A Schopenhauerian dialogue on the frustraions of a broken heart

In a Nazi concentration camp two Jewish captives sit, huddled together in the freezing winter snow seeming to hang tenaciously to the last remnants of their humanity. Around them are a few hovels and men in Nazi uniforms laughing and eating heartily. Once in a while a Nazi officer walks by wearing a large extravagant fur coat eating a massive turkey leg spilling it all over his shirt and looks right down at the two captives and says “I dare you to eat the crumbs.” The captives don’t move they merely huddle closer together. Upon witnessing this scene it looks almost comical in its horrific juxtaposition of happiness and human depravity; the eyes of any visitor are led directly to the massive painting of the camps leader the man to whom all owe their allegiance a huge 10 foot by 12 foot painting of the fuehrer Hitler.

Jew1: Oh how I miss my dear one.
Jew2: Yes, I know.

Jew2 slyly picks up a few crumbs from the preceding officer and shovels them greedily into his mouth.

Jew2: I think it is time you just realize where we are. We are in a concentration camp and will soon be dead, so be it.
Jew1: I don’t want to die! I want to see my wife, just one more time, I wish for life!
Jew2: Don’t you see there is no life left here; there is only death.
Jew1: OOH but…

Jew1 gets up and begins dancing and singing.

Jew1: OOH but… MYYYY “Heart, my achy breaky heart”

As he begins to sing a knife flies right next to his face and loud boos and calls to SHUT UP come from the Nazi tent next to them. Jew2 seems unperturbed by this sudden outburst and greedily picks up a bug and sticks it into his mouth.

Jew2: So you have a broken heart… Who cares, we’ll all be dead soon anyway, life doesn’t mean a thing.
Jew1: But it does! Don’t you see, as long as we have life there is a chance, ooh my friend there is a chance, we can give into our morbid desires and pass away into the ether or we can fight back! I say we fight.

A loud yell comes from the Nazi tent: “SHUT UP YOU JEW!”

Jew2: Well you won’t have much of a life soon if you don’t stop talking. I say we see if we can get more crumbs from the officers tent. They are too busy masquerading as philosophers to know what’s going on; if you would just be quiet.
Jew1: But we can’t! We might get caught and die and be killed, then what will we do?
Jew2: I have come to view life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.
Jew1: What? What on earth does that mean?
Jew2: EXACTLY!
Jew1: You can do whatever you want; I’m staying right here.
Jew2: Suit yourself.

Jew2 cleverly sneaks from one post to another. Whenever an officer walks by the area he simply begins whistling a Richard Wagner tune lightheartedly and pretends to be doing some form of work. The first time he is seen he takes an officers coat and begins to dust it off; another time he grabs a pot of coffee from the Nazi tent and begins filling the cups of the nearby officers. All the while, he is slowly taking crumb after crumb from the tables and floor around the officers and slipping it into his tucked in shirt. Eventually he seems to be attaining a bit of a belly. Soon, he heads back over to Jew1.

Jew2: SEE! Mmmm. You are sitting around accomplishing nothing, while I have attained some food for myself!

Jew1 looks heartily at the food while saying this line

Jew1: how can I think of food when I haven’t seen my wife for 4 months! I miss her so much. What if she’s been forced to find another man? Or what if she’s dead? Or worse?
Jew2: Meh, all my family was killed long ago; what does it matter? Human existence must be some kind of error anyway! Its bad one day, worse the next.
Jew1: I know it seems that way, but I won’t accept that this is the norm of life. I have lived 32 years of life in relative ease and great comfort! I have seen life is benevolent. Ooh woe is me. What is happening to this world?

Jew1 begins sobbing hysterically. Just as he begins sobbing, a rather morose looking young Nazi soldier walks past them and looks down at the two Jews.

Nazi: What are you crying about Jew? Why aren’t you satisfied with what we’ve given you? You are still alive and able to serve men such as us. Quit your blubbering.
Jew2: He is sad because he has lost his love.
Nazi: AAAH. Love. What a terrible mistake is love. Your woman is probably off procreating with some man, I would not worry about that too much, Jew, you have other things to be tending to; life is miserable and we are here to help you through this misery. We will see that you’re life is no longer a waste. Look Jew, I will tell you something. Do you see that woman Jew over there? Why do you not go there and copulate with her? She is as good as any other right?

