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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
 Posted - 04/11/2007 : 21:03:34
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The remarkable writer Kurt Vonnegut died today in New York City.
Vonnegut, known for such novels as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night, and The Sirens of Titan, died as the result of brain injuries sustained in a fall several weeks ago. Kurt was a Humanist, and served as the American Humanist Association's Honorary President, when he replaced Isaac Asimov. Vonnegut wrote with both humor and depth of feeling. He was a great skeptic, who will be sorely missed.
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 to 2007
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
Edited by - HalfMooner on 04/11/2007 21:42:54
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2007 : 21:35:18 [Permalink]
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And so it goes.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2007 : 21:36:40 [Permalink]
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| See below |
...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying and vile!"
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
They (Women Marines) don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines.
LtGen Thomas Holcomb, USMC
Commandant of the Marine Corps, 1943
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2007 : 21:39:47 [Permalink]
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bummer.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2007 : 22:14:49 [Permalink]
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I was going to write a long thing here, but decided against it. I stole my screen name from a character that Kurt Vonnegut made up, so you see, I am a fan of his.
“The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.” Kurt Vonnegut
You're welcome…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 01:42:14 [Permalink]
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He came, he saw, he remarked, and now he's left us. There is a new hole in the world.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 01:58:11 [Permalink]
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| Must admit that I know very little about him and that I've never read any of his books. Maybe I should head to the library... |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 02:33:48 [Permalink]
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He wrote well, and always surprisingly. He didn't bog down his storytelling with his iconoclastic views. Any of you who haven't read Vonnegut, should. You could do worse than start with Cat's Cradle, or Sirens of Titan. I'm sure that others may have differing views about where to begin the enjoyment of Kurt Vonnegut.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Fripp
SFN Regular
USA
727 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 05:17:15 [Permalink]
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I discovered Vonnegut through "Breakfast of Champions". His writing and observations in that book were like an atom bomb in my impressionable teenage head.
I recently re-discovered him via the same book. It still as fresh as it was way back when. That's my personal fave.
Slowly, the icons of my youth are passing away. Kubrick, Vonnegut...
Kurt, you will be sorely missed. |
"What the hell is an Aluminum Falcon?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my Dark Lord of the Sith could protect a small thermal exhaust port that's only 2-meters wide! That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! You have any idea what this is going to do to my credit?!?!"
"What? Oh, oh, 'just rebuild it'? Oh, real [bleep]ing original. And who's gonna give me a loan, jackhole? You? You got an ATM on that torso LiteBrite?" |
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TG
Skeptic Friend
USA
121 Posts |
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emsby
Skeptic Friend
76 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 10:11:56 [Permalink]
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| He was my hero and an inspiration to me. A brilliant mind is gone. Farewell Kurt. |
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I. |
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 12:25:11 [Permalink]
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| Aw, man... as Fil said, he came, he saw, he did and now he's gone - and we're left with his writing. |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 12:32:16 [Permalink]
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Phil Plait ("The Bad Astronomer") wrote a nice tribute to Kurt Vonnegut here:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/04/11/so-it-goes-kurt-vonnegut-1922-2007/
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Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 12:41:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by emsby
He was my hero and an inspiration to me. A brilliant mind is gone. Farewell Kurt.
Welcome to the SFN, Emsby! 
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 04/12/2007 : 13:00:07 [Permalink]
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From the Rude Pundit: quote:
4/12/2007
Vonnegut Gone:
The one time I saw Kurt Vonnegut speak, it was an evening about writing, featuring John Updike and Vonnegut. He was already pushing 80, still verbally lively, but a bit subdued compared to the days of old. Still, there was one memorable, audience gasp-inducing moment, when Vonnegut was asked about writers growing older. Vonnegut said, and this is a paraphrase from a distant memory, "More writers need to be like Zelda Fitzgerald, who had the good sense to die in a fire in an insane asylum before she got old." A cruel statement, yes, but Vonnegut believed it. He didn't blithely toss off bon mots, but he said what he meant. He would talk about his own aging with the same bitter intensity.
A tale of blue soup and then:
quote:
Vonnegut was right,too , of course. We are lost in our haze of blue soup, electronically-mediated, information-controlled, politcally-spun honey-colored penumbrae. We've lost one of the only people who was willing to tell us so. There's precious, precious few left.
Let's leave with a remark from a commencement address Vonnegut gave in 1999 at Agnes Scott College. He distrusted technology and why not? What had technology done except destroy shit? "Don't try to make yourself an extended family out of ghosts on the Internet," he said. "Get yourself a Harley, and join Hell's Angels instead."
Excellent advice from hard-aquired wisdom. Ride free, Kurt.....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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emsby
Skeptic Friend
76 Posts |
 Posted - 04/12/2007 : 13:36:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by H. Humbert
quote:
Originally posted by emsby
He was my hero and an inspiration to me. A brilliant mind is gone. Farewell Kurt.
Welcome to the SFN, Emsby!
Thanks, Humbert! I like your name. |
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I. |
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Kurt Vonnegut dead at age 84
