The old rights and responsibilities problem....

Human rights' are a fine thing, but how can we make ourselves sure that our rights do not expand at the expense of the rights of others. A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity. If we do not wish to be ruled by a coercive authority, then each of us must rein himself in. . . . A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation: by the principle that we are always duty-bound to defer to the sense of moral justice.

-attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals

thanks Kurt

straight............................?

 What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.

-Tennessee Williams, as channeled by David Kanigan

Wisdom.............

 . . . I lean toward the position that not doing negative things may be far more important than doing positive things.

-Michael Wade

The gift....................

 ...............that never stops giving. Love the "so far" part.

Great moments in understanding............

Yet five men got into this metal tube and tried to go to the bottom of the darkest depths of the ocean. Again: driven by a game controller. I’ve never more fully understood and yet not understood men than after reading about this tiny submarine controlled by—one more time—a video game controller. There’s a reason men make great and strange discoveries and also have a shorter life expectancy than women. 

-Nellie Bowles, from here

Time............................

 Sometimes, I wish that I could be around in another 30 years, to see where technology has taken us. But, that privilege will be reserved for the fresh, young faces that I observed yesterday. Be good to each other. Time flies.

-Rick Georges, from here

balancing......................

 It may be wise to question whether we should always be living in the moment and whether this is the best way to foster creative thinking. Finding this ‘middle way’ between mindfulness and mind wandering can help us enjoy the optimal benefits of both ways of thinking. Mindfulness helps us truly see what’s around us—a skill of paramount importance in life and art—but it must be balanced with giving the mind space to dream, fantasize, and simply roam free.

-as cut and pasted from here

influenced..................

 A lot of times we’re not interested in truth – we’re interested in the elimination of uncertainty, and that fact alone causes us to believe things that have little relation to reality.

-Morgan Housel, from this post

infinite capacity................

 We are built with an almost infinite capacity to believe things because the beliefs are advantageous for us to hold, rather than because they are even remotely related to the truth.

-Dee Hock, as culled from here

Checking in with George Carlin....

 

We often forget the "duties" part........

 But in itself morality consists in the "side constraints," to use Nozick's expression, that make agreement rather than coercion into the foundation of our social conduct.  These side constraints are embodied in a system of rights and duties: around each individual is a wall of rights that protect him or her from unjust coercion, and on every individual is imposed a set of duties by which those rights are guaranteed.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

gatekeepers.........................

      Universities have long served as gatekeepers for the upper classes, but they are doing less well at what was arguably their greatest twentieth-century triumph: expanding opportunities for the many.

-Joel Kotkin, The Coming of NEO Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class

an intensifying reaction.............

   It was not the same Paris that he had known in the crowd-ruled days of '92 and '93.  Ever since the fall of Robespierre in '94 the capital had followed the countryside in an intensifying reaction—religious and political—against the Revolution.  Catholicism, led by nonjuring priests, was regaining its hold upon a people that had lost belief in an earthly substitute for supernatural hopes and consolations, for sacraments, ceremonies, and processional holydays.  The decadi, or decimal day of rest, was increasingly ignored; the Christian Sunday was flagrantly respected and enjoyed.  France was voting for God.

-Will & Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon, describing Paris in 1797

Purpose........................

 To no purpose does the man avoid war who cannot enjoy peace, and to no purpose does the man flee from trouble who does not have what it takes to relish repose.

-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book 2, Chapter 3

About time...................

  Housing starts surged well above expectations in May, crushing the forecast from every economics group and putting in the largest monthly gain in the number of homes started since January 1990.  Looking at the details, gains were broad-based with three of four major regions and both single-family and multi-unit starts contributing.  While one month doesn’t make a trend, housing starts are now at the highest level since the previous peak in April of 2022, before mortgage rates began to surge.  This signals that the developers may have finally found their footing in what has been a challenging environment for sales. While 30-year mortgage rates continue to hover near 7% it looks like some of the sticker shock from the rapid run-up in financing costs last year is wearing off.

-Brian Wesbury, from here

Yep......................

 

less exacting and freer..................