The three look over at the raggedly ugly woman stumbling into the scene.

Jew1: oh but my lovely is mine. I miss her, how can I imagine being with someone who is not my lovely?
Nazi: She is only your lovely in the past. Not anymore. Love is fleeting and only a result of your will-to-life as father Schopenhauer teaches. It is not up to you who you love. You only claim to love this woman of yours because in your subconscious mind you believe you will breed better Jews from her. Let me tell you, one Jew is as good as another.
Jew1: Oh no sir that isn’t true! I know this might seem strange to you, but we are meant for one another. I just know I will see my darling dearest again. I can see us out on the balcony of our home, which does not exist anymore, just dancing.

Jew1 gets up again and grabs the Nazi officer in a daydream like trance and begins singing and dancing with him.

Jew1: Heaven, I’m in Heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak, and I seem to find the happiness I seek, when we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.

Once again loud shouts from the tent and a barrage of eaten turkey leg bones, plates, forks, knives come flying towards the three individuals. The Nazi soldier composes himself and pushes jew1 away; trying to play off the fact that he was dancing voluntarily.

Nazi: You are crazy.
Jew2: That’s what I’ve been telling him for months now!
Nazi: Shut up! Your opinion doesn’t matter.
Jew2: I apologize. I am simply agreeing with everything you say. This is a world in which human life must be some kind of mistake; this is sufficiently proved by the simple observation that man is a compound of needs which are hard to satisfy; that their satisfaction achieves nothing but a painless condition in which he is only given over to boredom; and that boredom is a direct proof that existence is in itself valueless, for boredom is nothing other than the sensation of the emptiness of existence.[1]
Nazi: I am glad you have read father Schopenhauer. It is too bad you are only a Jew.
Jew2: yes. It is too bad.
Jew1: Wait! You haven’t helped me with my broken heart at all!
Nazi: As our father would conclude “That our Existence itself implies guilt is proved by the fact of death.”
Jew1: What does that mean? And how does that help my broken heart.
Jew2: OOH. Show him show him good sir!

Nazi systematically takes out his side arm and shoots Jew1 three times in the chest. Jew2 claps and says:

Jew2: yes he is no longer guilty. Good day to you Sir.

Nazi summarily shoots Jew2.

As Nazi holsters his sidearm and walks away Jew1 miraculously stands up and begins singing to his beloved.

Jew1: Night and day, you are the one; Only you beneath the moon or under the sun; Whether near to me, or far it’s no matter darling where you are I think of you day and night.

Once again pots, pans, knives, food, drink, even a stuffed animal comes flying at the Jew, and everyone yells together: SHUT UP!

[1] Schopenhauer, Arthur. On the Vanity of Existence. Essays and Aphorisms. s.l. : Penguin Group.

Integration of Music and Movies

Today, movies and music go hand in hand, and it seems hard to imagine a time when movies had no sound; in fact, even from the very outset of images on screen music was played alongside them. Throughout the 20th century many possibilities have been attempted in regards to the integration of movies and music. These attempts usually became the conventionalities we see today, such as the cliché on screen of playing a slow sad musical composition with a slow sad scene in a movie. Eventually it has been attempted – somewhat successfully – to juxtapose two mixed aspects of sight and sound in order to convey some mixed concepts; this is when a director has a high suspense action scene and has a slow classical composition as the background music, and many times this contrast can effectively – if in a bromidic fashion – emphasis the event occurring on screen.

These attempts at using images and music can, if done correctly, result in magnificently portrayed abstract concepts. However, in almost every instance a movie director has a certain task – such as to project love – and merely uses love songs along with the story of Romeo and Juliet; when this happens all the director has accomplished is a simple bromidic surface level concrete of this complex abstract idea, and no one is left understanding what love really means or where it comes from. The combination of images and sound are capable of portraying much deeper concepts. Unfortunately, this has not been attempted properly very often; however, there are three movies where they have been: Immortal Beloved by Bernard Rose, Copying Beethoven by Agneszka Holland, and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus by Milos Forman.

