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Taxology?

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If you are a taxologist, or even if you are not
then this will appeal to your sense of injustice.
Do not forget to do your research first…..read the story below.

Before Coco makes any, as perhaps some would interpret it, apositive comments, do not think that Coco is not unaware that languages change in their construction, grammar and syntax, and that words change their meaning, a phenomena to which many of the so-called false cousins of the European languages will be very willing to attest. So his comments may be understood to be quite miserable, but they are certainly, Coco says with not with unalloyed hope, but not hype, not intended to be misérable. For this reason it is very important that we have a proper understanding of words and their use, it is for this reason that every one of us carries within him a taxonomy by which we classify words so that we know which set of words are appropriate at any particular time. Parts of our taxonomic classification, if that is not a tautological repetition of the same conceptual idea, will indicate to us that certain classes of words are appropriate in one circumstance; for example, language may not be used in the discussions that take place in the nursery between a mother and her child, which would not be out of place in the context of seeking a negotiated settlement of certain difficulties which may have arisen as a consequence of a perceived, or perhaps even putative, breach of contract, even though the purpose of the use of the language in both cases is propitiatory, which is to say that in its intention it seeks to bring about the reconciliation of two estranged parties.

So to come to the point of my post, if it were not for its progeny Coco would not have believed it possible for this to have been suggested by R*****s. Now although Webster’s is not his favourite dictionary, it behoves Coco to avoid, or should that be evade, perhaps even eschew the use of a British dictionary in this context, and Coco does happen to have a copy of an authorised British printing of the 1924 edition, which rather helpfully warns him that should it be found in his possession after emigrating to Australia it will be liable to confiscation.

Turning to page 2118 in the second volume we find in the footnotes this entry

The main entry on the following page then provides a clear definition of the word under discussion.

Coco is not entirely sure how well the photographs will turn out here, so here is a transcription for the two root words:

tax-ol´o-gy (tăk-sŏl´ṓ-jĭ),n. [Gr. τάξις arrangement + -logy.] Taxonomy.

tax-on´o-my ({tăk-sŏn´ṓ}-mĭ), n. [Gr. τάξις arrangement, order + νομος a law.] Classification; esp., classification of animals and plants according to their natural relationships; also, the laws and principles of such classification.

The meanings of the derived terms; taxonomist, taxonomic, taxonomical, taxonomically, and those derived from the synonym taxology, need no further explanation.

Coco will draw no conclusion, but rather leave the reader to draw his own.

By the way Coco too is a taxologist in the way that he thinks about and understands tax, but his taxological understanding and methods do not end there. The use of taxology is important in our approach to many different aspects of knowledge without which we would remain in extreme ignorance of the world around us. So, taxology is important to us in our understanding of who God is, the universe, life and everything. Of course, taxology is not itself a substitute for these things. It merely provides a framework for us within which we may build our understanding and hope to build up our understanding of these things.

The Story

{A} monumental discovery became evident after plenty of sleuthing. A senior director of marketing for the corporate business, and her team recruited countless players: leaders across the industry, numerous accounting firms, and even the IRS. Persona work cut through a jungle of questions. Suddenly the uncertainty dissipated. What remained was a clear gap in the market…and the team seized upon this opportunity to address the need for a personality.

We fill that gap as the industry’s trusted partner in tax technology. {The} team knew it was time to take ownership of our prestigious status and create a campaign with which the customers identified.

And the Taxologist was born.

Taxologist noun [taks-ol-uh-jist]: a tax professional that excels in the use of technology to maximize tax function effectiveness.

How does one identify this breed of professional? It’s simple, really: they are typically tax managers or directors, engineers of change that operate as a driving force for new tax technology. By challenging the status quo of the tax department, they have moved away from Excel and toward total management of their professional skillsets using the utmost technological efficiency.

The big word in the Taxologist campaign is {Taxological}. {Taxology} transforms today’s tax professionals into Taxologists. It empowers them – which, as eye-opening persona work reveals, is important for this customer.

“[The campaign] has a personal feel to it. [The customers] are unique characters,” A said.

Her team’s extensive persona work greatly shaped the Taxologist campaign. By analyzing the buyers’ behavio[u]rs(sic!) and psychology, they gained eye-opening results that helped them better anticipate the content they desire to see and better understand their current situation. The team learned that these customers sometimes don’t hear enough accolades though they’re essential operators of tax processes. They often work as behind-the-scenes players in the company, but their work is crucial to their business. The Taxologist campaign is a personal way to reward them and make them feel special. Now we’re speaking their language.

