Far star....................................

Far star that tickles for me my sensitive plate

And fries a couple of ebon atoms white,

I don't believe I believe a thing you state.

I put no faith in the seeming facts of light.

I don't believe I believe you're the last in space,

I don't believe you're anywhere near the last,

I don't believe what makes you red in the face

Is after explosion going away so fast.

The universe may or may not be very immense.

As a matter of fact there are times when I am apt

To feel it close in tight against my sense

Like a caul in which I was born and am still wrapped.

-Robert Frost, "Skeptic"

image, and back story, via APOD

Life its ownself........................

thanks David

Fifty years ago.........................

The Mamas & The Papas...........................California Dreamin'

Somehow I missed this in 16 years of schooling...

      In 1493, his magnificent account of the great Columbian exchange that followed contact between the eastern and western hemispheres, Charles Mann show how again and again the forces that truly shaped history came from below, not above.  For instance, the American Revolution was won by the malaria parasite, which devastated General Charles Cornwallis's army in the Carolinas and on the Chesapeake, at least as much as it was won by George Washington. ...Referring to female mosquitoes of the species Anopheles quadrimaculatus, he writes:  "Those tiny amazons conducted covert biological warfare against the British army."...Most white colonists had survived malaria in their youth and acquired some resistance...So the American south was the worst possible place to invade with foreign troops....When it came time to fight a battle, most of the army was debilitated by fever, including Cornwallis himself...."Mosquitoes," says McNeill, "helped the Americans snatch victory from the jaws of stalemate and win the Revolutionary War, without which there would be no United States of America.  Remember that when they bite you next Fourth of July."

-Matt Ridley, as culled from The Evolution Of Everything

How's this for some linkage...............?

As the technology expert Steve Johnson has argued, the unintended consequences of historical events can be far-reaching.  Gutenberg made printed books affordable, which kicked off an increase in literacy, which created a market for spectacles, which led to work on lenses that in turn resulted in the invention of microscopes and telescopes, which unleashed the discovery that the earth went round the sun.

-Matt Ridley,  The Evolution Of Everything:  How New Ideas Emerge

So, how did it go....................................?

And to love you.............................

The Hollies........................................The Air That I Breathe



If I could make a wish
I think I'd pass
Can't think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound
Nothing to eat, no books to read

Making love with you
Has left me peaceful, warm, and tired
What more could I ask
There's nothing left to be desired
Peace came upon me and it leaves me weak
So sleep, silent angel, go to sleep

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe

Peace came upon me and it leaves me weak
So sleep, silent angel, go to sleep

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you

On the importance of......................

....................................not letting book learning get in the way of your education:

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.”

-Albert Einstein

Schooling...............................

     When you think about it, it is rather strange that liberated, free thinking people, when their children reach the age of five, send them off to a sort of prison for the next twelve to sixteen years.  There they are held, on pain of punishment, in cells called classrooms and made, on pain of further punishment, to sit at desks and follow particular routines.  Of course it is not as Dickensian as it used to be, and may people emerge with brilliant minds, but school is still a  highly authoritarian and indoctrinating place.  In my own case, the prison analogy was all too apt.  The boarding school I attended between the ages of eight and twelve had such strict rules and such regular and painful corporal punishment that we readily identified with stories of prisoners of war in Nazi Germany, even down to the point of digging tunnels, saving up food and planning routes across the countryside to railway stations.  Escapes were frequent, firmly punished, and generally considered heroic.

-Matt Ridley,  The Evolution of Everything:  How New Ideas Emerge

On paying attention.............

"Anyone who after the twentieth century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, regulation, zoning, price controls, tax policy, labor unions, business cartels, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing nineteenth-century proposals for governmental actions are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention."

-Deidre McCloskey, as excerpted from here

Oh. Well, I was wondering what was going on...

"As you surely know, this is an election year, and that means a combination of sophistry and ignorance is flooding the news media."

-Barry Ritholtz, as excerpted from here

Fifty years ago.....................

Johnny Rivers..........................................Poor Side Of Town

On the evolution of technology......

Every boat is copied from another boat... Let's reason as follows in the manner of Darwin. It is clear that a very badly made boat will end up at the bottom after one or two voyages, and thus never be copied... One could then say, with complete rigor, that it is the sea herself who fashions the boats, choosing those which function and destroying the others.