The first of these Immortal takes place primarily in the form of an inquisitive search. Beginning with Beethoven’s death, a letter is found; Beethoven’s last will and testament, which he names a new heir to his estates and it’s not his brother, but his immortal beloved. The letter sends one of Beethoven’s most faithful servants – Schindler – on a journey into Beethoven’s past. He discovers a troubling man. It is a story that delves into the making of a musical genius; it’s theme: the effects music has upon our emotions and what it can do to their creator.

The next movie Copying Beethoven covers a much smaller time span in Beethoven’s life; mainly the composing and debut of his 9th symphony. A female musical copyist is sent to help Beethoven finish his composition before the appearance in four days. The story is more about the copyist’s revelations through the genius of Beethoven.

Lastly, Amadeus is a movie that takes place in the story telling of the movies main character – the court composer Antonio Salieri. When Salieri discovers the musical brilliance he has always admired is wasted on a childish jokester like Mozart; he begins to plot for Mozart’s demise. Through a series of failures and successes Salieri is finally triumphant in defeating Mozart, but it has cost them both a great deal.

These three movies depict music in three distinctive manners. Immortal uses carefully selected images to convey the mood Beethoven was trying to impose. In Copying, they merely use the reactions of audience members to show the mood. Amadeus shows only what the two main characters feel as a result of their music. Amadeus is different than the other two because it is naturalistic to a much higher degree; the movies main goal is to enumerate the steps and consequences of a sadistic man’s jealous nature about his own inferiority. What makes the movie to be a mere surface level naturalist movie is the fact that it takes humans as readymade, and it presupposes people as being jealous without showing where it comes from or what causes a person to become so jealous.

Movies have an uncanny ability to express concepts to us using one of our most important perceptual senses; sight: it also can use our sense of hearing as a clear awareness of the mood the movie is giving us. To combine the two – sight and sound – is of profound importance that has not been properly accomplished. This is due to the fact that as far as our precepts go in music we have not discovered an objective manner in deciphering and understanding the meaning of sounds in regards to our subconscious mind.

Most movies, especially today, show a very crude understanding of music and what it is able to achieve. An example is a recent movie: The Soloist by Joe Wright. During an important scene wherein one of the main characters – Nathaniel Ayers played by Jamie Foxx – is taken to a private rehearsal of a local orchestra and is overcome by the music he loves so much. Mr. Wright has assumed the very worst in regards to music and our subconscious. The way in which music is ‘shown’ in this movie is by random colors thrown on screen in a Stan Brakhage manner. This displays the director’s vision of music; which is mystical, other-worldly and unknowable.

Art is a selective re-creation based on an artist’s view. In The Soloist the director has chosen to elucidate his ideals as to the epistemology behind music using random shapes and colors; in essence, he claims that music can only give the emotional equivalent of an annoying pin prick, but he doesn’t understand that music is capable of much more.

The most unfulfilled potential in art lies with movies. Since movies are a visual art, but don’t merely give one image but thousands of images over a certain span of time, they have the ability of communicating what an artist painting a series of paintings could never dream of doing. The movie has only one master and term-setter which is its literary aspect; this means literature is what provides the metaphysical element that enables the pictures on screen to become a concretization of an abstract view of human beings. When the literary aspect is removed from film it is simply a vaudeville or circus. Music has always been an incidental accompaniment to movies.

The most unique of the arts is music. This particular art form works backwards in regard to a human’s interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious. All other arts create a physical object such as a book or a painting, which then carries the person’s perceptual grasp upon the object to a conceptual grasp.[1] As Rand put it, the pattern is:

From perception – to conceptual understanding – to appraisal – to emotion… In
music it is perception – to emotion – to appraisal – to conceptual
understanding. (emphasis mine)

When listening to a piece of music it can seem very similar to dreaming. Ostensibly random images pop in the listeners mind, but these images are not exactly random since the abstract emotion is carefully selected by the composer. The power of music is to use the vibrations from sonorous bodies to bring about a particular feeling of a certain abstraction. For example, a musical composition cannot show you what piousness looks like – as in the Bellini painting St. Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy – but it can give you the feeling; it can’t show you what it is like to stand in front of your beloved after returning from war, but it can give you the feeling. With music’s ability to reach straight into your subconscious emotions and then allow your mind to perform the concretization process the possibilities for music is as of yet almost completely unknown.

In particular scenes throughout the three movies – Immortal Beloved, Copying Beethoven, and Amadeus- each director gives specific examples of what they believe music’s capabilities are, and of the three only Immortal comes close to any particular truth in this manner.

