Footnote

"We're here," said Kurt Vonnegut, "to help each other get through this thing. Whatever it is." Well, yes, and whoever we may be. What "it" is varies with who we are supposed to help "get through" it. As the editors of Octopus long ago noted, our task may in fact be to, as Jerome Rothenberg put it, "take a squad out to the woods/& beat them." Whoever they are.

Hugo Chavez

"They are paying us back with cows!"

My sympathies lie with the Bolivarian revolution, I confess. I don't have much of an argument, but do please note the way Hugo Chavez says the word "cows" at 3:05 in this clip.

The Kant of Passion

I just like the way that sounds.