-Alain 

Highlights.........................

Ben S. Bernanke,  The Courage To Act:  A Memoir Of A Crisis And Its Aftermath

Sailing away.......................

Fleetwood Mac..................................................Safe Harbour

Titans................................

Dean and The Duke.......................Everybody Loves Somebody



Why do I think that is really Sinatra's voice?

Transitioning..........................

"We didn’t have much but we had it all."

Quote, and the rest of the story, from here.

Perhaps the only diet you'll ever need.....

via

Robert Burns................

.........................was born this day in 1759, and the world  became a vastly richer place.  Here is a taste, take some time with it:

I Lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend,
A something to have sent you,
Tho' it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind memento:
But how the subject-theme may gang,
Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang:
Perhaps turn out a sermon.

Ye'll try the world soon, my lad;
And, Andrew dear, believe me,
Ye'll find mankind an unco squad,
And muckle they may grieve ye:
For care and trouble set your thought,
Ev'n when your end's attained;
And a' your views may come to nought,
Where ev'ry nerve is strained.

I'll no say, men are villains a';
The real, harden'd wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law,
Are to a few restricked;
But, Och! mankind are unco weak,
An' little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake,
It's rarely right adjusted!

Yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife,
Their fate we shouldna censure;
For still, th' important end of life
They equally may answer;
A man may hae an honest heart,
Tho' poortith hourly stare him;
A man may tak a neibor's part,
Yet hae nae cash to spare him.

Aye free, aff-han', your story tell,
When wi' a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel',
Ye scarcely tell to ony:
Conceal yoursel' as weel's ye can
Frae critical dissection;
But keek thro' ev'ry other man,
Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection.

The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th' illicit rove,
Tho' naething should divulge it:
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, Och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!

To catch dame Fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by ev'ry wile
That's justified by honour;
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip,
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that aye be your border;
Its slightest touches, instant pause-
Debar a' side-pretences;
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences.

The great Creator to revere,
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range,
Be complaisance extended;
An atheist-laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!

When ranting round in pleasure's ring,
Religion may be blinded;
Or if she gie a random sting,
It may be little minded;
But when on life we're tempest driv'n-
A conscience but a canker-
A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n,
Is sure a noble anchor!

Adieu, dear, amiable youth!
Your heart can ne'er be wanting!
May prudence, fortitude, and truth,
Erect your brow undaunting!
In ploughman phrase, "God send you speed,"
Still daily to grow wiser;
And may ye better reck the rede,
Then ever did th' adviser! 

"Epistle To A Young Friend"
Robert Burns, 1786

Highlights..............................................

Ben S. Bernanke:  The Courage To Act:  A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath

Fifty years ago..................

The Monkees....................................Last Train To Clarksville

I would not have guessed it..................

...................................but, now that they have said it, this "biggest predictor" of business success makes much sense.

Dealmaking 101:...................

...never start with, “How do I make this deal?” Start with, “Should this deal be made?”
-Eric Barker,  as culled from here

A damn good question..............

Lest we forget, our favorite quote around here is that "normalcy is merely the psychosis of the majority."

cartoon via

On the problems of groups..........

      "Individual men may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests of others than their own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, of preferring the advantages of others to their own. ... But all these achievements are more difficult, if not impossible, for human societies and social groups.  In every human group there is less capacity for self transcendence, less ability to comprehend the need of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the groups, reveal in their personal relationships."

-Reinhold Niebuhr,  as excerpted from Moral Man and Immoral Society

On the strength of individuals.......

So seest though not, how, though external force
Drive men before, and often make them move,
Onward against desire, and headlong snatched,
Yet is there something in these breasts of ours
Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same? -

Lucretius,  Of the Nature of Things  Book II

Like the stars above me...........

America.................................................................Daisy Jane

Verse....................

4  Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 

5  And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 

6  There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. 

7  But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 

-1 Corinthians 12: 4-7
The Holy Bible (NASB)

Opening paragraphs.....................................

