User Profile

Then all of a sudden in rolled Jack Kerouac, and I realized, reading Time, that I was a member of the Beat Generation. At last, a club I wanted to join. My college friends and I had been made guiltily aware that we belonged to the Silent Generation. Beat was better, I thought; it offered more room for imagination.

Not that I was a real beatnik. Beatniks were "beat" in a special sense—beaten down by disllusionment stemming from the "police action" in Korea and the middle-class conformity of American society. They were also "beat" as in "beatitude"—blessed with some vague mystical powers. In neither sense was I, a junior high school teacher from a small town in Mississippi, truly beat, or Beat. My only contact with Korea had been letters from my high school boyfriend while he was overseas, and the cheongsam he'd brought back for me—not real silk, it's true, but hardly a serious disllusionment. As for mysticism, any potential I had in that direction was stifled by being a Baptist; Baptists didn't go in for mysticism.

— Feast Here Awhile by Jo Brans (Page 49 - 50)

There is no better breakfast than chocolate meringue pie and a tall glass of milk.

— Feast Here Awhile by Jo Brans (Page 30)

All my life, I have had a love affair with food. This book is a grateful attempt to chronicle the vicissitudes of that affair, which has made my life infinitely richer and more pleasurable. Today I’m eating better than I ever have, but still I feel sad when I think I will never eat some things again. The hot dogs at Belhaven, for example.

At Belhaven, the girls’ school I attended in the fifties, the hot dogs were weird. The cook split the wienies the long way and grilled them while she toasted slices of ordinary white bread. Then she’d arrange the wienie strips on the bread, douse them with mustard, and cover them with tomato and onion relish. I’d buy a little nickel bag of potato chips, open the hot dog sandwich, and spread a crispy layer of potato chips inside for texture.

— Feast Here Awhile by Jo Brans (Page 5)

I define “complexity” in a practical way. Complexity is anything related to the structure of a software system that makes it hard to understand and modify the system…. If a software system is hard to understand and modify, then it it is complicated; if it is easy to understand and modify, then it is simple….

Complexity is determined by the activities that are most common. If a system has a few parts that are very complicated, but those parts almost never need to be touched, then they don’t have much impact on the overall complexity of the system….

Complexity is more apparent to readers than writers. If you write a piece of code and it seems simple to you, but other people think it is complex, then it is complex. [emphasis in original]

— A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout (Page 5 - 6)

Around 1756, Sylvester was asked by the Patriarch of Constantinople to take a position on the issue of re-baptism…, referring to whether and how Catholics were to be re-baptized when they embraced the Orthodox faith. According to those in favor of re-baptism, the Latin-rite baptism by aspersion was considered invalid, and baptism by immersion was required.

The issue generated widespread controversies in Constantinople, leading to the emergence of rival groups among the Greek Orthodox. The patriarch of Constantinople decided in favor of re-baptism but apparently lacked the support of the metropolitans in the local Synod. Therefore, the ecumenical patriarch secured the support of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem.

Sylvester of Antioch wisely took a moderate position and refused to sign the document before it was endorsed by the Synod of Constantinople. On April 28, 1755, a local synod of 18 metropolitans disagreed with the need for re-baptism. The fact is referred to in a letter of Matthaios of Alexandria to Kyrillos V of Constantinople written on March 22, 1756. It also mentions that Sylvester refused to sign the decision concerning re-baptism.

It seems that before deciding on this issue Sylvester and Parthenios [the patriarch of Jerusalem] asked the opinion of Iakovos of Patmos, who was in Jerusalem at the time. It is not clear whether Iakovos advised them not to get openly involved in the matter. Whatever the case was, the choice of the experienced patriarch of Antioch to remain neutral proved to be a good one. As we mentioned, the controversy produced riots in Constantinople, something the Ottoman authorities had tried to avoid. The requirement of re-baptism would also have made it more difficult for the Greek Catholics to return to the Orthodox Church and would also have had a negative effect on the relations between the Orthodox and the Latins.

— Sylvester of Antioch by Mihai Ţipău (Early Arabic Printing in the East, #3)

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall (I Corinthians 10:12).

The Apostle who gives such advice knew human nature and all its weakness perfectly. Day after day, this experience is confirmed: as soon as a man straightens up from the mud of sin, he sways and falls again. As soon as he is cured of the sin of avarice, he falls into the vice of vainglory. Or, as soon as he extends his hand to help a poor man, pride topples him to the other side. Or, as soon as he becomes accustomed to prayer, he opens wide his mouth to degrade those who are not yet accustomed to prayer. Or, as soon as he feels that the Spirit of God is directing him to the path of salvation, he immediately sets himself up as a teacher to the entire world until, unfortunately, through this he completely drives the Spirit from himself.

— The Prologue of Ohrid by St. Nikolai Velimirovic (Page 40)

Established in 1923, the OGPU replaced the Cheka as Russia’s central organ of the secret police. In 1934, the OGPU would be replaced by the NKVD, which in turn would be replaced by the MGB in 1943 and the KGB in 1954. On the surface, this may seem confusing. But the good news is that unlike political parties, artistic movements, or schools of fashion—which go through such sweeping reinventions—the methodologies of the secret police never change. So you should feel no need to distinguish one acronym from the next.

— A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Page 177)

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit and the water and the blood: and these three are together (I John 5:7–8)….

There is an enormous difference between “being one” and “being together.” The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One, whereas the spirit, the water and the blood are only together and are not one. Even enemies could be together, but are not one. All the people on earth are together, but they are not one. Water and blood constitute the body, and the spirit is the spirit…. They are not one, but they are still together. When man dies, the union is broken and ceases to exist. Blood and water go to one side, and the spirit goes to another side….

There is also another trinity in the heaven of man which should should be not only a unity but a oneness, so that man may be blessed in this world and in the other world. That is the union of the mind, heart and will. As long as these three are only in togetherness, man will be at war with himself and with the Heavenly Trinity. However, when these three become one, so that none rules and none is enslaved, then man becomes filled with the peace of God, which passeth all understanding (Philippians 4:7), that surpasses ever man’s word, every explanation, every fear and every sorrow. Then the small heaven in man begins to resemble that great heaven of God, and the “image and likeness of God” becomes apparent in man.

— The Prologue of Ohrid by St. Nikolai Velimirovic (Page 33)