Clippings

"Let no one say that I have said nothing new: the arrangement of the material is new." Blaise Pascal

January 7, 2010 at 12:23pm
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“For the last thirty years, in much of the English-speaking world (though less so in continental Europe and elsewhere), when asking ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it good or bad? Instead we inquire: Is it efficient? Is it productive? Would it benefit gross domestic product? Will it contribute to growth? This propensity to avoid moral considerations, to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss—economic questions in the narrowest sense—is not an instinctive human condition. It is an acquired taste.

“We have been here before. In 1905, the young William Beveridge—whose 1942 report would lay the foundations of the British welfare state—delivered a lecture at Oxford in which he asked why it was that political philosophy had been obscured in public debates by classical economics. Beveridge’s question applies with equal force today. Note, however, that this eclipse of political thought bears no relation to the writings of the great classical economists themselves. In the eighteenth century, what Adam Smith called “moral sentiments” were uppermost in economic conversations.

Indeed, the thought that we might restrict public policy considerations to a mere economic calculus was already a source of concern. The Marquis de Condorcet, one of the most perceptive writers on commercial capitalism in its early years, anticipated with distaste the prospect that “liberty will be no more, in the eyes of an avid nation, than the necessary condition for the security of financial operations.” The revolutions of the age risked fostering a confusion between the freedom to make money…and freedom itself.”

Tony Judt

December 10, 2009 at 7:21pm
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Georgina Klitgaard: Winter Afternoon, 1934 (via Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Georgina Klitgaard: Winter Afternoon, 1934 (via Smithsonian American Art Museum)

December 9, 2009 at 7:43am
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Candidate for a Pullet Surprise

by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

source

November 27, 2009 at 11:47pm
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Reach for the stars. Start with the spring rolls.

— Tonight’s fortune cookie

November 24, 2009 at 5:49pm
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The greater part of those who have written their memoirs have only shown us their bad actions or their weaknesses when they happen to have mistaken them for deeds of prowess or fine instincts, a thing they often do.

— Tocqueville

November 23, 2009 at 5:46pm
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“boy sees lobster for the first time” (via youtube)

November 7, 2009 at 4:10pm
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From an actual recipe book called Let’s Serve Something New. 53 Selected Recipes for the use of Liver, Heart, Kidney, Sweetbreads, Tongue and other Meat Specialties (via Ptak Science Books)

From an actual recipe book called Let’s Serve Something New. 53 Selected Recipes for the use of Liver, Heart, Kidney, Sweetbreads, Tongue and other Meat Specialties (via Ptak Science Books)

12:19pm
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The sound and video are a little unsynchronized, but I love this performance.

November 6, 2009 at 11:17am
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Poster Display of a War Poster, “Don’t Talk” (via The U.S. National Archives)

Poster Display of a War Poster, “Don’t Talk” (via The U.S. National Archives)

10:13am
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Fondren Library, 60th Anniversary →

Neat site offering retrospective look at the Rice University library

October 27, 2009 at 10:03pm
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How To Write Badly Well →

October 26, 2009 at 10:44pm
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What I actually want to say is, yippee!

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, on news of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, as quoted by LeeAnna Keith

October 22, 2009 at 12:11pm
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Mississippi Fred McDowell - John Henry (via YouTube)

12:01pm
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Early photographically illustrated books →

Nearly 1,500 nineteenth-century photographs in an Online Gallery at the British Library.

11:50am
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Image of ‘John Henry’s Hand’ by Fred Becker.

Fred Becker (Born: Oakland, California 1913 Died: Amherst, Massachusetts 2004)

wood engraving image: 6 1/8 x 4 5/8 in. (15.4 x 11.6 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum

(via Smithsonian American Art)

Image of ‘John Henry’s Hand’ by Fred Becker.

Fred Becker (Born: Oakland, California 1913 Died: Amherst, Massachusetts 2004)

wood engraving image: 6 1/8 x 4 5/8 in. (15.4 x 11.6 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum

(via Smithsonian American Art)