      Why did we stop at the 4-Dice Restaurant in Fordyce, Arkansas, for lunch on Independence Day weekend?  On any day?  Despite everything I knew from ten years of driving through the Bible Belt.  Tiny town of Fordyce.  Rolling Stones on the police menu across the United States.  Every copper wanted to bust us by any means available, to get promoted and to patriotically rid America of those little fairy Englishmen.  It was 1975, a time of brutality and confrontation.  Open season on the Stones had been declared since our last tour, the tour of '72, known as the STP.  The State Department had noted riots (true), civil disobedience (also true), illicit sex (whatever that is), and violence across the United States.  All the fault of us, mere minstrels.  We had been inciting the youth to rebellion, we were corrupting America, and they had ruled never to let us travel in the United States again.  It had become, in the time of Nixon, a serious political matter.  He had personally deployed his dogs and dirty tricks against John Lennon, who he thought might cost him an election.  We, in turn, they told our lawyer officially, were the most dangerous rock-and-roll band in the world.

-Keith Richards,  Life

HIghlights.........................

Ben S. Bernanke,   The Courage To Act:  A Memoir of a Crisis and Its Aftermath

Fifty years ago....................

Ray Charles......................................................Crying Time

Some good words to live by.................

"I ain’t no saint and I don’t pretend to be
But I hope you all found a friend in me"

-Steve Forbert

thanks Ray

The great enrichment...............

...the average person alive in the world today earns in a year between ten and twenty times as much money, in real terms, as the average person earned in 1800.  Or rather, he or she can afford ten or twenty times as many goods or services.  Call it, as economic historian Deidre McCloskey does, the "great enrichment."  She says it is the "main fact or finding of economic history."... The Great Recession of 2008-09 was just a brief blip in global terms:  one year when the global economy shrank by 1% before growing by 5% the next.
      By far the lion's share of this improvement went (and still goes) to ordinary workers and the poor.  As McCloskey puts it, although the rich got richer, "millions more have gas heating, cars, smallpox vaccinations, indoor plumbing, cheap travel, rights for women, lower child mortality, adequate nutrition, taller bodies, doubled life expectancy, schooling for their kids, newspapers, a vote, a shot at university and respect."  Global inequality is currently falling fast as people in poor countries get richer quicker than people in rich countries.  The proportion of people living on $1.25 a day, corrected for inflation, has gone from 65% in 1960 to 21% today.
      Surprising as it may seem, the cause of the great enrichment is still unknown.   That is to say, there are plenty of theories...But none of these theories commands universal allegiance...They all agree on two things, however; nobody planned this, and nobody expected it.  Prosperity emerged despite, not because of, human policy.  It developed inexorably out of the interaction of people by a form of selective progress very similar to evolution.  Above all, it was a decentralized phenomenon, achieved by millions of individual decisions, mostly in spite of the actions of rulers.

-Matt Ridley,  The Evolution Of Everything:  How New Ideas Emerge

On average...........................

Assume a miracle.....................

     It is axiomatic among right-thinking people that there are many things the market cannot provide, and therefore the state must.  The sheer magical thinking inherent in this thought is rarely examined.  Because the market cannot do something, why must we assume that the state knows better how to do it?  All too often this is, to borrow a phrase from Don Boudreaux, to "assume a miracle."  Yet the history of government over the past few centuries is that when the state steps in to provide something that was under provided by people for themselves, things do not necessarily improve; often they get worse.  Market failure is a favourite phrase; government failure is not.
      Take six basic needs of a human being:  food, clothing, health, education, shelter and transportation.  Roughly speaking, in most countries the market provides food and clothing, the state provides healthcare and education, while shelter and transportation are provided by a mixture of the tow - private firms with semi-monopolistic privileges supplied by government:  crony capitalism, in a phrase.
       Is it not striking that the cost of food and clothing has gone steadily downwards over the past fifty years, while the cost of healthcare and education has gone steadily upwards?

-Matt Ridley,  The Evolution Of Everything:  How New Ideas Emerge

Ok...............that means................

photo via

Say nighty-night...............................

Louis Armstrong.............................Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore trees
Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn dear
Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

Opening paragraphs....................

