I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma,
a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
~ Umberto Eco
THE DISPUTE
They say: War is coming and we can hardly wait.
Whoever is readiest to die will win.
We say: The most modern technology will win.
We are the boys with the toys and we will win.
China says: the Chinese will sit back
while you shred each other, and smile inscrutably,
and build their infrastructure, and double their GNP,
and publish new editions of Lao Tse, and win.
— Alicia Ostriker
Uni-verse
