A light in-depth discussion that takes us away from guns.

[mpresn1 <mpresn1@moscow.com>]

I've been reading a book called Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.  I
came to a particular section about 150 pages ago that has stuck with me
ever since.  I thought I'd put the passage before you all to see if any
of you had any comment.

"Ruby said there were many songs that you could not say anybody in
particular made by himself.  A song went around from fiddler to fiddler
and each one added something and took something away so that in time the
song became a different thing from what it had been, barely recognizable
to either tune or lyric.  But you could not say the song had been
improved, for as was true of all human effort, there was never
advancement.  Everything added meant something lost, and about as often
as not the thing lost was preferable to the thing gained, so that over
time we'd be lucky if we just broke even."