      The past is infinitely complicated, composed as it is of events, big and small, beyond computation.  To make sense of it, the historian must select and simplify and shape.  One way he shapes the past is to divide it into periods.  Each period is made more memorable and easy to grasp of it can be labeled by a word the epitomizes its spirit.  That is how such terms as "the Renaissance" came into being.  Needless to say, it is not those who actually live through the period who coin the term, but later, often much later, writers.  The periodization and labeling of history is largely the work of the nineteenth century.  The term "Renaissance" was first prominently used by the French historian Jules Michelet in 1858, and it was sent in bronze two years later by Jacob Burckhardt when he published his great book The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.  The usage stuck because it turned out to be a convenient way of describing the period of transition between the medieval epoch, when Europe was "Christendom," and the beginning of the modern age.  It also had some historical justification because, although the Italian elites of the time never used the words "Renaissance" or "Rinascimento," they were conscious that a cultural rebirth of a kind was taking place, and that some of the literary, philosophical and artistic grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome was being re-created.  In 1550 the painter Vasari published an ambitious work, The Lives of the Artists, in which he sought to describe how this process had taken place, and was continuing, in painting, sculpture and architecture.  In comparing the glories of antiquity with the achievements of the present and recent past in Italy, he referred to the degenerate period in between as the "middle ages."  This usage stuck too.

-Paul Johnson,  The Renaissance:  A Short History

Says who.............................

John Cochrane, the Grumpy Economist, in a recent thoughtful essay posits:  "The first goal of taxation is to raise needed government revenue with minimum economic damage."

I wish it were so, but from the cheap seats it looks like Congress has purposely lost sight of the first goal.  They discovered a long time ago the joys of societal engineering through tax treatment.  Want some particular outcome?  A tax credit here, a deduction there, and, before you know it, magical things happen.  More recently they discovered that vast riches in campaign contributions are available to those willing to tinker around the edges of the Code.  A few obscure sentences slipped into some obscure legislation and suddenly some nameless entity reaps a financial windfall via the tax code.  Complexity has become their friend and their drug.  It is wishful thinking to believe that Congress will surrender it willingly.  Just saying.

Fifty years ago...........................

Herman's Hermits.........................................................Dandy

Booked.........................

...........................Jeff models the latest in fashionable cold weather gear.

Fortunately, we are all above average....

"Averages almost always hide insights instead of exposing them."

Seth Godin disparages the practice of using "averages" to gain meaningful insights - here.

And when we had thought about it long enough...

The Outlaw Josey Wales............................Endeavor to persevere




longer clip, including a brief history lesson, here

That would be nice...................

The Rippingtons..........................................Caribbean Breeze

Control..............................

"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."

-Robert A. Heinlein

cartoon via

Fifty years ago........................

The Marvelettes...........................................Don't Mess With Bill

A lot to ask......................

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” 

-Robert A. Heinlein

Odds were in my favor.................

The Band...............................................Up On Cripple Creek

An absolute..........................

Socrates' great gift to society was that he brought morals from the shifty atmosphere of quasidivine bargains, frauds, and compromises into the blazing daylight of ordinary honorable transactions between men and women striving to be honest.  To Socrates, morality was an absolute or it was nothing.  If an act was unjust, it was always and everywhere so and must never be done.  Whatever the provocation, a man or woman must never act unjustly.

-Paul Johnson,  Socrates:  A Man For Our Times

Crumple zones...............

................................the physics of car crashes.



thanks craig

You just have to........................................

.............................. love (well, you don't have to, but it is highly recommended) the mind that creates this thing.

Fifty years ago..........................

The Hollies................................................................Bus Stop

A wise investment choice.............

As I write, the Dow is 500 down and plunging; the Footsie (London), likewise crashed; and so, everywhere else there is a stock market; while at Davos in Switzerland the world’s leading politicians and movie stars sound pompously glum. All this makes me happy.

The race is on, into government bonds, as the IMF begins to realize that we are in a worse position than 2007, facing worse than in 2008. The Chinese Communists turned out not to be magicians. More, the world’s financial assets are all tied up in computer algorithms, better than red tape; they all come down together. The central banks have run right out of “quantitative easing.” And now a tiny inevitable rise in interest rates prepares to tip everything off the table. Oil is become almost worthless; and did I mention the competitive currency devaluations?

