Saturday, August 26, 2017
On the importance of a culture............
The first thing to understand is that the public peace - the sidewalk and street peace - of cities is not kept primarily by police, as necessary as police are. It is primarily kept by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves. In some city areas - older public housing projects and streets with very high population turnover are often conspicuous examples - the keeping of public sidewalk law and order is left almost entirely to the police and special guards. Such places are jungles. No amount of police can enforce civilization where the normal, casual enforcement of it has broken down.
-Jane Jacobs, The Death And Life Of Great American Cities, 1961
Friday, August 25, 2017
Me too..................................
Rare Earth ...............................................I Just Want To Celebrate
Wisdom...........................
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
- Respect for self
- Respect for others
- Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6-18 may be found here.
Thanks Michael
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
face the fact........................................
“Why do we love the idea that people might be secretly working together to control and organise the world? Because we do not like to face the fact that our world runs on a combination of chaos, incompetence, and confusion.”
– attributed to Jonathan Cainer
via
Might be the news media's main goal as well...
My sense is that we have seen a decline in thinking about politics as a tool for problem-solving. Instead, we act as if our main goal in politics is anger validation.
-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from here
I don't always read David Brooks..............
..................................but when I do, it is usually because he has written something like this:
But throughout history the wiser minds have understood that anger and moral posturing are not a good antidote to rage and fanaticism. Competing vitriols only build on each other.
In fact, the most powerful answer to fanaticism is modesty. Modesty is an epistemology directly opposed to the conspiracy mongering mind-set. It means having the courage to understand that the world is too complicated to fit into one political belief system. It means understanding there are no easy answers or malevolent conspiracies that can explain the big political questions or the existential problems. Progress is not made by crushing some swarm of malevolent foes; it’s made by finding balance between competing truths — between freedom and security, diversity and solidarity. There’s always going to be counter-evidence and mystery. There is no final arrangement that will end conflict, just endless searching and adjustment.
-as culled from his August 15th op-ed in the NYT
Monday, August 21, 2017
Hey Sweetie..........................
Oh, it's a long, long while
From May to December
But the days grow short,
When you reach September.
When the autumn weather
Turn leaves to flame
One hasn't got time
For the waiting game.
Oh the days dwindle down
To a precious few . . .
September, November . . .
And these few precious days
I'll spend with you.
These precious days
I'll spend with you.
Oh the days dwindle down
To a precious few . . .
September, November . . .
And these few precious days
I'll spend with you.
These precious days
I'll spend with you.
These precious days
I'll spend with you.
Fifty years ago.....................
watch some wondrous lip syncing, before it gets disappeared....
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