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Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet
Mar 07, 2008
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetaur adipisicing velit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Yes, it's meaningless, dummy or placeholder text used to display print fonts or layouts without distracting the viewer with content. It probably dates back to the 16th century when printers started putting together sample books for prospective clients, and needed something that had about the same word lengths and letter frequencies as Latin. It has survived in 21st century desktop publishing software.
The alert reader (who is unfamiliar with publishing customs) will suspect there's a story there somewhere, and try to make sense of it, usually picking up on the suggestion of pain with love of something.
Apparently adapted from Cicero, it did have pain and love: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...' translates as "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it ..."
Human storytelling, poetry, drama and history have always been about pain - primarily the pain of war; about heroes who suffer and die for glory, honor, power or nation. Ancient epics and modern histories are about wars; bravery in battle and ferocity in vengeance are basic themes of ancestral legends, FPS video games and the GWOT. (Global War On Terror)
The GWOT will apparently be the grandest drama ever performed - if not in heroes, pain and glory, at least in money: two to five trillion dollars.
Our nation is now investing heavily in autonomous robot warriors - mechanical devices that are described as "cost-effective and risk-free." Also, according to expert Ronald Arkin: "Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement. ...And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger."
We've been filling pages and minds with stories of heroes and wars for almost 3,000 years. Our drama, poems and stories try to tell useful truths about the real world, but we all know that to make an effective, reasonably truthful story some things have to be left out and others added. Reality - truth, if you will - is vast, complex and ambiguous, especially today with our technical ability to measure parameters unknown even 100 years ago. Just as a comprehensive map would have to be as big as the territory it represents, no single story, however epic or grand, can describe reality in all its complexity. Our stories are versions of truth; and all we have of truth is in these versions.
We don't - and can't know the whole story of anything - not global warming, not the events of 9/11, not even the predicament of the Palestinians in Gaza.
This week, for example, we have Israel clinging to its story that the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza is the consequence of choices made by Palestinians, and Palestinians trying to tell their story that their children aren't making those choices.
Most media reports still state that Hamas staged a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007. But another story is emerging, that Bush covertly planned, provoked and armed Fatah to start a civil war to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government. However instead of driving Hamas out of power, the Fatah fighters lost the battle and enabled Hamas to take control of Gaza.. The involvement of Elliott Abrams (pardoned for his role in Iran-Contra) has prompted a bit of comic relief as the scheme has been dubbed "Iran-contra 2.0."
Peter Dale Scott, in "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America" (2007) suggests that the epic of the GWOT is not the triumph of Dubya but the victory of a wealthy covert elite taking control of the world.
If Scott is right, is it possible that Bush was powerless to wrest control from Cheney and the cabal of corporate princes seeking world domination?
And if Scott is right, will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama be able to contain and control them? With the vast wealth of our nation already committed to military outlays for brutal weapons, will either of them be able to overcome the momentum of the great GWOT machine and return sovereignty to the American people?
Five years into an unjust war we are still reading the same old epic poems about glory, war, power, heroes and terrorists, good and evil which are essentially the same old nonsense as the dummy text of Lorem ipsum dolor ...
Will future poets sing of the heroism and self-sacrifice of brave robots, vengeful drones, crafty cluster bombs, and patient land-mines? Will historians praise the awful power of nuclear weapons, the weaponization of space? Will future Muses (still playing lyres) replace Lorem ipsum dolor with:
Sing, Muse, the gwot of Dubya son of Haitch-Dubya, the destructive gwot that brought a thousand griefs upon the Americans, the Iraqis, and practically everyone else on Earth ...
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Caroline Arnold
Caroline Arnold retired in 1997 after 12 years on the staff of US Senator John Glenn. She previously served three terms on the Kent (Ohio) Board of Education. In retirement, she was active with the Kent Environmental Council and sat on the board of Family & Community Services of Portage County. Her Letters From Washington was been published as an e-Book by the Knowledge Bank of the Ohio State University Library. Caroline passed away from cancer at age 83 in 2014.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetaur adipisicing velit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Yes, it's meaningless, dummy or placeholder text used to display print fonts or layouts without distracting the viewer with content. It probably dates back to the 16th century when printers started putting together sample books for prospective clients, and needed something that had about the same word lengths and letter frequencies as Latin. It has survived in 21st century desktop publishing software.
The alert reader (who is unfamiliar with publishing customs) will suspect there's a story there somewhere, and try to make sense of it, usually picking up on the suggestion of pain with love of something.
Apparently adapted from Cicero, it did have pain and love: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...' translates as "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it ..."
Human storytelling, poetry, drama and history have always been about pain - primarily the pain of war; about heroes who suffer and die for glory, honor, power or nation. Ancient epics and modern histories are about wars; bravery in battle and ferocity in vengeance are basic themes of ancestral legends, FPS video games and the GWOT. (Global War On Terror)
The GWOT will apparently be the grandest drama ever performed - if not in heroes, pain and glory, at least in money: two to five trillion dollars.
Our nation is now investing heavily in autonomous robot warriors - mechanical devices that are described as "cost-effective and risk-free." Also, according to expert Ronald Arkin: "Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement. ...And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger."
We've been filling pages and minds with stories of heroes and wars for almost 3,000 years. Our drama, poems and stories try to tell useful truths about the real world, but we all know that to make an effective, reasonably truthful story some things have to be left out and others added. Reality - truth, if you will - is vast, complex and ambiguous, especially today with our technical ability to measure parameters unknown even 100 years ago. Just as a comprehensive map would have to be as big as the territory it represents, no single story, however epic or grand, can describe reality in all its complexity. Our stories are versions of truth; and all we have of truth is in these versions.
We don't - and can't know the whole story of anything - not global warming, not the events of 9/11, not even the predicament of the Palestinians in Gaza.