In Amadeus music is shown mainly through its effects upon the two main characters, which incidentally somewhat coincides with the plot-theme: The jealous Salieri’s destructive attempts to destroy Mozart. Also, the movies theme is the inspiration of genius, and what effects this has on inferiors. The movie fails artistically to convey where that inspiration comes from; and it also fails to properly use music to express the abstraction of jealousy. This is due to the naturalistic approach of the story. When we see a scene which has Mozart or Salieri conducting, the movie concentrates upon what it is doing to the composer, and sometimes a few audience members. This is presupposing the antecedent event; in other words, the movie’s director expects the viewer to simply enjoy the same emotions as the composer, which almost negates the effect the music might have.

Copying Beethoven is guilty of the same laziness as Amadeus. The director expects the viewer to garner a sense of what he wishes to convey as the concrete, but he does not want to do the work himself, he is like a child beating on pots and pans in his parent’s kitchen expecting beautiful meanings to emerge. Both directors are succeeding in producing very rudimentary concepts in regards to the abstract feeling or idea they want to allow the audience to understand. Immortal goes a little further in both the explanation of music and its subsequent portrayal of it throughout the movie.

In one of the scenes that sets Immortal apart in regards to understanding music, and being a bit more of a romantic story, is the scene when Herr Schindler – the character going on the journey to discover who Beethoven’s immortal beloved is – tells the story of how he met Beethoven: Schindler is listening to two virtuoso’s rehearse the new Beethoven Sonata, Beethoven enters and loudly starts talking to Schindler – Beethoven is mostly deaf by this point – and he explains his understanding of music

Music is a dreadful thing. What is it? What does it do..? If you hear a marching
band; you march. If you hear a mass you take communion. It is the power of music
to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no
choice, it is like hypnotism… So now, what was in my mind when I wrote this? A
man is trying to reach his lover, his carriage has broken down in the rain;
wheels are stuck in the mud, she will only wait so long. This is the sound of
his agitation.

What sets this movie apart in regard to understanding music is the image shown during this sequence. As Schindler listens to Beethoven’s Sonata an image comes to the screen of an incident that has happened in Beethoven’s mind that inspired the Sonata, and the image is of Beethoven struggling in a dark, muddy, insolent forest; rain dousing him, his muscles strained to the extreme trying to push this carriage back onto the road so he may reach his beloved. It is important to note when listening to this Sonata that nobody else will be imposed by this particular image of Beethoven pushing a carriage in the rain – the listener will only get the feeling the composer had at that time.

As an attest to Beethoven’s greatness many movies have used his 9th symphony in their musical score. However, the two movies, Immortal and Copying both sought to demonstrate what the cause and effect of this piece has on our subconscious emotions. In Copying the director illuminates his surface level approach with regards to musical capabilities. As Beethoven is conducting the concert the camera holds on the intense emotions of Beethoven, his copyist and Karl (his nephew); among a few other audience members. By holding the camera on those three individuals it is left unsaid how and why they are feeling such emotions. Immortal does a much more succinct job with this same concert. As the concert begins we are shown an image of a young Beethoven after just having been abused by his father; he is running away to the sound of The Ode to Joy. As the boy reaches a pond the music is approaching its climax. The boy takes his shirt off and lays half naked in the dark black pond reflecting the starry night sky above. The camera has a bird’s eye view of the boy; then it begins to pull back with the increasing intensity of the music, and as it pulls back the boy looks as if he is laying among the stars, which concretizes in one image the feeling of heroics and the feeling of being among the gods that Beethoven was trying to demonstrate.

This image is a great example of what a proper marriage of sight and sound in motion can be capable of in art. These two mediums, together, have the ability to more succinctly concretize certain philosophical abstractions in our minds. It is not enough to merely juxtapose music to an image and randomly hope people will grasp the full meaning of the idea being attempted. It is unfortunate that psychologically we have not intoned the meaning of sounds epistemologically. And, there is still room for much improvement in this art. If one were able to fully integrate abstract ideas in both sight and sound, through a story, an artist could reach a level of the human psyche rarely ever touched. Understanding the basic principles of a human’s ability to form concepts could inevitably bring about new forms of meaning in images and sounds on screen. It would take a genius psychologist, magnificent composer and brilliant philosopher all in one to formulate a brand new way of integrating sounds to images. This would bring about new possibilities in all of the arts, and would make possible grand achievement in other areas of human endeavors. This form of integration could bring about an entirely new artistic era and usher humans back to the knowledge of their own benevolent greatness.



