February, 2020 archive
QOTD 0
Agatha Christie, in the voice of Hercule Poirot:
Imagination is a good servant, and a bad master.
Christie, Agatha, The Mysterious Affair at Styles in a double
volume with Curtain (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1975), p. 217
A Poem for Our Hollow Times 0
(The first two lines refer to a passage in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.)
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy.I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
As we know by now, politeness is child’s play.
Doing It Buy the Book 0
Afterthought:
Back in the olden days when I was in college, when college was affordable for normal middle class families, before the middle class started to disappear and before massive college loans became the norm, I paid $100 to $150 per semester for books. And I was a history major with usually six or seven books (one text and several additional reading) per class.
The Unmasking 0
The Orlando Sentinel has an interview with long-time Florida Republican operative Mac Stipanovich, who is winding down into semi-retirement.
Much of the interview concerns Donald Trump and the current state of the Republican Party. Stipanovich’s comments are fascinating and deserving of attention. Here’s a nugget (emphasis added):
But … because of profound changes in the economy worldwide as we transition from an industrial economy to a service economy and as the browning of America continues over time … and all of the roiling in society on various cultural issues, whether it’s gay rights or whatever, all of those pressures caused that minority to metastasize.
Misdirection Play, SOTU Dept. 0
At the Hartford Courant, Dahleen Glanton decodes de code.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Have your pizza with a side of politeness.
A rat shot is also known as a bird shot/snake shot/dust shot. It is small ammunition, typically used for pest control at close range, and is not very powerful.
Origins Issues 0
David and Robert Larson explode the myths about the origins of Silicon Valley corporations.
A Taxonomy of Trolls 0
You can’t tell the preyers without a program.