This week, for example, we have Israel clinging to its story that the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza is the consequence of choices made by Palestinians, and Palestinians trying to tell their story that their children aren't making those choices.
Most media reports still state that Hamas staged a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007. But another story is emerging, that Bush covertly planned, provoked and armed Fatah to start a civil war to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government. However instead of driving Hamas out of power, the Fatah fighters lost the battle and enabled Hamas to take control of Gaza.. The involvement of Elliott Abrams (pardoned for his role in Iran-Contra) has prompted a bit of comic relief as the scheme has been dubbed "Iran-contra 2.0."
Peter Dale Scott, in "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America" (2007) suggests that the epic of the GWOT is not the triumph of Dubya but the victory of a wealthy covert elite taking control of the world.
If Scott is right, is it possible that Bush was powerless to wrest control from Cheney and the cabal of corporate princes seeking world domination?
And if Scott is right, will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama be able to contain and control them? With the vast wealth of our nation already committed to military outlays for brutal weapons, will either of them be able to overcome the momentum of the great GWOT machine and return sovereignty to the American people?
Five years into an unjust war we are still reading the same old epic poems about glory, war, power, heroes and terrorists, good and evil which are essentially the same old nonsense as the dummy text of Lorem ipsum dolor ...
Will future poets sing of the heroism and self-sacrifice of brave robots, vengeful drones, crafty cluster bombs, and patient land-mines? Will historians praise the awful power of nuclear weapons, the weaponization of space? Will future Muses (still playing lyres) replace Lorem ipsum dolor with:
Sing, Muse, the gwot of Dubya son of Haitch-Dubya, the destructive gwot that brought a thousand griefs upon the Americans, the Iraqis, and practically everyone else on Earth ...
Caroline Arnold
Caroline Arnold retired in 1997 after 12 years on the staff of US Senator John Glenn. She previously served three terms on the Kent (Ohio) Board of Education. In retirement, she was active with the Kent Environmental Council and sat on the board of Family & Community Services of Portage County. Her Letters From Washington was been published as an e-Book by the Knowledge Bank of the Ohio State University Library. Caroline passed away from cancer at age 83 in 2014.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetaur adipisicing velit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Yes, it's meaningless, dummy or placeholder text used to display print fonts or layouts without distracting the viewer with content. It probably dates back to the 16th century when printers started putting together sample books for prospective clients, and needed something that had about the same word lengths and letter frequencies as Latin. It has survived in 21st century desktop publishing software.
The alert reader (who is unfamiliar with publishing customs) will suspect there's a story there somewhere, and try to make sense of it, usually picking up on the suggestion of pain with love of something.
Apparently adapted from Cicero, it did have pain and love: Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit...' translates as "There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it ..."
Human storytelling, poetry, drama and history have always been about pain - primarily the pain of war; about heroes who suffer and die for glory, honor, power or nation. Ancient epics and modern histories are about wars; bravery in battle and ferocity in vengeance are basic themes of ancestral legends, FPS video games and the GWOT. (Global War On Terror)
The GWOT will apparently be the grandest drama ever performed - if not in heroes, pain and glory, at least in money: two to five trillion dollars.
Our nation is now investing heavily in autonomous robot warriors - mechanical devices that are described as "cost-effective and risk-free." Also, according to expert Ronald Arkin: "Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement. ...And there are no emotions that can cloud judgement, such as anger."
We've been filling pages and minds with stories of heroes and wars for almost 3,000 years. Our drama, poems and stories try to tell useful truths about the real world, but we all know that to make an effective, reasonably truthful story some things have to be left out and others added. Reality - truth, if you will - is vast, complex and ambiguous, especially today with our technical ability to measure parameters unknown even 100 years ago. Just as a comprehensive map would have to be as big as the territory it represents, no single story, however epic or grand, can describe reality in all its complexity. Our stories are versions of truth; and all we have of truth is in these versions.
We don't - and can't know the whole story of anything - not global warming, not the events of 9/11, not even the predicament of the Palestinians in Gaza.
This week, for example, we have Israel clinging to its story that the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza is the consequence of choices made by Palestinians, and Palestinians trying to tell their story that their children aren't making those choices.
Most media reports still state that Hamas staged a violent takeover of Gaza in June 2007. But another story is emerging, that Bush covertly planned, provoked and armed Fatah to start a civil war to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government. However instead of driving Hamas out of power, the Fatah fighters lost the battle and enabled Hamas to take control of Gaza.. The involvement of Elliott Abrams (pardoned for his role in Iran-Contra) has prompted a bit of comic relief as the scheme has been dubbed "Iran-contra 2.0."
Peter Dale Scott, in "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America" (2007) suggests that the epic of the GWOT is not the triumph of Dubya but the victory of a wealthy covert elite taking control of the world.
If Scott is right, is it possible that Bush was powerless to wrest control from Cheney and the cabal of corporate princes seeking world domination?
And if Scott is right, will Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama be able to contain and control them? With the vast wealth of our nation already committed to military outlays for brutal weapons, will either of them be able to overcome the momentum of the great GWOT machine and return sovereignty to the American people?
Five years into an unjust war we are still reading the same old epic poems about glory, war, power, heroes and terrorists, good and evil which are essentially the same old nonsense as the dummy text of Lorem ipsum dolor ...
Will future poets sing of the heroism and self-sacrifice of brave robots, vengeful drones, crafty cluster bombs, and patient land-mines? Will historians praise the awful power of nuclear weapons, the weaponization of space? Will future Muses (still playing lyres) replace Lorem ipsum dolor with:
Sing, Muse, the gwot of Dubya son of Haitch-Dubya, the destructive gwot that brought a thousand griefs upon the Americans, the Iraqis, and practically everyone else on Earth ...
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
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