Bitterly, bitterly cold and will remain so for another week – not due to rise above freezing until next Monday (a week from today). The dog wanted to go out – it froze its paws in less than a hundred feet – standing there on two legs and crying – I had to pick it up and carry it back. Last night it made it to the corner before beginning to hop on three legs and cry and refuses to go on. And I carried it back then too. I put it down to go down the driveway – It’s slippery and I might fall and crush the little fella. And what would I do if I slipped on this ice and fell and broke my hip – lay there and cry in the dark. Who would come and rescue me before I froze to death, with the little dog licking my face – I’m told its not a bad way to die. Robert Scott scribbled in his diary to his wife before dying in Antarctica: How much better this has been than lounging about in to great comfort at home. But I would not have the consolation of having done anything heroic and home would be only fifty feet away – how mundane would that be!
The controversies of man, the hurricanes of history in her eyes, trifles: her sickness alone prevailed over time and space – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p24
In the United States, more people believe that houses can be haunted by the dead than believe that the living can cause climate change. Is this simply a scary Halloween tale or our frightening future?
International trade, despite the name, is not trade between nations, but trade between individuals that crosses national boundaries – Herman E Daly – For the Common Good., 1989 p221
And the limits Jack in the Box and other big retailers set for certain bacteria in their burgers are up to 10 times more stringent than what the USDA sets for school beef. For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders- KFC won't buy them - and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations."
Our culture still contains much mythological residue based on the assumption that an immoral and flagrantly unjust system of labor [slavery] could not possibly be congruent with long-term economic and materials progress – Brion Davis – New York Review of Books (12/17/09) p73
In the past three years, the government has provided the nation's schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn't meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants, from Jack in the Box and other burger places to chicken chains such as KFC
She reached into the darkness, and traced her hand along the wall beside the door, and a light went on. It had very little shine. It had very little to shine on – Cornell Woolrich – I Married a Dead Man, 1948
Factoid: One-fourth of the total number of slaves shipped across the Atlantic where transported after the abolition of the slave trade (1807) in spite of the efforts of the British navy to suppress the trade
But I walk dogged by misfortunes, / Not straight ahead and not aslant, / But to nowhere and to never, / Like a wrecked train – Anna Akhmatova – The Complete Poems, 1992 p465
Privatization is ever accomplished by the public’s assumption of risk, thereby undermining the classic economic case for privatization
They were both doing little things. All life is that, the continuous doing of little things, all life long. And then suddenly a big thing strikes into their midst – and where are the little things, what became of them, what were they? – Cornell Woolrich – I Married a Dead Man, 1948
Factoid -Balance of average US 401(k) accounts – 1998 - $62,000; 2009 - $45,000; 46% of all 401(k) accounts are worth less than $10,000
It is amateurs who have one big bright beautiful idea that they can never abandon. Professionals know that they have to produce theory after theory before they are likely to hit the jackpot – Francis H C Crick – What Mad Pursuit, 1988 p95
The Obama administration has spent about $250,000 for each job it claims to have created. The figure is about the same as that for jobs created by local governments under “Tax Inducement Funding (TIF). Mighten this be a matter of subsidizing big business rather than job creation – a factor not of government inefficiency but of effective big business lobbying. Or as Lincoln might have put it – a government of big business, for big business and by big business.
For the white equalitarian, slavery was more crucial as a technique for race control than as a labor system … The extremist spokesmen of this class were already arguing that slavery was a natural and necessary ordering of society and that, therfefore, all labor, regardless of race, should be enslaved – William L Barney - The Road to Secession, 1977 p70
Factoid – Automobile repairs cost 37% more at new car dealership than they do at independent auto-repair shop – the is practically due to priority tools and knowledge needed to repair each model and make of car. How much must you pay over the lifetime of a car for its high-tech features – many a high tech good can be sold at less than cost with the profits being made in parts and services
It is because of those day dreams we have, before we resume our reading in a garden that our attention strays to a white butterfly filtering here and there, then disappearing – Stephane Mallarme – Selective Poetry and Prose, 1982 p85
Factoid: The market for workplace monitoring technology has increased by 43% since 2007
For what is relative immortality – especially since we are often immortal in the minds of idiots – Stephane Mallarme – Selective Poetry and Prose, 1982 p86
Which do you love the most?
Iron Chef America
Or Iron Chef Japan
A la cuisine
Bang a gong
There you have it – bam!
The Food Network
Emeril vs Flay in
A showdown
Once I was a scuba-diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski – Nicholas Carr “Is Google Making Us Stupid/” – Atlantic (July 2008)
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