I never imagined I would live to see the day when the United States and its satellites would use precisely the same arguments that the apartheid government used for detention without trial. It is disgraceful ... One cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States and some of their allies have accepted.
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
quoted in “Blair Calls Camp in Cuba an ‘Anomaly,’”
New York Times, Feb. 18, 2006
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
- Clarence Darrow
Until quite recently, the history of nineteenth-century sexuality was one of total repression. As the excesses of the aristocracy gave way to the domination of the bourgeoisie, women, it was argued, became cloistered and corseted, while men--when they were not whoring after the double standard--were stuffy, inflexible patriarchs. Today women's sexual behavior is more like men's than ever before in human history No Sex Please, My Mother was British!
If you are not a Media Dragon reader, a human rights activist, or otherwise obsessed with Middle East and Otoman empire, you can be forgiven for not having fisking on the tip of your tongue. 2006 is the centenary year of the philosopher Hannah Arend Fear and loathing set in: Politics and cosmopolitics
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: See! He beat me!
If the oases are destroyed by sandstorms or an excluding world, there are still watering-holes to keep mind and soul together.
As Arendt points out: the oases exist free of political relations. What went wrong was the politics, our pluralistic existence and not what we can do or create as individuals: the isolation of the scientist and the artist, the intrinsic, world-less relations between people as it exists in love and, in some cases, friendship. When one heart reaches out to another, like in friendship, or when the world around them goes up in flames, like in love. Without the preservation of the oases, we would not know how to breathe
• Islands in the Net [As Kierkegaard has a character say in Either/Or, "The smallest of causes can bring about the greatest of effects." No Two Alike ; The woman responsible for picking which books are sold by Tesco, considered one of the most powerful posts in the publishing world, has left the British supermarkets chain to join HarperCollins. Supermarket chains now wield immense power in the publishing industry, selling books at deep discounts to lure shoppers -- to the great consternation of publishers and independent stores -- and heavily influence which authors become bestsellers Tesco's book maven heading to HarperCollins]
• · Lulu gets bigger; Rich Aussies get richer
• · · Does an international search for justice hurt or help the pursuit of peace? Bringing the wicked to the dock ; A man takes a woman home. Before long, he takes home another. Then he adds a third, or even a fourth love interest, flitting between them on a whim and as his workload allows. Each jostles for his attention, dealing with the knowledge she's not the only one. A scene from a 19th-century Mormon community? Or Memoirs of a Geisha where a woman might receive a kimono for her kind understanding? Try Sydney 2006. With gender ratios out of balance, Thirroul's Sydney based Barranqueros have never had it so good ; The living things that did not have the knack to deceive or that had less ability to lie died of starvation or by being eaten. They did not survive to reproduce, more than those who possessed the quality to lie and had a better chance of multiplying. Thus, evolution produced the best corporate liars Why we lie
• · · · These people who line their pockets with the lives of our loved ones? the big dark .....; Beyond Left and Right: Frank Furedi’s “Politics of Fear" ; Do we really live in an age of accountability? Ten years of Accountable Government?
• · · · · Consider Alexander Pope’s famous aphorism from his 1735 “An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot” about the tonic effect of the dimpled smile: “Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, as shallow streams run dimpling all the way ... At least I know what I am trying to do, which is to live deliberately without roots. I would put it like this. America may break one completely, but the best of which one is capable is more likely to be drawn out of one here more than anywhere else.” W.H. Auden Federal Court Secrecy
• · · · · · Australia’s Daily Telegraph used school records to show that public school teachers took almost 390,000 sick days last year Australia Teacher Sick Days ; Deborah Howlett of the Newark Star-Ledger used legislative and county records to find that 42 of the 120 [state] lawmakers have two — or three — elected or tax-paid positions New Jersey Legislative Double-Dipping