{Taxology} noun [wuhn-sohrs]: the art, science, and skill of combining tax with technology to gain efficiency across the tax lifecycle. It transforms today’s tax professionals into Taxologists.

Taxology is the tool that fills the gap in the industry for a tax technology leader. The Taxologist campaign is what we’ve crafted to get the customers excited about the technology they utilize and their pivotal roles in the industry. With this identity, they can feel confident about the change they’re enacting. It is okay to embrace technology and we are their partner in that.

The Taxologist campaign will invade and conquer using a broad range of materials. Currently….

Advertising campaign by {name redacted} media group

Names have been redacted both to protect the innocent and to not promote the advertising further.

Transport?

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If you are a tube enthusiast, or even if you are not:

Scene 1

If you enjoy travelling on the tube, but especially if you do not read on….

It had been a long and a wearying day, All the particles were feeling quite low and certainly less energetic than usual. A bunch of electrons arrived on the platform at pretty much the same time as a bunch of photons, so the platform was quite full. The train pulled in. There seemed to be plenty of room. True there were some rather large neutrons and several terribly attractive protons, but not so many that they should have been the cause of a problem.

The doors opened. The electrons stood, as only electrons could, looking at each other in that inimitably negative way in astonishment. Perplexed, they listened again: Will all particles use all available doors!

The train started to move. They watched as the train departed with all photons safely on board.

Scene 2

More photons descended to the platform to join our beleaguered electrons. Shortly, a second train, which was rather more crowded than the first arrived.

The announcer blared out his instructions: Please move down the carriages, and will particles please use all available space!

Our poor friends, for we are beginning to get to know them quite well now, were no less confused by this message than by the first. How? How could they? Those rather large neutrons could make a pretty good attempt at it, but we? How can we do that.

The train pulled away. The electrons watched in dismay as the train departed with all photons safely on board.

Scene 3

Niels Bohr descended to the platform to join our now very excited and quite heated electrons. Shortly, a third train, which was completely packed arrived.

The announcer blared out his instructions: Please allow particles off the train before boarding! Use all available doors and move down the carriages using all available space!

Niels, noticing the excitement of our poor friends and their seeming inability to do anything other than race around the platform at high speed, suggested that they might like to get into the carriage. This so incensed the electrons that they collided with each other with immense energy causing the utmost chaos on the platform.

Fearing for the safety of the other particles the announcer ordered the driver to close the doors and pull the train away without delay. Niels smiled as the electrons now calming down watched the walls of the tunnel passing by the windows.

As Presidents

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From The Times correspondent

This post has been obtained from an external source which does not permit its pages to be embedded here (at least Coco has not successfully found a way to do it), it has been necessary to take a suitably edited version of the original page to embed here. As a consequence updates made by the writer may not appear here. If you find anything that is different in a significant manner, please notify Coco using the comments section below. Thank you.

Freedom

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What is freedom?

Is this freedom?

Free to go

“Apologies, but yes, you are free to go.” barked the sergeant from behind the almost closed door, whose covering of paint did nothing to hide the rich golden orange varnish which had at the first been applied to its timber and thus betrayed the not so humble origins of the previous inhabitants of the house.

“Ah! those words! ‘You are free to go.'” They echoed briefly in the large, otherwise empty, room, and hung for a moment high in the air. Then came the devastating, crushing silence once more.

“But where shall I go?”

After twenty seven years and 198 days and seven hours and fifty minutes in Trudovoy Lager #3, Alexis Vertinskya had lost all sense of what it was proper to do in the place to which he was now free to go. Forty three of those latest minutes had been spent on the other side of the door from the sergeant waiting for an answer to his question, whether then, after he had served in full the sentence that had been handed down to him, it might be considered possible, just possible you must understand, that they might be considering when he may be allowed to leave.

He walked slowly along what he remembered as a once cobbled road, but which now was strangely covered in a thin layer of poor quality tar scarcely disguising the rough stones which lay beneath. After 24 paces, exactly 22.5 metres – he had spent much of his time perfecting the techniques of measurement, the carefully measured step mixed with counting to subdivide each pace into pacim (‘1 pace = 10 pacim’ he whispered to himself as if he might have forgotten it) in the Lager #3. He knew how long each corridor was, the dimensions of each room, the width of each gallery, and even where the hidden doors were, whose presence could not be detected except by inference from putting together in his mind a plan of the whole building. He had confirmed the presence of three of these doors to himself, two more remained undetected, but he knew where to look – and now exactly 22.5 metres down the lane he turned around. The open door beckoned to him…

Travel?

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If you are a train enthusiast, this is not for you.

