That's a pretty troll-tastic headline there, Subby.

umm.....

not sure I get it but the mods greened it because... it will ... uh.... stimulate anti-capitalism discussions?

Subby left out "elite socialist liberals." :-)

That's a poorly constructed sentence and you should feel bad.

cbackous: "We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us." - MT

Mr T is a wise man.

I just randomly bought a collection of Mark Twain stories over the weekend for like $5 from a TJ Maxx. I was actually going to start it today! What a coinky-dink!

I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade in that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: "Desiccate the poor working-man; stuff him into sausages."
- Mark Twain

BurnShrike: cbackous: "We despise all reverences and all the objects of reverence which are outside the pale of our own list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency, we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are holy to us." - MT

Mr T is a wise man.

"I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 13 September 1898

A REALLY wise man.

Mark Twain sees your "godless" label, subby, and revels in it:

A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell - mouths mercy, and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
-The Mysterious Stranger

And lo, for Exxon/Mobil saw that nature was evil, and smote it with a deluge of oil. Let us rejoice.

pnome: I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade in that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: "Desiccate the poor working-man; stuff him into sausages."
- Mark Twain

Thank you.

I love Twain so much...

I wish that sentence was a little bit longer because it did not seem to run on for long enough and there wasn't enough punctuation to make it seem intelligent and then there should have been other stuff to make the run on sentence seem a little more run-ony because it didn't run on for very long and I think that subby might be mildly retarded but it's OK because I'm sure his mom screwed a school administrator to get him into regular public school like Sally Field did in Forrest Gump which reminds me that's a really good movie and it's probably Tom Hanks best role ever played.

"In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
-Mark twain

"I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
-Mark Twain

I for one would like to thank Exxon for paving the Alaska Marine Highway.

Even as a Missourian, Subby, I find that headline to be one hell of a stretch.

/you hate America if you don't like Mark Twain.

Arxane: Mark Twain sees your "godless" label, subby, and revels in it:

A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell - mouths mercy, and invented hell - mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!
-The Mysterious Stranger


What a bitter, bitter old crank he became in his later years.
Reading that passage is like being scourged and abraded by a searing sandy desert wind.

The truth is sometimes like that.

Did subby mean Esso?

Mark Twain?

MBooda: Mark Twain?

Please, please tell me you're joking. Or trolling?'

Jorkling?

cleveoh: MBooda: Mark Twain?

Please, please tell me you're joking. Or trolling?'

Jorkling?

Hey, just reporting what Dallas and umpteen other school districts say.

http://www.examiner.com/mark-twain-in-national/was-mark-twain-racist

I'm more of a fan of works that draw inspiration from Twain

Robby Liautaud, Essay on Patriotism

"[Patriotism] ...is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a longline of successive "owners" who each in turn, as "patriots" with proud swelling hearts defended it against the next gang of "robbers" who came to steal it and did--and became swelling-hearted patriots in their turn."

So said Mark Twain in his "notebook". A great and accurate quote if one is to be hung up on the ownership of land or the land itself rather than the ideas contained within that land.

To me, patriotism is not a belief that my country has the best farmland or beaches or military power. My patriotism stems from my beliefs in personal freedom, capitalism, peaceful succession of power and other philosophies and simple truths.

We set and defend our boarders to enable the principles of our nation to grow, and those boundaries become a tangible representation of our intangible thoughts.

Thus to put stock in our land is simply to put stock in our beliefs. To de-value patriotism because our land was wrested from the hands of others is only a misunderstanding of simple thought. While land is immobile, our thoughts and beliefs are transient and will lead us to where ever they can have a safe haven. The land is immaterial, the taking of it history, and only the philosophies it contains are worthy of patriotism.

If I were allowed to re-write Mark Twain's quote, it would read...

"Patriotism, what glory it is; it is a word that always commemorates victory. There isn't a foot of land in the world that doesn't represent the values and vices of its owners."

talulahgosh:
perfect opportunity to ask: what mark twain should i read? i tried "the innocents abroad" and it was REALLY boring. i always read quotes from him that sound interesting so i must be starting with the wrong books. any suggestions?

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Clever satire and enough action to keep you from nodding off.

talulahgosh: perfect opportunity to ask: what mark twain should i read? i tried "the innocents abroad" and it was REALLY boring. i always read quotes from him that sound interesting so i must be starting with the wrong books. any suggestions?

The problem is that most of his quotes aren't from his books, but from his essays, therefore I suggest you start with this one Link (new window) and go from there.

pnome: I regard the poor man, in his present condition, as so much wasted raw material. Cut up and properly canned, he might be made useful to fatten the natives of the cannibal islands and to improve our export trade in that region. I shall recommend legislation upon the subject in my first message. My campaign cry will be: "Desiccate the poor working-man; stuff him into sausages."
- Mark Twain

Isn't that the basic GOP message?

BurnShrike: That's a pretty troll-tastic headline there, Subby.

[plusheadlines.com image 450x264]

Why not just click the button to do that? Says I'm the only one who has so far.

Lollipop165: I just randomly bought a collection of Mark Twain stories over the weekend for like $5 from a TJ Maxx. I was actually going to start it today! What a coinky-dink!

You may have overpaid.

MBooda: cleveoh: MBooda: Mark Twain?

Please, please tell me you're joking. Or trolling?'

Jorkling?

Hey, just reporting what Dallas and umpteen other school districts say.

http://www.examiner.com/mark-twain-in-national/was-mark-twain-racist

So in the Texas educational system, they ignore both Thomas Jefferson & Mark Twain's contributions to America? That's just...delightful.

The Mysterious Stranger (new window)

What a tortured and all-around unfortunate headline. Surely there was something better than this?

Maybe subby had this in mind:

To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.

Every time I hear of some demand that Huck Finn be removed from schools because it is racist, I want to beat the shiat of those people for either not actually reading the book, or being too farking stupid to understand it.

Huck Finn is a story of a boy who was raised KNOWING that blacks are inferior and god intended for them to be slaves, but ultimately realizes his beliefs are wrong. It's a great story of overcoming your mistaken beliefs. Something everyone in this country needs to learn to do.

Yes, the "n" word is used a lot. That's how they spoke in that time.

IT IS ALSO the birth anniversary of Winston Churchill, no slouch with pen and paper himself.
So if you choose to revere this day due to Mr. Clemens, you might also want to do so because of Mr. Churchill.

"English, mofo, do you write it??"

Mark Twain wasn't born 176 years ago.

Samuel Clemens was. :)

OgreMagi: I want to beat the shiat of those people

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

That is all.

OgreMagi: Every time I hear of some demand that Huck Finn be removed from schools because it is racist, I want to beat the shiat of those people for either not actually reading the book, or being too farking stupid to understand it.

Every time I hear of someone calling someone or something racist, I want to gather them together in concentration camps and gas them with Zyklon B.