would make money, marry, have a family you must work with and cooperate with the devil. And yet has anyone yet bothered to explain why this should be so? How on earth does or could it make any sense? Yet there are those who assume it just the same.
One of the major problems with those who scorn morals, reason and honesty, or who have little regard for moral and rational cogency is that they tend to live in a fantasy world. They really don't know the value of things, and in turn do not really know how to be happy. They say we will not look, we will not discuss -- we will simply pursue our desires; while typically hyper-ventilating in their criticisms directed at those whom they deem to be in the wrong. And yet what is it they avoid seeing and dealing with? What is it they are in denial about? Frankly, and if you try to inquire, they don't know, and cannot tell you. So that they go through life blind to both the harms of evil and the blessings of greater good: like someone who doesn't know they are dirty and who, at the same time, (to paraphrase Sky Saxon) doesn't see the morning sun.
How many times, for example, do people express their supposed fondness for animals (not least of all billion dollar "Hollywood" cartoons.) Yet how many of them are vegetarians and or else animal (or for that matter human) rights advocates? Meanwhile, in shelters across the country, pets are daily put to sleep in some silent, ongoing holocaust. Yet what do they care? Similarly some Christians. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep," John 10:11. For sheep? Makes Jesus sound like he was for animal rights. And indeed it would be well for Christians to make common cause with Buddhists and other sympathizers with animals' rights; both in the name of basic justice and to strengthen morals and the rational consistency of their position. No, we cannot expect people to turn vegetarian over night. It took people decades and then a catastrophic war just to give up legalized slavery. And yet slavery, even so, is still with us. In the same way, the least we can do in the meantime is make the effort -- or at any rate something like one.
Unless you are one of those already in the know, upgrading the RAM on your laptop is much easier than you might think. Before going to spend money on having some computer service shop do it for you, check out these two videos. As far as what and how much RAM your laptop can carry, simply do a Google search based on your model; and as for purchasing new RAM, see ebay, as well as online vendors of memory cards and modules.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yirNejnzbEM ["How to Upgrade your Laptop Memory"]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGilSwvUlqs ["How To Install RAM Into A Laptop"]
Excerpts from Augustine's epistles continued.
[ch. 2] 7. The holy Jerome also says: "The eye of man cannot see God as He is in His own nature; and this is true not of man only; neither angels, nor thrones, nor powers, nor principalities, nor any name which is named can see God, for no creature can see its Creator." By these words this very learned man sufficiently shows what his opinion was on this subject in regard not only to the present life, but also to that which is to come. For however much the eyes of our body may be changed for the better, they shall only be made equal to the eyes of the angels. Here, however, Jerome has affirmed that the nature of the Creator is invisible even to the angels, and to every creature without exception in heaven. If, however, a question arise on this point, and a doubt is expressed whether we shall not be superior to the angels, the mind of the Lord Himself is plain from the words which He uses in speaking of those who shall rise again to the kingdom: "They shall be equal unto the angels."
[ch. 3] 12. Hence, also, the statement of the Bishop of Milan [Ambrose], whom I have quoted before, who says that even in the resurrection it is not easy for any but those who have a pure heart to see God, and therefore it is written, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "How many," he says, "had He already enumerated as blessed, and yet to them He had not promised the power of seeing God;" and he adds this inference, "If, therefore, the pure in heart shall see God, it is obvious that others shall not see Him;" and to prevent our understanding him to refer to those others of whom the Lord had said, "Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek," he immediately subjoined, "For those that are unworthy shall not see God," intending it to be understood that the unworthy are those who, although they shall rise again, shall not be able to see God, since they shall rise to condemnation, because they refused to purify their hearts through that true faith which "works by love." For this reason he goes on to say, "Whosoever has been unwilling to see God cannot see Him." Then, since it occurred to him that, in a sense, even all wicked men have a desire to see God, he immediately explains that he used the words, "Whosoever has been unwilling to see God," because the fact that the wicked do not desire to purify the heart, by which alone God can be seen, shows that they do not desire to see God, and follows up this statement with the words: "God is not seen in space, but in the pure heart; nor is He sought out by the eyes of the body; nor is He defined in form by our faculty of sight; nor grasped by the touch; His voice does not fall on the ear; nor are His goings perceived by the senses." By these words the blessed Ambrose desired to teach the preparation which men ought to make if they wish to see God, viz. to purify the heart by the faith which works by love, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, from whom we have received the earnest by which we are taught to desire that vision.
[ch. 4]
18. It is better, then, that we affirm that concerning which we have no doubt -- that God shall be seen by the inward man, which alone is able, in our present state, to see that love in commendation of which the apostle says, "God is love;" the inward man, which alone is able to see "peace and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." For no fleshly eye now sees love, peace, and holiness, and such things; yet all of them are seen, so far as they can be seen, by the eye of the mind, and the purer it is the more clearly it sees; so that we may, without hesitation, believe that we shall see God, whether we succeed or fail in our investigations as to the nature of our future body -- although, at the same time, we hold it to be certain that the body shall rise again, immortal and incorruptible, because on this we have the plainest and strongest testimony of Holy Scripture: If, however, our brother affirm now that he has arrived at certain knowledge as to that spiritual body, in regard to which I am only inquiring, he will have just cause to be displeased with me if I shall refuse to listen calmly to his instructions, provided only that he also listen calmly to my questions. Now, however, I entreat you, for Christ's sake, to obtain his forgiveness for me for that harshness in my letter, by which, as I have learned, he was, not without cause, offended; and may you, by God's help, cheer my spirit by your answer.
~ Letter 148