Canada

If you enjoy good dining and a quiet holiday read on….

On this trip we learned two new things:

  • Chocolate is cheaper than therapy, and does not require an appointment.
  • Chocolate is the answer, whatever the question.
  • Las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso.

If you have ever thought about travel across Canada, then VIARail is the answer to your problem. Forget about Rocky Mountaineer, they throw you off the train when it gets dark. VIARail is the real rail experience. The train is everything. At almost three furlongs – two engines and 22 cars – it is only surpassed by the goods trains which share the sames lines on their journeys from Vancouver to Toronto – or, if you wish to leave the mountains till last, Toronto to Vancouver.

The stops are frequent, but not too long, so don’t stray too far from the train if you really must get off.

But who needs stops – the views are superb, whether it is of the north Ontario woodlands, the endless prairies, the Albertan forests or the mountains of British Columbia. The changing flora and fauna on the journey provide much interest for the traveller, but even the least interested in matters of the train will be absorbed by the magnificent variety of goods vehicles which form part of the great strings of goods trains – often well over a hundred cars. This traveller counted one hundred seven and fifty on one such string.

Whilst on board you will have a personal steward who is responsible for the well being of all travellers in his or her car. As for accomodation, you may have a private room, a suite, couchette or for the real enthusiast on a very tight budget join in the fun of economy. If you are in other than economy then you have the benefit of a private dining car – meet new people – or not as your preference may be. Three very hearty Canadian meals are provided each day, with the timing of sittings not unexpectedly dependent upon station stops! Train travellers will understand.

So in the words so beloved of the UK train industry – let the train take the strain!

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Where do you go when not in London?

My favourite curry house is in Crane Court, but where do you go when you are not in the City of London? That was the question that faced us when we were in that town which has apparently not yet made peace with Russia¹. The answer came from a friendly church pastor in Wooler: The Magna Tandoori, Berwick. And so we went. “Hmmm”, I thought as we walked in, “this might have been a mistake. There are no white tablecloths on the tables….ah well! beggars can’t be choosers and no one else had had a recommendation. “

We had been welcomed well enough and shown to a table in a good position. But now not expecting the best I sat down with my friends. Next problem – no popadoms. I was used to these delicasies simply appearing on the table, but here we had to ask for them.

But that is when it all turned around. The lack of tablecloths was made up for by the extensive menu – all of the old favourites and where else will you find duck and venison on a curry menu. Well, that had to be tried, and together with king prawns and other dishes, a variety of different rices and peshwari naan we all feasted away rounding the meal off with a little desert – the lemon sorbet is recommended and complimentary coffees on the sofas.

It was only then that I noticed how quiet it had been. All too often a place without table cloths is far too loud, either because the hifi had had its day and the volume control is jammed at the top or through the lack of furnishings to absorb sound. The quietness was not disturbing, but really added to the atmosphere. I could almost think that there was some music playing, but if so it was just there in the background not being intrusive so we could enjoy talking together without having to shout or strain to listen.

Excellent evening all round!

One word of warning, take a couple of teenage lads with you to help out with the food. This is not skimpy nouvelle cuisine. The helpings are generous.

O! Angelina

Returning to chocolate, we must not forget the establishment just across le rue de Rivoli from le jardin des Tuileries. Leave by l’allée de Castiglione, turn right and it is a less than a few hundred yards down on the other side of the road. A booking is essential if you do not want a long wait, but a long wait is worth its weight in chocolate. There are other branches of this establishment, to which ingression is somewhat easier if you pick the right day.
But Angelina by the Tuileries must be the foremost chocolate house in Paris. If you have nothing else but time for the Louvre, well they have one inside, but skip lunch and visit Angelina.

There are other versions of the story, but why refute a good story with too many contrary facts.

¹We are not at war with Russia, but according to some sources since Berwick had changed hands several times, it was traditionally regarded as a special, separate entity, and some proclamations referred to “England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed”. One such was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853, which Queen Victoria supposedly signed as “Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions”. When the Treaty of Paris (1856) was signed to conclude the war, “Berwick-upon-Tweed” was left out. This meant that, supposedly, one of Britain’s smallest towns was officially at war with one of the world’s largest powers – and the conflict extended by the lack of a peace treaty for over a century.²

British hater?

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Ultimately the question is not going to be: Did you hate Britain?

Did you hate Jesus Christ?

You may think that that is a strange question. When you consider the life of the Lord, Jesus Christ, many people will say how could you possibly hate him? He went about doing good, teaching people, healing people, casting out their demons. Even the liberal theologians, Arians of a variety of colours, races and ethnicity, and atheists acknowledge that he was in every, or at least many, respects a remarkable person who deserves no little respect for how he conducted himself whilst he walked upon this earth in his mortal flesh.

