Osakatomebaby

I am an island.

As 25% of my loyal readership just pointed out. No links. I know. This is blogging for it's own sake. I will probably add some links to blogs I read soon, but frankly if my only readers are people who know me, that's fine. I'm not an egomaniac and one of my first navel-gazing tenets was no link-mongering.

My newest reader, another friend, said this of the blog today:

I very much enjoyed what I read, and will definitely come back. You're entirely too sensible though -- if you posted something good and inflammatory, I'd comment on it.

Mind you this is the guy who told me about the longstanding animosity between Michael Moore and Slate. All links to which seem to have disappeared in this election year. Spooky. He and I probably don't have a lot to argue about anyway other than the tastiness of avocados.

Me: Yum!
He: No.

Very well. I have a cold, so I'll make it short. Regarding this weblog:

It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end.

No? Okay, a question:

I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by*...pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?

Edited for political correctness on account of my younger readers. Not that they read this far down...but they might. No doubt the word "buttock" will catch one small eye.