[1] Rand, Ayn. Art and Cognition. The Romantic Manifesto. New York : New American Library, 1971

Epicurus Dilemma Dialogue

An old woman Helena Piraska kneels in a garden, meticulously working the various flowers of a grand garden. She carefully holds a beautiful Acacia Rose flower in one hand, and carefully prunes the petals around it; with the same loving care she pulls out a spray bottle and gently sprays the flower, breathing life into life. At that moment George Boswell comes out of the large estate Helena is working at and walks to his car; grumbling to himself.

George Boswell: Helena! You’re still here, there’s no need; the garden looks fine.
Helena Piraska: Yes sir, I am almost done here.

George walks over to his car and before getting in turns to the old woman.

GB: Helena, may I ask you a question?
HP: What is it?
GB: How are you always so happy, honestly, I do not pay you that well.
HP: You pay me for the job I do, and I thank you for that.
GB: How can you be so happy from the little I give you?
HP: You do not give me anything, I earn it, it is not a gift, but I procure it for my services: I earn it.
GB: Ok. Ok. You earn it, true enough. How can you be so happy to live off of so much?
HP: I get what I need from you.
GB: Why do you keep evading my question?
HP: Honestly, sir, I don’t think you would understand.
GB: I think now I want to be more open to listening, things aren’t going to great.
HP: What has happened?
GB: I just lost an enormous deal that would have put me on the map; I mean really put me above the rest of those hacks. I could have been one of the top 50 richest men in America. But not anymore, who knows what will happen now.
HP: Are you going to lose all of your money?
GB: Good god no! I’ll be fine. I have enough to last the rest of my life in luxury. It just doesn’t seem to be enough. I break down corporations and sell them off piecemeal; but sometimes I feel as if I’m doing it unscrupulously, and I don’t like how I earn my money anymore. Still, I know I want money, I want to have money and I never seemed good at producing anything, only destruction. I feel lost if I can’t be up there with the big boys. So, I guess I’m just curious how someone can live off of the amount that I give them? And, at the same time seem so happy!
HP: it’s easy really. I just don’t have the same values as you do Mr. Boswell.
GB: What do you mean; values? What do you value?
HP: Well, I would prefer working on my relationship with my husband rather than on a huge multi-million dollar deal. That type of value.
GB: Oh, so you enjoy the simple pleasures.
HP: If you wish to call them simple.
GB: What would you call them?
HP: Just about as extravagant as your values sir. I follow a certain philosophy, Epicureanism, or rational hedonism as some might call it.
GB: Now you’re speaking more my language. If you are such a hedonist how can you be content working in a garden for nickels? I’m a hedonist.
HP: Maybe, but are you living rationally is the real question?
GB: I enjoy pleasures, and I understand that they are the first good and that they are natural to us. This is what Epicurus said.
HP: Yes he did, but I think you should finish his statement. “For this very reason we do not choose every pleasure, but sometimes we pass over many pleasures, when greater discomfort accrues to us as the result of them: and similarly we think many pains better than pleasures, since a greater pleasure comes to us when we have endured pains for a long time. Every pleasure then because of its natural kinship to us is good, yet not every pleasure is to be chosen: even as every pain also is an evil, yet not all are always of a nature to be avoided. Yet by a scale of comparison and by the consideration of advantages and disadvantages we must form our judgment on all these matters…”
GB: What does that mean?
HP: Be rational.
GB: ugh, I must have skipped that class-
HP: What?
GB: Nothing! Can you explain that a bit for me please?
HP: Sure, it means that you must rationally choose what pleasures are best suited for you. Not all pleasure is the best, and you also much choose the pains which you need to survive and which are best suited to endure; not all pains are worth having. For example, you are in good shape; would you advocate eating 3 cartons of chocolate ice cream if you wanted to stay in good shape?
GB: Of course not. That would make me sick.
HP: That is a rational choice, and you should avoid those types of extremes. There are certain pains you must endure, for example; the pain it takes when you are working out in order to stay in shape. You, however, would not want to lift weights all day every day, or to try and lift 600 lbs when you know you are only capable of 250.
GB: yes, true.
HP: Well this is what it means to be a true Epicurean. I choose the values which are best suited to enhance my life, which I think are quite universal in many manners.