But to show someone respect is not the same as to love them. And to hate someone does not preclude the giving of respect to them.

What then is the answer to the question?

Before going there, what was the point of asking whether someone hated Britain or not? Why did they think it mattered? Is the answer not something to do with nationalism – or as the Italians are not ashamed to call it nazionalismo – whether the answer to the question is yes or no, the very asking of the question derives from nazism. If my answer to the question Do I hate Britain? is No, then I may quite rightly be called a nationalist, that is to say a nazi. In the late twentieth and now the 21st centuries that has become an epithet which no English speaking man would want to be written on his memorial. ‘He loved his land. He was a nationalist. Era un nazi[onalista]. He was a nazi.’ But if my answer is Yes, then what? I am villified by the press as a man who has no right to live and remain in that land.

You wish to quibble with me, don’t you? To be a lover of your country is not to be a nazi. I am sorry, but it is. There is no getting away from the fact that that is what a nazi is and is what is a nazi. He loved his nation. Amava la sua nazione. Egli era un nazionalista. He was a nazi.

The point of this, is not to prove whether or not you are a Nazi, in the much more narrow and restricted sense in which the word has come to be used in the English language, but to show that ultimately the question Do you love Britian? or its counterpart Do you hate Britain? or indeed any other country, land, nation, sovereign state, federation or empire for such things are not coextensive, there are nations within federations and nations across countries, and even nations within nations, is not of such significance that it really matters, for whatever the answer to the question there will be others who will give a different answer for different reasons, though they may both enjoy the same rights, privileges, upbringing ethnicity and legal status.

So to return to the real question: Did you hate Jesus Christ?

I have already suggested that it is difficult not to give him respect and recognize his goodness, but to say that I love him? Well that is an entirely different matter indeed. But unless you love him, you do in fact hate him. Why do I say that and what evidence is there to support and prove that?

Do I love him?
How do I know?
Am I against him?
Am I for him?
What did he say?
If you love me…
Many will say to me….

Now you may dispute with me and say, but did he not himself say: he who is not against me is for me?

Finally, there is a connection between this question and the one asked in the press: do you hate Britain? The Lord said to Cæsar’s captain: Is that what you say or have others told you? My kingdom is not of this world. If it were my disciples would rise up and fight.

My kingdom is not of this world tells us that he does have a kingdom, and so the question becomes: do you hate Britain or do you hate his kingdom? A man cannot serve two masters. He cannot own allegience to two countries¹. So do you owe allegience to the kingdom of the Lord, Jesus Christ, or do you refuse him allegience and prefer one of the kingdoms of this world? If you prefer this world, you do not love him. If you prefer his kingdom then you have in the strictest sense of the word, hated this world and the kingdom into which you were born.

So then, a better eulogy for your memorial than ‘He loved his land. He was a nationalist.’ would be ‘He loved the Lord. He loved the kingdom of God. He hated Britain.’ but no-one would ever write that, would they?

The psalmist, speaking of the kingdom of God, wrote:

¹His foundation is in the holy mountains. ²The LORD loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. ³Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! ⁴’I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know me; behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: ‘This one was born there.’ ‘ ⁵And of Zion it will be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her; and the Most High himself shall establish her.’ ⁶ The LORD will record, when he registers the peoples: ‘This one was born there.’ ⁷Both the singers and the players on instruments say, ‘All my springs of joy are in you.’ Psalm 87


¹I beg to differ over the attitudes of some of the countries of the Commonwealth for it is possible to own allegience to more than one for allegience in those states is allegience to the one common head of the states not to the states themselves. Sadly holding to such a doctrine is political suicide in this so called enlightened age (a misonomer – the enlightenment is over two hundred years old) or modern (another! we are living in a post-modern (and post Christian) society. Modernism is also now a centenarian.) society.

Fools

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Did anyone watch ‘The root of all evil’?

What was it about?

Essentially it was a rant – admittedly a very calm and collected one, but a rant nevertheless – by Richard Dawkins who is supposed to be a proponent of all that is best in the scientific method. However his chief concern often appears to be to ridicule and denigrate religious people.

Did anyone watch ‘The root of all evil’? What was it about?

Essentially it was a rant – admitedly a very calm and collected one, but a rant nevertheless – by Richard Dawkins who is supposed to be a proponant of all that is best in the scientific method. However his chief concern often appears to be to riducle and denigrate religious people.

