And you could fill a public library with Jeremy Rifkin's lamentations over cloning, biotechnology and Holstein cows that give too much milk.

FORBES: The Upside Of Optimism

This would be followed by sage lamentations about how a "Christianist" military had indicted a patriotic Muslim-American simply for having religious scruples about the justice of our wars.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Major Hasan: the counterlife

Yesterday was a dark day for gaming, as evidenced by the internet being flooded with lamentations of how the last great white hope of games has succumbed to the dark side.

FORBES: The Day DLC Went Too Far

Regular lamentations over new evidence that the system isn't working are met with stern demands from professional educators that the real issue be faced, namely the need to spend more money, mostly on them.

FORBES: Are We Spending Too Much On Education?

Those lamentations could provide comfort to Fed officials worried about deflation, since it appears that inflationary expectations are alive and well despite the fact that inflation has been virtually non-existent for the last couple of years.

FORBES: Currency Debasement Is A Beggar's Banquet

Nor are the lamentations universal.

ECONOMIST: The end of the road for London's most famous bus

Just as the theological essays avoid predictable lamentations over the West's abandonment of God (at one point Kolakowski almost welcomed secularization on the ground that it might free the church to be what it is rather than what it thinks the world wants it to be), so in the book's final section, a diverse collection of 11 essays, Kolakowski's writing constantly upends expectations.

WSJ: Book Review: Is God Happy?

If the reader is looking for a change of pace, it can always be found, shifting from the psalms, to the apocalyptic visions of Daniel, the spiritual journey of Job, the pithy proverbs, the novella of Joseph and his brothers, the diverse prophecies, lamentations, the farcical Esther, the Song of Songs, the (quite different) Song of Deborah, the tales of Samson, et cetera, etc.

FORBES: In the Christian Bible, What Is the Superior Read in Terms of Story Quality -- the Old or the New Testament?