January 2012
December 2011
“We don’t go after anybody… Actually, they go after me. They’re...”
– Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, accused by the Dept. of justice of engaging in civil-rights violations against prisoners and Latinos, commenting to the Arizona Republic. Source: Dennis Wagner, “Arpaio now faces difficult options,” The Arizona Republic | azcentral.com (Dec. 17, 2011).
“America is employing a decreasing proportion of its people. At the start of the...”
– Edward Luce, “Can America regain most dynamic labour market mantle?,” Financial Times (Dec. 11, 2011).
November 2011
“Of course we’re going to riot… What do they expect when they tell us at...”
– Paul Howard, age 24, described as “an aerospace engineering student,” speaking to a reporter about the riots at Penn State University following the announcement of coach Joe Paterno’s firing. Of course! Tahrir Square, then Madison, now College Avenue, right? Source: Nate Schweber,...
“The list of cuts, achieved or proposed, on the right-wing agenda is too long to...”
– Jonathan Schell, “Cruel America,” The Nation (Sept. 28, 2011).
October 2011
“I’m often on my Blackberry worried about three things I have to do the...”
– Jason Zinoman, author of Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood and Invented Modern Horror, in an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, discussing the enduring appeal of frightening movies. Source: “Modern Horror Defined By Edgy Realism...
September 2011
“It is right to see people who consume more than they deserve shattered by a...”
– Comments by Hristo Mishkov, now known as Brother Nikanor, a former NASDAQ trader who returned to his native Bulgaria to enter a monastery. He was speaking about the 2008 financial crisis. Sources: Nick Squires, “Wall Street trader becomes a monk,” The Telegraph (October 2, 2008) and Anna...
“Decades of social-psychological research can be boiled down to one insight: if...”
– Steven Hitlin, Moral Selves, Evil Selves: The Social Psychology of Conscience (NY: Macmillan, 2008), p. 93.
August 2011
“Privacy is not something that can be counted, divided, or ‘traded.’...”
– Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Googlization of Everything: And Why We Should Worry (Berkeley: U of California P, 2011), pp. 87f. Quoted in James Gleick, “How Google Dominates Us,” The New York Review of Books 58.13 (August 18, 2011).
“S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said that the stability and...”
– Josh Boak, “S&P: Debt default skeptics fueled ratings downgrade,” Politico (Aug. 11, 2011).
“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious...”
– Barry Goldwater, “To Be Conservative,” speech in the U.S. Senate, Sept. 15, 1981 (Congressional Record 127.15, 1981, pp. 20589f., available online at The Internet Archive, or you can see the whole speech here).
“For a man, Demetrie bi name, a worcher in siluer, makide siluer housis to Diane,...”
– Acts 20:24-28. From John Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible, completed 1382. In most translations, this is Acts 19:23-28.
“He brushed his teeth. Standing upright, scrubbing the teeth as if he were...”
– Saul Bellow, “The Old System,” originally published in Playboy (January 1968), reprinted in Collected Stories (NY: Viking, 2001), pp. 90-116, here pp. 90f.
From an interview with Paul K. Chappell, U.S. Army...
[Leslee] Goodman: You’ve said that the military is a “socialist” organization. How so?
[Paul] Chappell: The military gives you three meals a day, pays for your healthcare and your college, and even pays for your housing. On an army field exercise, the highest-ranking soldiers eat last, and the lowest-ranking soldiers eat first. Leaders are supposed to sacrifice for their subordinates. In civilian...
“This time around, we are fortunately no longer at the mercy of these ghastly...”
– Hamid Dabashi, “Norway: Muslims and metaphors,” Al Jazeera English (July 31, 2011).
“Interestingly, the outrage over teachers cheating seems to be much greater than...”
– Dan Ariely, “Want to stop teachers from cheating? A history lesson from corporate America,” The Washington Post (July 18, 2011). I wish I shared his apparent optimism.
July 2011
“If the Republicans have their way, the entire burden of deficit reduction will...”
– Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “Why Americans Are So Angry,” MichaelMoore.com (July 29, 2011).
Stravinsky on music and meaning
What fascinated me in this verse was not so much the stories, which were often crude, or the pictures and metaphors, always so deliciously unexpected, as the sequence of the words and syllables, and the cadence they create, which produces an effect on one’s sensibilities very closely akin to that of music. For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything...
“Arild Groven, secretary general of the Norwegian Shooting Association, a sports...”
– Norway Shooting and Bomb Attack Leaves at Least 92 Dead - NYTimes.com
Now that we know the Norwegian killer was a...
Option one: Lots of stories asking, “Is Christianity inherently violent? Is Christianity compatible with democracy and civil society?” Option two: Lots of descriptions of the killer’s pathological tendencies, violent inclinations, and eccentric habits, showing that he was a dangerous madman from the beginning (and that he acted alone). Thanks to Russ McCutcheon and Craig...
“It would seem completely unsurprising to me that since middle-aged men have...”
– Dr. Peter Lovatt, psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire (who happens to be a dance instructor and choreographer as well), discussing his research on the poor dance skills and low dancing confidence of middle-aged men. Source: Matthew Moore, “‘Dad dancing’ may be the...
“When most Americans face the nightmare before us, when they realize the...”
– Chris Hedges, “Ralph Nader is Tired of Running for President” (originally published at TruthDig, July 4, 2011) (via azspot)
“I cannot accept a Minnesota where elderly widows are denied the at-home services...”
– Minnesota governor Mark Dayton in a statement issued shortly before the state government was shut down, following the failure by legislature and governor to reach a compromise on the budget. Source: Monica Davey, “Budget Fight Shuts Down Minnesota Government,” NYTimes.com (July 1, 2011).
June 2011
Denise Levertov, "What Harbinger?"
Glitter of grey oarstrokes over the waveless, dark, secretive water. A boat is moving toward me slowly, but who is rowing and what it brings I can’t yet see.