Bits of Wisdom from Mark Twain.

Good Evening Gentle Folk.

I realize that I said some time ago that I would not discuss either Politics or Religion........but, on the matter of Politics, its just too tempting to ignore, sort of like watching a Man who is hopelessly drunk, and embarrassing himself, you know you shouldn't laugh at the inebriated idiot, but you just can't help yourself.

It is just so with Politics. There are so many Politicians who make fools of themselves almost daily, one can either laugh, weep, or comment on them.

I have been lately perusing some of the works of Mark Twain, who, in my view, is one of, if not the, greatest Humorist America has ever fielded.

Some comments of Twain you might enjoy;

Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen...I had a friend...a slave- who daily preached sermons from the top of his master's woodpile, with me for his sole audience...one of his texts was this:
"You tell me whar a man gets his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his `pinion is."
... The black philosopher's idea was that a man is not independent, and cannot afford views which might interfere with his bread and butter. If he would prosper, he must train with the majority; in matters of large moment, like politics and religion, he must think and feel with the bulk of his neighbors, or suffer damage in his social standing and in his business prosperities. He must restrict himself to corn-pone opinions-at least on the surface. He must get his opinions from other people; he must reason out none for himself; he must have no first-hand views.

Sound like anyone you know?.

more from Twain:

All Congressmen and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
--Mark Twain in Eruption, entry for Nov 24, 1906
and
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself--
Unpublished paper on Postal Rates, Mark Twain. A Biography Chap. CXXXVIII
and
...Those burglars that broke into my house recently...are in jail, and if they keep on they will go to Congress. When a person starts downhill you can never tell where he's going to stop.
In an Address to Redding, Conn, Library Association, at the Opening of the Mark Twain Library, 1908

Perhaps later, more from Friend Twain, but in the meantime, remember, some things never change.

cheers

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