GB: Such as your husband?
HP: Exactly, I never eat alone. Tonight we are having friends over, I am working hard now so I may get done with work and go to the grocery store to buy a nice bottle of Pinot Noir, this I will gladly share with those who truly understand me in this world; people who do not need to be fooled by fancy clothes or nice cars, but who truly understand who I am and what I mean in this world. That is a value that you cannot buy Mr. Boswell.
GB: I can see the value in that. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had good company over. I think this conversation is the best I’ve had for quite a while. You know, when I started in college I was a bright eyed wannabe philosopher. Now I realize the practical.
HP: Have you received just compensation?
GB: No, I suppose I haven’t. Honestly, I don’t ever feel very happy. There was one time I felt happy.
HP: When was that sir?
GB: My freshman year, I met a grad student who was emphasizing in Aristotle. He told me a little bit about the great organizer, but there was one thing I really wanted to understand more. He showed me the theory of Aristotle’s subsequent metaphysics on the immovable movers. I believed they were supposed to be the giants of industry in today’s terms, but now I realize they are that and much more. I would really like to speak to that grad student again. I think his name was Andrew Ryan. I only met him the one time, but based off of that encounter he showed me what he believed were Aristotle’s intention. I suppose I really didn’t study it enough and took upon myself the wrong premises. All I can remember now is the mere fact that Aristotle could come up with and organize into theory and practice so much that this grad student thousands of years later was going to major in him. I knew there was no way anyone would ever major in me, I couldn’t even understand his very succinct explanation of the immovable mover. How was I to change the ideas of the world? I knew I would never be great enough to achieve such things, but I could go down a line my father did. He was a businessman, so I felt I could be one too.
HP: Why don’t you change your path and continue where you were?
GB: Bah, it’s too late now Helena. I’m a businessman, or I should say I destroy businessmen…
HP: I think, before I go, I will let you in on one of the major acquisitions Epicureans teach, which is thought.
GB: Yes, I’d like to hear about that.
HP: Epicurus was determined to ensure he and his friends would analyze all things involved in their lives; whether concerning death, money, illness etc. He believed firmly that upon rational thought a person would come to the proper conclusions about money. It isn’t bad to have money, it is just important to also have friends in order to experience life with. You can’t experience life with just your money Mr. Boswell.
GB: I know.
HP: Well I hope you will think on this: “The wealth demanded by nature is both limited and easily procured; that demanded by idle imaginings stretches on to infinity.”
GB: I don’t understand.
HP: It will take some thought, Mr. Boswell.
GB: Ok. I will think about what you said and I’ll be back! (To himself) To think, I have my own philosopher in my backyard.
GB (CONT): Oh by the way, take this; I want you to buy a nice bottle of Pinot Noir for you and your friends on me.
HP: I do not accept alms.
GB: It is not alms Helena. It is payment for my first philosophy lesson.

Bad Science and Green Crazyness Isn't New

So, which is it; Global Cooling, Global Warming or Global Temperature Change?

Apparently, it is all three. In the 70's there was a huge uproar of what we should be doing to prevent the global cooling. Of course, we haven't cooled down, but we have obviously warmed up. Until, that is, the evidence that our whole world was warming up went away and now we are supposed to call it climate change. That seems quite ridiculous. Doesn't the global climate change constantly? Through the day, week, month, millenia? Of course it does, and history including very good science can even show us some of the changes, such as The medieval warming, the little ice age etc. Today we are worried about a temperature change not because anyone really cares what will happen to other people (the real damage will occur when they destroy technology), but because they wish to utilize the fear of average American's in order to take control over our lives. People are much more willing to give up certain liberties if they are convinced their lives and their families lives are at stake.

If you are unsure of my reasoning, below is a link to an article written in 1974 in TIME magazine. I want you to keep in mind that this is 1974 not 2009 and you will realize that the garbage we are being fed today is the same garbage they've been feeding us for over 30 years.

Time Magazine (1974): "Another Ice Age?"