War All The Time

For better or worse, a considerable chunk of my life is tied to academia. For me, this Monty Python philosophy world cup soccer video is as close as anybody has ever come to an accurate portrait of it.

While Monty Phython, for dubious reasons, lets the Germans loose this one, I have always (again, for dubious reasons?) admired the following quote by Maggie Thatcher on soccer and the Germans: “You may beat us at our favorite game every time, but twice in a century we beat you, at your favorite game.”

And further on admiration: “War All The Time” is the title of a poem by Charles Bukowski, about his mailman being somewhat startled at finding the author in his garden, watering the plants. Bukowski looks up and casually remarks: “Well, as you see, it’s not war all the time…”. Somehow, that spoke to me.