The castle in air is descending, oh la! … Watch out below! …

Of course I saw this coming; everybody did. That’s why I called my (inner) broker and told him to shift all my money into second-hand books. They’ll be a real treasure when the Internet collapses. I have half-a-dozen stacked by my bedside already. …

But darn, Wall Street did a correction, from the time I last checked. It seems to have restored about half of its losses. There is still a danger “market forces” will recover. We might, by some demonic miracle, creep back to where we were. But also a good chance not. For the precipice remains before us; and surely this is the year for the great dive.

In the memorable words of Flannery O’Connor: “Go warn the children of God of the terrible speed of mercy!”

-As excerpted from this Essay in Idleness

Highlights.......................................

Ben S. Bernanke,  The Courage To Act:  A Memoir Of A Crisis And Its Aftermath

Yellow moon on the rise...............

Neil Young & The Band.............................................Helpless

A pilgrimage........................

"I had grown up abhorring not only segregation but also the oppressive and barbarous acts that grew out of it. I had passed spots where Negroes had been savagely lynched, and had watched the Ku KIux Klan on its rides at night. I had seen police brutality with my own eyes, and watched Negroes receive the most tragic injustice in the courts. All of these things had done something to my growing personality. I had come perilously close to resenting all white people."

-Martin Luther King, Jr., as excerpted from his essay "My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence"

This is truly a remarkable essay.  I urge you to read study it.

thanks mark

On Philosophy.....................

On the other hand, human beings, though not worth adorning, were infinitely worth study.  Socrates was fascinated throughout his life by the variety, peculiarities, cussedness, and sheer individualism of human beings....For Socrates, ideas existed to serve and illuminate people, not the other way around.  Here was the big distinction between him and Plato.  To Socrates, philosophy had no meaning or relevance unless it concerned itself with men and women.  It is worth repeating, and emphasizing, Cicero's summary of Socrates' work:  "He was the first to call philosophy down from the sky and establish her in towns, and bring her into homes, and force her to investigate the life of men and women, ethical conduct, good and evil."

He knew that as soon as philosophy separated itself from the life of people, it began to lose its vitality and was heading in the wrong direction...The notion of philosophy existing only in academic isolation from the rest of the world would have horrified him and probably would have produced ribald laughter, too.
     For Socrates saw and practiced philosophy not as an academic but as a human activity.  It was about real men and women facing actual ethical choices between right and wrong, good and evil.  Hence a philosophical leader had to be more than a thinker, much more.  He had to be a good man, for whom the quest for virtue was not an abstract idea but a practical business of daily living.  He had to be brave in facing up to choices and living with their consequences.  Philosophy, in the last resort, was a form of heroism, and those who practiced it had to possess the courage to sacrifice everything, including life itself, in pursuing excellence of mind.  That is what Socrates did.  And that is why we honor him and salute him as philosophy personified.

Paul Johnson,  Socrates:  A Man For Our Times

Fifty years ago....................

The Outsiders............................................Time Won't Let Me

Highlights................................

Ben S. Bernanke,  The Courage To Act:  A Memoir Of A Crisis And Its Aftermath

Great myths.........................

...............................................................of investing.

As the great Mark Twain (may have) said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” That’s particularly true in the investment world because we know, to a mathematical certainty, that avoiding errors provides more bang for the buck than making correct calls and generating outperformance. 

Ten myths right here.

via

Betting against.............................

......................................................The Donald.

Nate Silver, described herein as relentlessly unbiased (is that true?), points to some horrifically high negative polling numbers for Trump.  Full story here.  Conclusion here:

"So, if you were reserving hotel space for the Trump inauguration, it might be worthwhile to pause and take a deep breath."

Picked me a plum......................

Frank Sinatra.........................................The Best Is Yet To Come




#32 on this list

Highlights......................................

Ben S. Bernanke,  as extracted from The Courage To Act:  A Memoir Of A Crisis And Its Aftermath

Ed. Note:  the time period for this excerpt was early fall, 2007.

Uncompromising....................

