2016-05-25

changeling67: (Default)
2016-05-25 11:00 am

GNU Terry Pratchett - The Glorious 25th


You'd like Freedom, Truth and Justice, wouldn't you comrade sergeant?' said Reg encouragingly.

'I'd like a hard-boiled egg,' said Vimes, shaking the match out.

There was some nervous laughter, but Reg looked offended.

'In the circumstances, sergeant, I think we should set our sights a little higher...'

'Well, yes, we could,' said Vimes, coming down the steps. He glanced at the sheets of paper in front of Reg. The man cared. He really did. And he was serious. He really was.

'But... well, Reg, tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I'm pretty sure that whatever happens we won't have found Freedom, and there won't be a whole load of Justice, and I'm damn sure we won't have found Truth. But it's just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg. What's this all about Reg?'

'The People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road!' said Reg proudly.

~
The occupants of these graves had died for something. In the sunset glow, in the rising of the moon, in the taste of the cigar, in the warmth that comes with sheer exhaustion, Vimes saw it.

History finds a way. The nature of events changed, but the nature of the dead had not. It had been a mean, shameful little fight that ended them, a flyspeck footnote of history, but they hadn't been mean or shameful men. They hadn't run, and they could have run with honour. They'd stayed, and he wondered if the path seemed as clear to them then as it did to him now. They'd stayed not because they wanted to be heroes, but because they chose to think of it as their job, and it was in front of them...'

~
John Keel, Billy Wiglet, Horace Nancyball, Dai Dickens, Cecil 'Snouty' Clapman, Ned Coates and, technically, Reg Shoe.
Probably there were no more than twenty people in the city who knew all the names, because there were no statues, no monuments, nothing written down anywhere. You had to have been there.

X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
changeling67: (Default)
2016-05-25 03:39 pm

Primo Levi - Final Day


Final day because even if the deadline is midday Friday, I really don't think that I want to spend too much more time on this.  The process is just horrendous, lots of footage and personal accounts.  I am moaning about dreadful nightmares, yet I have only just read about it - I haven't personally experienced or seen the buildings today.  Fellow colleagues now want to see the place.  I couldn't stomach it, coward that I am.  I just want to write a good essay and stand up for those who suffered in it, regardless of nationality.

Genocide - an ugly word and it still happens all over the world today.

18:03
Have 140 words to lose - have paced the office and at last minute, my eyes spy an Art Spiegleman book.  Is it possible to smuggle Maus in there somehow, or should I perish the thought? Is that a flash of brilliance, or a step of stupidity too far? It would not trivialise the work....hmm

23:30
The bloody assignment is finally done - thank God!  Itching to upload it now, but should really do it tomorrow so I can proof read it with fresh eyes (not that I haven't read it over at least 10 times).

EDIT:::Uploaded - couldn't wait to get shot of it.