Three men die in a car accident on Christmas Eve.
They all find themselves at the Pearly Gates waiting to enter Heaven.
To enter Heaven, they must present something related to or associated with Christmas to Saint Peter or they will be rejected..
The first man searches his pocket, and finds some mistletoe, so he is allowed in.
The second man presents a nutcracker, so he is also allowed in.
The third man pulls out a pair of woman’s panties.
Confused at this last gesture, St Peter asks, “How does this represent Christmas?”
The man answers, “They’re Carol’s.”
——
Few lines by Adorno serve as a better summation of his concept of fascist movements than his 1967 claim that they are “the wounds, the scars of a democracy that, to this day, has not yet lived up to its own concept.”
Nature Nature’s 10: ten people who helped shape science in 2020 – “A COVID vaccine developer, an Arctic voyager and a prime minister are some of the people behind the year’s big research stories…The Nature’s 10 list explores key developments in science this year and some of the people who played important parts in these milestones. Along with their colleagues, these individuals helped to make amazing discoveries and brought attention to crucial issues. Nature’s 10 is not an award or a ranking. The selection is compiled by Nature’s editors to highlight key events in science through the compelling stories of those involved…”
Regrets About The Life You’ve Lived?
“The thought that I might have become someone else is so bland that dwelling on it sometimes seems fatuous,” the literary scholar Andrew H. Miller writes, in “On Not Being Someone Else: Tales of Our Unled Lives” (Harvard). Still, phrased the right way, the thought has an insistent, uncanny magnetism. – The New Yorker
To say that John le Carrรฉ invented the modern spy novel doesn’t do justice to his achievement. His fictional world blurred into Reality
E.P. Thompson’s rise was a paradoxical intellectual event: “history from below” promised social uplift, yet ignored stark colonial realities Folkloric Foundations
A spate of books peddles philosophers, from Socrates to William James, as gurus of the good life. Try Imrich or ... Try Spinoza
The best of 20th century philosophy urges us to be fearless, critical, and creative, and to avoid orthodoxies, ideologies, and obscurantist nonsense philosophy
Why have restaurant reviews become smackdowns? Our appetite for blood sport distorts how critics write and think about Food
The Complications Of What Tolerance And Respect Mean
“Today many regard tolerance not as the willingness to allow views that some may find offensive but the restraining of unacceptable views so as to protect people from being outraged. Regarding tolerance as the demand of those who might be offended, rather than as a permission for those who might offend is to turn the idea on its head.” – The Guardian
Through a Lens Darkly: A Photographer’s Journey Through Los Angeles Capital & Main
Japan adopts green growth plan to go carbon free by 2050 Politico
Parthenogenesis: How females from some species can reproduce without males Ars Technica
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Are Modeling Themselves After the Obamas After Leaving Royal Life Marie Claire
Japan’s ‘onsen’: A hot bath every day keeps doctors away Deutsche Welle
Vitalik year end notes from Singapore. Outside of crypto, Vitalik is perhaps the most underrated thinker, period.
What the Brexit trade deal does
Megan McArdle on dangerous group think in the public health establishment: “…the discussion of whether to prioritize essential workers was anything but robust. The committee left only 10 minutes for it, during which not one of those 14 intelligent and dedicated health professionals suggested adopting the plan that kills the fewest people. Nor did anyone run out of time to make that point. Ten minutes was actually a little too much for what turned out to be a pro forma opportunity to get on the record endorsing the plan, and particularly its emphasis on racial and economic equity in health care.”
“…I assign a 90% probability to at least one of the new variants being >30% more transmissible“
