The painting shows a canon in a room, the walls of which show various images: clouds, the torso of a woman, several planks, or a façade with windows. The title of this work by René Magritte was suggested by his friend Paul Nougé. The title is probably borrowed from a quotation from the book Prester John by John Buchnan: 'The clear air of dawn was like wine in my blood. I was not free, but I was on the threshold of freedom'. In fact, the painting is really a promise.
Georges Moustaki sings of his freedom. And how he lost it. See also Le Métèque.
Ma liberté My Freedom
My freedom I have long kept you Like a rare pearl My freedom It's you who helped me Shed my anchors To go anywhere To go to the end Of the paths of fortune To dreamily pick A rose of the winds On a moonbeam
My freedom To your desires My soul was submissive My freedom I gave you everything The shirt on my back And how I suffered To satisfy Your every demand I changed countries, I lost my friends To win your trust
My freedom You were able to disarm All my habits My freedom You who made me love Even solitude You who made me smile When I saw the end Of a beautiful adventure You who protected me When I went to hide To care for my wounds.
My freedom Yet I left you A december night I deserted The far-off paths That we wandered together When, unsuspecting, My hands and feet bound, I let myself go And I betrayed you For a prison of love And it's beautiful jail-keeper.
And I betrayed you For a prison of love And it's beautiful jail-keeper.
Ma liberté Longtemps je t'ai gardée Comme une perle rare Ma liberté C'est toi qui m'as aidé A larguer les amarres Pour aller n'importe où Pour aller jusqu'au bout Des chemins de fortune Pour cueillir en rêvant Une rose des vents Sur un rayon de lune
Ma liberté Devant tes volontés Mon âme était soumise Ma liberté Je t'avais tout donné Ma dernière chemise Et combien j'ai souffert Pour pouvoir satisfaire Tes moindres exigences J'ai changé de pays J'ai perdu mes amis Pour gagner ta confiance
Ma liberté Tu as su désarmer Toutes mes habitudes Ma liberté Toi qui m'as fait aimer Même la solitude Toi qui m'as fait sourire Quand je voyais finir Une belle aventure Toi qui m'as protégé Quand j'allais me cacher Pour soigner mes blessures
Ma liberté Pourtant je t'ai quittée Une nuit de décembre J'ai déserté Les chemins écartés Que nous suivions ensemble Lorsque sans me méfier Les pieds et poings liés Je me suis laissé faire Et je t'ai trahie pour Une prison d'amour Et sa belle geôlière
Et je t'ai trahie pour Une prison d'amour Et sa belle geôlière
Matt Ridley explains, while we are influenced by our genes, dependence works the other way around,too. Genes are vitally influenced by man and his culture.
Human beings, we tend to think, are at the mercy of their genes. You either have blue eyes or you do not (barring contact lenses); no amount of therapy can change it. But genes are at the mercy of us, too. From minute to minute, they switch on and off (i.e., are actively used as recipes to make proteins) in the brain, the immune system or the skin in response to experience. Sunbathing, for example, triggers the expression of genes for the pigment melanin.
As a recent study confirms, on a much longer time scale, genes are even at the mercy of culture.
Make sure to read the entire article at the source.
Four more years of Obama in the Oval Office would be better, in my view, than four years of Gingrich there: each man is mad for power; each man’s Promethean opinion of himself is quite the opposite of what a realistic self-opinion would be; each man is a font of economic idiocy; and each man’s principles are such that each would – recalling Mencken’s description of FDR – fatten up a crew of missionaries on the White House lawn for slaughter if he thought that endorsing cannibalism would get him more votes. Yet the countless nutty and destructive policies that Pres. Gingrich would likely implement would inevitably be described by our crack mainstream press as “laissez faire” – thus creating more public misunderstanding. (Of course, four more years of Obama in the White House might also be better than four years of Romney there….)
I tend to think that the stereotypical augury about the lesser evil has hardly more substance to it than the fact that it does help to keep the system going. What is left out of the picture is that there is more than one way for politicians to produce intolerable levels of damage. Both Obama and Gingrich are sure to maintain those levels.
Take a rest from the slime and the slimeballs, Rep. and Dem. Enjoy a nice piece of kinetically supported music:
PS
Actually, as a child I did see, smell, and touch this kind of sea foam on our visits to South African sea resorts. It looked just like this:
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