It is at times of coming failure that we find the worst time to actually learn about a movement, a person, an event. Having lived their entire allocated time assuming a future and with a firm grip on the past, attached to values and dancing them through practicalities, sometimes seduced by more base values, this is normal life - when their ability to sustain themselves becomes scarce, they withdraw and simplify, towards their core values. They may move towards ideals, or may discard them if they don't fit their core values in those times of stress. At some point, if impending doom is sensed and feels inevitable, you find out who they really arn't -- they grow angel wings or devil horns, if you'll allow the metaphor - giving up on their own ends they merge into other movements or aid them, or they act out of spite and destroy what they can to express their pain. Sometimes they do both. You might think you could tell by knowing how much they identify their end's preventability with those around them, but you really couldn't. One thing almost none of them do is nothing - apart from the most soulless of groups, there is the tendency under some form or analogy of bankruptcy to do somethting. Ego, perhaps..

Left work too late to go to Rabbi Miller's presentation at the JCC. Phooey.