      Socrates' rejection of retaliation was the most important practical event of his philosophical life.  It was also one of the most important events in the history of philosophy...What Socrates argued is extraordinarily uncompromising.  It is moral absolutism at its most stringent.  He is saying in effect:  If something you do wrongs somebody else and, a fortiori, large numbers of people, it is so bad in itself, and so bad for you, that nothing good which it achieves can compensate for the evil.  It may win a victory or even a war;  it may bring you everything you value, joy, comfort, security, and long life;  it may arouse the approval of those you love, your family and friends;  it may be necessary, as you think, for their self preservation and your own;  but if it is wrong, then you must not do it.  Even if it would win the whole world, you must not do it.  Your life itself would not be worth living if you can preserve it only by wronging others.

-Paul Johnson,  as excerpted from Socrates:  A Man For Our Times

Fifty years ago..............................

Donovan....................................................Sunshine Superman

On not believing everything................

..................................you read (or hear).  Of course our hero in this tale is using statistics and data to backup the following quote, and you know what they say about statistics.  But still, the quote:

"The bottom line is to be wary of anecdotes even when (maybe especially when) they’re repeated again and again as conventional wisdom. In this case, some pundits actually scored a rare double bogey. They got the reasoning behind the anecdote wrong."

Full essay, with accompanying data, is here.

via

On effort..............................

On freedom and information.....

      "I'd been enthralled by the astronomical growth in the volume of information, but the truly epochal change, it turned out, was the revolution in the relationship between the public and authority in almost every domain of human activity."

-Martin Gurri, The Revolt Of The Public And The Crisis Of Authority In The New Millennium

On history.....................................

"We should have listened to Mark Twain, who is reputed to have said that history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

-Ben S. Bernanke,  The Courage To Act

We live in times........................

Tom Clay....................................What The World Needs Now

the very idea..........................

What is particularly liberating about Socrates and it is just as relevant today as in the fifth century B.C., is his hostility not just to the "right answer" as to the very idea of there being a right answer.

-Paul Johnson,  Socrates:  A Man For Our Times

Spending some time with Martin Gurri...

So this free copy of  Martin Gurri's The Revolt Of The Public:  And The Crisis Of Authority In The New Millenium showed up on my Kindle.  Free is good.  Not sure how long it will stay there, so it jumped to the top of the stack.  Here are a few early excerpts:

"The moment tomorrow no longer resembles yesterday, we are startled and confused.  The compass cracks, by which we navigate existence.  We are lost at sea."

"I also held the belief that information of the sort found in newspapers and televisions was identical to knowledge - so the more information, the better.  This was naive of me, but if I say so, understandable.  Back when the world and I were young, information was scarce, hence valuable.  Anyone who could cast a beam of light on, say, Russia-Cuba relations, was worth his weight in gold.  In this context, it made sense to crave for more.  A curious thing happens to sources of information under conditions of scarcity.  They become authoritative."

"It took time to break out of my education and training, but eventually the thought dawned on me that information wasn't just raw material to exploit for analysis, but had a life and power of its own.  Information had effects.  And the first significant effect I perceived related to the sources:  as the amount of information available to the public increased, the authoritativeness of any one source decreased."

"Uncertainty is an acid, corrosive to authority.  Once the monopoly on information is lost, so too is our trust.  Every presidential statement, every CIA assessment, every investigative report by a great newspaper, suddenly acquired an arbitrary aspect, and seemed grounded in moral predilection rather than intellectual rigor.  When proof for and against approaches infinity, a cloud of suspicion about cherry-picking data will hang over every authoritative judgment."

"The docile mass audience, so easily persuaded by advertisers and politicians, had been a monopolist's fantasy which disintegrated at first contact with alternatives.  When digital magic transformed information consumers into producers, and established order - grand hierarchies of power and money and learning - went into crisis."

"even the simplest human events constitute complex systems ruled by nonlinearities.  Within such systems, teasing out a single episode and proclaiming it the prime mover makes as much sense as to pick a grain of sand and calling it "the beach."

More to come.

Ed. Note:  My spell check and I both know that there are two "n"s in Millennium.  So does the author.  But for some reason the book's cover opted for the one "n" spelling.

I wish someone would explain to me.........

.............................why this is depressing news.

via

Majestic...............................

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

-The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., as excerpted from his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Full text of the letter is here.

Fifty years ago............................

The Young Rascals..............................................Good Lovin'

Highlights........................................

Understand that feeling.................

-from The Complete Essays of Montaigne
"Of experience"
as translated by Donald M. Frame