An early version (1662) of the trickle down theory - That what is given to Favorites, may at the next step or transmigration, come into our own hands, or their’s unto which we wish well, and think deserved – Sir William Petty - A Treatise on Taxes and Contributions.
The average person’s mind zones out 13% of the time – but that time may actually be critical to long-term thinking. Neuroscientists hypothesis that zoning out might have evolved as a way to balance immediate goals and needs with more distant, big-picture objectives
And the indiscriminate / freezing rain slicking / the side streets and back alleys / the long driveways of the rich. // Nothing moving except kids, the stopped world / just slippery to them, permissive, good – Stephen Dunn – What Goes On: selected and new poems, 2009 p31
The United States contains 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the worlds prisoners
Counterinsurgency is not just thinking man’s warfare – it is the graduate level of war – epigraph in the Army’s Counterinsurgency Manual
The sun is going down
The fire has been laid
The dog has been fed
I sit down with my feet
Up
I shall read until it gets
Too dark to see
I have a cup of hot tea
And I stare into the fire
At some point as the flames
Die down I shall get
Up and go to bed
Then it shall be morning
Again
When the sun comes up
Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning – Henry Miller – The Wisdom of the Heart, 1960 p5
Jury nullification – an acquittal based on principle. It is perfectly legal to render an acquittal in spite of obvious quilt. The framers of the Constitution intended for jurors to be a check on unjust prosecutors and bad laws
Man rushes up the trunk of livingness to expand in a spiritual flowering – Henry Miller – The Wisdom of the Heart, 1960 p9
It were gray
If seen
The sky
It will be green
In spring
This tree
It is blue
Now and then
As I think of you
Words are charitable: their frail reality deceives and consoles us – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p39
Fear is in proportion to the number of one’s possessions. The poor have no fear, just a dull dread of starvation and the ache of misery.
Consolation by a possible suicide widens into infinite space this realm where we are suffocating – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p36
If the police have a right to search inside your backpack or purse, or search your car, then they don’t have to ask for your permission. It’s your right to say no.
Death then has to be defeated – or disguised or transmogrified. But in the attempt to defeat death man has been inevitably obliged to defeat life, for the two are inextricably related – Henry Miller – The Wisdom of the Heart, 1960 p6
Snitches are responsible for about 50% of wrongful convictions
Ideas which germinate in the artist are unique and must be lived out – Henry Miller – The Wisdom of the Heart, 1960 p8
Retail sale of illegal drugs pays about the same as working at the local Burger King
In a single second we do away with all seconds, God himself could not do so much – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p36
It’s a hot day – too hot and there is not enough shade here – I hadn’t thought that I would already be voicing this complaint – the trees are leafing but not enough to provide any shade and the insects are astir – red wasps and black bumble bees.
And who is ever bold enough to do nothing because every action is senseless in infinity?… No one folds his arms: we are busier than the ants and the bees – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p43
Another lovely day – TD and I are up to five miles of hiking a day now – the bees and the wasps are an annoyance again today. The fishermen were out early in their little boats with trolling motors – “Electric Motors Only” and another sign about alligator safety – but alligators don’t read. Like most animals they have much more to fear from us that we do of them.
The great systems are actually no more than brilliant tautologies. What advantage is it to know that the nature of being consists in the “will to live”, in “idea”, or in the whim of God or of Chemistry? – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p48
It is the creative nature of man which has refused to let him lapse back into that unconscious unity with life which characterizes the animal world from which he made his escape – Henry Miller – The Wisdom of the Heart, 1960 p6
The anxiety of the future is only equaled by the tiresomeness of / the present – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1995 p314
Mild is the new medium
Hot is the old medium
Such is the degradation
Of taste
The ‘B’ became the new ‘C’
Self-esteem became
The mantra
“I like you just the way you are”
Said Mr. Rogers
You have to up the ante
Turn the background into static
Or else
Just read his lips
Hot, medium or mild
Formulated for America’s
Taste
No nature in the red
Anymore or so
We wanta believe
I want to applogize for the
Crudeness of Mr.London
You see
And anyone who speaks in the name of others is always an imposter. Politicians, reformers, and all who rely on a collective pretext are cheats. There is only the artist whose lie is not a total one, for he invents only himself – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p17
I said to myself if it is over $25 I stay only one night; it was $26. So one night it is and am I glad – the sand fleas are eating me up and the birds steal all of the dog’s food. But I’ve got cold beer and enough firewood for the night and tomorrow it is back to the swamps. To hell with the beach – it’s hot and there are too many rules, but at least the babes in bikinis are better looking than are the alligators.
I hate London… I hate people realizing I’m just there for the day. I hate other people who are just there for the day. I hate not being sure whether they are or whether they’re not – Michael Frayn – The Trick of It, 1989 p43
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