A Suggestion for Python Colon Syntax

[Alex Martelli]

"Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com> wrote in message
news:mailman.977974330.23639.python-list at python.org...
    [snip]
> despite not understanding much.  Thoreau went on to make that principle
the
> basis of his form of poetry:

Isn't Thoreau's poetry a rather minor part of his writings, despite
his beautiful "if men read aright, methinks they would never read
anything but poems" ... "after all, man is the great poet, and not
Homer nor Shakespeare; and our language itself, and the common arts
of life, are his work"?  I always think of him mainly as a thinker,
and writer of essays, rather than a poet.

In a way, I think it's thus fortunate that the following snippet:

> # Local Variables:
> # py-indent-offset: 8
> # End:
> # My Captain:  Oh, My Captain!

if, as you say, it was Thoreau's, ended up inspiring one Walt
Whitman instead.  Lincoln well deserved such a memorial, after
all, and, as a versifier, I think Whitman had it all over
Thoreau (which rather appreciated his poems, isn't it?).


Alex