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The Victorian vivisectionists coined the term “A Clockwork, Orange” from the Cockney phrase “as queer as a clockwork orange”.
They believed the screams of pain elicited from the animals they were butchering alive were no more than “mindless, automatic responses”, much as a hinge would creak upon opening a door or a stick would emit a crack when broken.

[we had a lot of “droogs” visit this thread]

Occasionally I’m ashamed to be associated with *some* FReepers.

Small wonder ‘conservatives’ are considered to be heartless.

Were I a casual, uncommitted observer of this thread, I’d wonder about them, myself.

The simple two word, monosyllabic phrase “Smash them!” tells me -everything- I’ll ever need to know about a person.
[and to also avoid them like the plague]

My book recommendations are “The Secret House” and “The Secret Garden” by David Bodanis.

An entire alien universe lies just beyond our sight.

A snippet from the inimitable William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro’ all its regions.
A dog starv’d at his master’s gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand’ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus’d breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won’t believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov’d by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov’d
Shall never be by woman lov’d.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider’s enmity.
He who torments the chafer’s sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer’s song
Poison gets from slander’s tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy’s foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist’s jealousy.