 

     A man advanced in dignity and age counted drink among the three principal comforts that he used to say he had left in life.  But he took it in the wrong way.  Fastidiousness is to be avoided in it, and careful selection of wines.  If you make your pleasure depend on drinking good wine, you condemn yourself to the pain of sometimes drinking bad wine.  We must have a less exacting and freer taste.  To be a good drinker, one must not have so delicate a palate.  The Germans drink almost all wines with equal pleasure.  Their aims is to swallow rather than to taste.  They have much the better of the bargain.  Their pleasure is much more plentiful and ready at hand.

-Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Works, Book Two, Chapter 2

Youngsters..................

      Nevertheless France was weary of revolution . . . Youngsters, constitutionally rebellious, were now rebelling against revolution.

-Will & Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon, describing Paris in 1795

Money......................

 I honestly don’t buy the idea that money doesn’t buy happiness.  Money can fix a lot of problems in terms of comfort and convenience.   But your personal preferences and internal wiring will likely have a bigger impact on your relationship with money and happiness than some number.

-Ben Carlson, from here 

Surely you jest......................

 

One could only hope............

 People who lived through the rigors of the coronavirus pandemic may demand that the experts prove they were worthy of the trust and obedience they demanded. 

-Ann Althouse, as she takes a peek at the presidential crusade of "anti-vaccine activist" Bobby Kennedy, Jr. 

Capping off a fabulous Fathers' Day..........

.............My Sweetie humored me and we ventured out to the wondrous Midland Theatre in downtown Newark to catch a live performance by Pat Metheny.  He is an amazing musician and has more energy than most.  His sidekicks, a keyboardist and drummer, were no slouches either.  A great time was had by all.

 

In the background..................

Jimmy Buffett....................the License to Chill album

 

the downside of "meritocracy"...................

Between 1960 and 2005, the share of men with university degrees who married women with university degrees nearly doubled for 25 percent to 48 percent.  As Bell observed, parents of  high status in a meritocracy will use their advantages to improve their children's prospects, and in this way, "after one generation a meritocracy simply becomes an enclaved class." 

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Those who harbor a sense of natural superiority tend to support strong governmental action in line with their personal values and an overconfidence in their own competence, according to research by Slavisa Tasic of the University of Kiev on decision making in government.  But the history of unaccountable rule by "experts," or those claiming intellectual superiority, is less than encouraging for liberal democracy.

-Joel Kotkin, The Coming of NEO Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class

On speculation..........

 You must learn not to overwork a dollar any more that you would a horse.  Three per cent is a small load for it to draw; six, a safe one; when it pulls in ten for you it's likely working out West and you've got to watch to see that it doesn't buck; when it makes twenty you own a blame good critter or a mighty foolish one, and you want to make dead sure which; but if it draws a hundred it's playing the races or something just as hard on horses and dollars, and the first thing you know you won't have even a carcass to haul to the glue factory.

-George H. Lorimer, Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

in charge......................

      To develop fully as persons, I have argued we need the virtues that transfer our motives from the animal to the personal center of our being—the virtues that put us in charge of our passions.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

understand things rightly...............

 Human beings find their fulfillment in mutual love and self-giving, but they get to this point via a long path of self-development, in which imitation, obedience, and self-control are necessary moments. This is not a hard thing to understand once we see the development of personality in the terms suggested by Aristotle. But it is a hard thing to practice.  Nevertheless, when we understand things rightly, we will be motivated to put virtue and good habits back where they belong, at the center of personal life.

-Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

Checking in..............................

............................with Peter Mallouk:

What strange times we live in...............

One of my favorite pundits looks at the 2024 presidential race and has some thoughts.  Hope he is wrong about Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

 To earn the nomination, however, DeSantis will have to persuade an angry Republican base of his alienation from the government he is expected to preside over. He must demonstrate that, despite his orthodox trajectory and obvious ease with handling policy, he is not a mere politician or a creature of the institutions. Just as the Democratic Party today is the home of establishment and reaction, Republicans are the party of populism and revolt. By an inner necessity, the Democrats will nominate a safe insider; that happens to be Joe Biden’s sole qualification for the presidency. The inverse process will turn the Republican contest into a scramble for the outside rail.

-Martin Gurri, from this essay

Stuck...................

 When your are stuck, explain your problem to others.  Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution.  Make "explaining the problem" part of your troubleshooting process.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice For Living:  Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier

Fathers........................

 “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.”

-Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum

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