We could use more "detached observers"...

 

There are many types of newspaper editors.  Some are crusading ideologues . . . Some are the opposite: they like power and their proximity to it . . .

     And then there are those who are charmed and amused by the world and delight in charming and amusing others.  They tend to be skeptical of both orthodoxies and heresies, and they are earnest in their desire to seek truth and promote public betterment (as well as sell papers).  There fits Franklin.  He was graced—and afflicted—with the trait so common to journalists, especially ones who have read Swift and Addison once too often, of wanting to participate in the world while also remaining a detached observer.  As a journalist he could step out of scene, even one that passionately engaged him, and comment on it, or on himself, with a droll irony.  The depths of his beliefs were often concealed by his knack for engaging in a knowing wink.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

What leadership is not....................

 Today's American culture tells us that those most likely to rise to the most important positions of responsibility are the ones who graduate at the top in their classes and have long lists of extracurricular activities.  Such countless engagements on a CV are somehow equated with leadership—though they may actually have as much to do with a fear of commitment, a preoccupation with image, or the inescapable desire to assure others that one can master everything at once.

     It is ironic, perhaps, that many great, victorious military commanders in our history—Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant; Gen. John Pershing, World War I commander of U. S. forces; and Dwight Eisenhower, World War II supreme Allied commander in Europe—graduated from West Point well below the top of their classes.

-Susan Eisenhower, How Ike Led:  The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions

the sacredness of simple things.................

 For at present we all tend to one mistake; we tend to make politics too important. We tend to forget how huge a part of a man's life is the same under a Sultan and a Senate, under Nero or St Louis. Daybreak is a never-ending glory, getting out of bed is a never-ending nuisance; food and friends will be welcomed; work and strangers must be accepted and endured; birds will go bedwards and children won't, to the end of the last evening. And the worst peril is that in our just modern revolt against intolerable accidents we may have unsettled those things that alone make daily life tolerable. It will be an ironic tragedy if, when we have toiled to find rest, we find we are incurably restless. It will be sad if, when we have worked for our holiday, we find we have unlearnt everything but work. The typical modern man is the insane millionaire who has drudged to get money, and then finds he cannot enjoy even money. There is danger that the social reformer may silently and occultly develop some of the madness of the millionaire whom he denounces. He may find that he has learnt how to build playgrounds but forgotten how to play. He may agitate for peace and quiet, but only propagate his own mental agitation. In his long fight to get a slave a half-holiday he may angrily deny those ancient and natural things, the zest of being, the divinity of man, the sacredness of simple things, the health and humour of the earth, which alone make a half-holiday even half a holiday or a slave even half a man.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, from his essay, What Is Right With The World

Does this strike you as ironic...................?

Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program. And while those programs often point the way forward, they need to focus their energy on convincing the middle class that they share their values more than just their economic interests. There is more to voters than their wallets. To do that, Democrats need to prove to them that they know the difference between right and wrong, and that begins with owning the terms accountability and responsibility. No matter how privileged, Democrats need to be the ones demanding that those who fall short be made to answer for their own decisions. Every one of us should have to live by the same moral and ethical codes. The nation’s elite shouldn’t have any special license to take the easy way out.


-Rahm Emanuel, as extracted from here


via

We could argue for hours....................

............................about the meaning of "most qualified":

Am I the only one.....................

.......................who thinks it ironic that Chris Matthews wrote this?

     Reporters assigned to the Democratic primary race were starting to look more closely at this Kennedy who'd spent years growing beyond being Joe Kennedy's son and John Kennedy's brother.  What many wound up up with was a deepening respect for the authenticity they now saw in him.  Richard Harwood, who'd asked his Washington Post editor to be assigned to a different candidate, told him, "I'm falling in love with this guy."  Explaining his request later, he said, "I think we were getting partisan.  We hadn't quite become cheerleaders, but we were in danger of it."

-Chris Matthews,   Bobby Kennedy:  A Raging Spirit

Where would we be without irony...........

"California's establishment (a large club) cannot fix potholes but they want to build a bullet train. I get that."
-as culled from here

Speaking of lists................

thanks Scott

Even us history majors..............

................................................lost track of this one.

Checking in with The Savage Chickens...

Where would we learn stuff if it wasn't for school...

Next..................................................

via

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

via

Irony................................................?

Imagine this...........................

And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to.....................

“'The decision to award the 2013 prize to Edward Snowden would - in addition to being well justified in itself - also help to save the Nobel Peace Prize from the disrepute that incurred by the hasty and ill-conceived decision to award U.S. President Barack Obama 2009 award,'  Svallfors said."

Ouch.   Full post, from whence the excerpt was taken, is here.

Thanks Ann

The National Anthem...?

Frank Sinatra.....................................My Way
(as always, please click on through to YouTube)

Bah-humbug........................

 “The political and economic environment of my youth stands revealed as a paradise lost, an exceptional moment in our nation’s history …”
-Paul Krugman

The above quote comes from Ed Driscoll's The Paradox of the Nostalgic Progressive post.  What got me there was this Craig Newmark post.

cartoon via

Context matters too...................

"Success in any endeavor requires single-minded attention to 
detail and total concentration."

-Willie Sutton