I AM the Picture

One day the People found a broadside posted near the boundary-signs which they immediately assumed was from a Revolutionist.  It said:  “I do not seek victory over evil, or triumph over ignorance, only the conquest of my own ignorance.  I do not seek the destruction of your existing structures, just mine, so STAND BACK!”

While a member of the Military Establishment was crying out for ever greater armament expenditures, a Social Critic countered by declaring, “For every missile produced, and for every bomb constructed, a hungry one goes unfed and a homeless one unsheltered.”  The surprised General pondered this interruption for a moment, then said, “Ah, but this will all work out:  we can all be seen to.  We'll simply turn some of the new weapons on the hungry and homeless.”  (And some still wonder where our new Red Circuit philosophers will come from.)

I once finally agreed to furnish a certain person with a three-dimensional photograph of myself, but when they saw it they said, “It looks like an aerial view of a mob scene, or two armies  clashing.”  Then, pointing intently at the photo, they demanded, “Which one is you?” “No, no,” replied I, “I'm not IN the picture, I AM the picture.” 

Amongst the legion of horrors in wartime, there is, perhaps, no scene more frightening, more detestable, than that of enemy frogmen in our harbor; some with land mines, others with clarinets.

J.