The programme looked at many examples of the worst kind of excesses that you will find among religious people. The Crusades of the Middle Ages left a bitterness in the heart of Islam towards Western Europe which is still felt today. Closer to home we have the troubles of Northern Ireland. Then you have the ethnic cleansing in the early years of the Turkish republic. Today the strife between Hindu and Muslim in India, or between Muslim and Muslim in Muslim Iraq. Not to forget to mention the continuing persecution of Christians by Hindu and Muslim fundamentalists. It also looked at some rather exotic practices, eg snake therapy!

Now it is not my purpose to defend religion against Dawkins’s attack nor to attack Dawkins – that can be left for another day – for it cannot be denied that there is some truth in his criticism. But the Bible has something to say about both sides of this divide.

Listen to what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. 2000 years ago it was a very important city, now it is less so. The nearest airport is 40 miles away.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who believe it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the scholar. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews ask for a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.¹

For us the Greek may be represented by Dawkins. His religion – and it really is one though he would hate to have to agree that it is – is faith in human reason, faith in human thought to find the answers to everything. There is bit of a contradiction here: how can you have faith in human reason? If human reason has been brought about by chance events taking place over 000s of Ms of years then is there any good reason to think that it is itself nothing other than random thinking which only has the appearance of order and rationality about it? The Greeks were full of this also. They had supreme confidence, as Dawkins does, in the ability of man.

The Jews on the other hand are the religionists. Paul is not here talking about the man in the street, but about the leaders and fundamentalists among them. He was one himself before he was converted. They are fanatic about their religion. For them there was no distinction between religion and politics after all Israel had been formed as a theocracy. Power and religion went together. It is always the same when men think that the kingdom of God is of this world. They have to impose their ideas and ways on everyone else. Islam would like to do that today – even in this country – you hear calls for Sharia law to apply and in the USA you will find some who want to try to impose the old laws which applied to the Jewish state. Dawkins is right to expose the shortcomings of this kind of religion.

But do you see what the result is? Neither the Jew nor the Greek, neither Dawkins nor the religionist, understand what God was doing in Christ.

The Jews wanted a king who would take political power and subdue the other nations. The religionists want to do that today with the resulting fallout of evil. For them a man who died on the cross was a failure – it was shameful – it was a stumbling block. How could a king allow himself to be dealt with in such a way?

The Greeks wanted a man full of wisdom and strength. Not necessarily a king, but a man who by reason and argument would demonstrate the superiority of his philosophy. Dawkins looks for that today. For him, as for the Greeks, faith is a sign of weakness. The way of death was only for the fool – let us eat drink and be merry, they say, for tomorrow we die. The cross is foolishness.

So when Dawkins looks at the cross, or when the religionists of today do so, they only see failure, folly, a stumbling block. Like the crowds around the cross they can only shout out: if he is the [Son of God]… let [God] deliver him!² They cannot see that in the death of Christ, God was dealing with the most fundamental problem of all: man’s sin.

Deal with man’s sin and you deal with every other problem. The Greeks and Dawkins of this world must come to see that it is not human reason that will solve everything, but a recognition that human reason marred by sin needs to be straightened out. For the Jews and religionists it is not the imposition of their truths on others that will solve everything, but a recognition that God in Christ on the cross was doing that by reconciling men to himself.

So what of us? Are we going to be on Dawkin’s side or the side of the religionists? There is no other choice for the man who will not come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ. Either we follow Jesus, or for us the cross will be a stumbling block, weakness or folly.

¹ 1 Corinthians 1:18-24.
² Matthew 27:40-43

Hatred or not?

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Or is this just a word used badly?

Homophobia

Homophobia: noun Latin homo – man, Greek phobos fear

This is a mule of a noun being the mixture of two languages as it is. Now there really was a time when a Greek fear of the Latin man was a sensible necessity as Rome had started to build its empire in the east. But Greece need not have feared as Rome merely assimilated Greek thought and culture for its own benefit.

In modern English usage the word has lost something of this meaning.

  • literally: man-fear, the fear of man
  • subjectively: the irrational fear that someone else hates you
  • objectively: a state of mind imputed to those whose lifestyle is inimical to your own
  • politically: an excuse for denying freedom of speech to those with whom you disagree

Cause: generally by a suppression of the fear of falling under the judgement of God, whose existence is denied, on account of the adoption of a particular lifestyle

καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ.

And fear not the ones killing the body who but the soul are not able to kill. Fear but more him being able both soul and body to destroy in hell Matthew 10:28 Copyright (c)1966, 1968, 1975, 1983 by the United Bible Societies