Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes
“A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension.” BACK
Beauty and insight in a fragment of a forgotten sentence.
I’ve kept journals for decades, and recently while going through one nearly twenty years old, I came across this splinter from a forgotten sentence I’d jotted down, source unrecorded. There was only this penciled note: “I think from a newspaper article, or magazine article . . . an unexpected phrase of poetic beauty.” “. .…
How the “ruling class” frame their assets to the rest of us.
We’re all familiar now with Mark Zuckerberg’s unceasing and hypocritical paen to the sacred interactions of loyal Face Book users, and how their interactions on his platform will make their lives so much better. Well, I recently came across the following tweet, it’s origin long-lost to repetition, that gives the lie to Zuck’s magnanimity: “‘Community’…
There’s something wrong with this picture . . .
In the entire history of the United States Supreme Court only one justice has been a) nominated by a president who didn’t win the popular vote b) confirmed by a majority of senators who collectively won fewer votes in their last election than did the senators who voted against that justice’s confirmation Yes, of course,…
JOLT-ing history, one vote at a time
It’s hard to tell by looking at today’s headlines in the news media, but America is changing, and as always, it’s changing the most for the next generations. How that change looks, and how it happens, is largely up to people with vision. Not always powerful people in the traditional use of the word “powerful”,…
The CRISIS of Election Security
As the midterms approach, America’s electronic voting systems are more vulnerable than ever. Why isn’t anyone trying to fix them? I suggest you read this excellent article in today’s (2018-09-30) New York Times. In light of the Russian meddling in our 2016 Presidential elections, this issue–the security of our voting process–which I’m sure most of…
APHORISM
aph·o·rism [ˈafəˌrizəm] NOUN a pithy observation that contains a general truth, a statement of some general principle, expressed memorably by condensing much wisdom into few words. Examples: “The child is father to the man.” (William Wadsworth) “Power worship blurs political judgment because it leads, almost unavoidably, to the belief that present trends will continue.…
What Alexis de Tocqueville knew . . . .
“If I were asked . . . to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people [the Americans] ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.” Apparently de Tocqueville was a more perceptive man in 1835, when America was still a new democracy, than many men are…
New theory of Dark Personality reveals the nine traits of evil people in your life
Having written a number of novels involving characters with “dark personalities”, I found this article recently published in BigThink.com worth sharing. The sad reality is that people with high D-factor scores do not live in isolation. The damage they do to the people who interact with them reverberates widely and deeply. They can cause a…
The Electoral College: Top 3 Pros and Cons
Nearly two years out from the 2020 Presidential elections, the questions of the most appropriate way for U.S. voters to count and tally their Presidential votes is again coming to the forefront. Below, I’ve reprinted an article published on September 1, 2017 on procon.org website on this subject. DLL The debate over the continued…