CULTURE VIEWS
The Battle of the Somme
A case could be made that our postmodern culture struggles find their best analog in WWI – epitomized in the Battle of the Somme. Eventually victors may emerge from the trenches, but many bloody years are laid to waste, and the dead are legion.
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Crypto
“There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud.” P.J. O’Rourke
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Perfect Storm
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” Abraham Lincoln, 1862 Address to Congress In 1997 Sebastian Junger published his first major book.[i] In “The Perfect Storm” Junger described the final voyage of the Andrea Gail, a six-man crewed commercial fishing vessel out of Gloucester, MA[ii]…
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POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Well Scripted Redux
“The nature of psychological compulsion is such that those who act under constraint remain under the impression that they are acting on their own initiative. The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited Journalists are not the only group wittingly or unwittingly conditioning our thinking. Nor are…
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Well Scripted
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” Aldous Huxley, Brave New World[i] Back in the mists of the early seventies for about a year I was a correspondent for a regional daily paper in Boston. I remember well the cigarettes smoldering in our ashtrays and cold coffee and typewriters at eleven at night trying to beat a deadline with coverage of a local town’s selectmen or planning committee meeting…
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Swine, Double Speak, and Bringing Home the Bacon
“It has been the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and finish with contempt.” Thomas Paine [i] Recently I read an article about a bacon crisis looming in California. [ii] Sad is the plight of the owner of a small breakfast diner who survived the pandemic restaurant crisis but may be put out of business because her staple, bacon, eggs, and home fries, might soon be missing…
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Maximum Benefit, Minimum Wage (Part Two)
“Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration.” Abraham Lincoln There is no substitute for what we learn in our early jobs. In 1968, minimum wage was set by the government at $1.60 per hour. The $15 an hour minimum wage proponent today claims that $22 or even $24 an hour is necessary just to remain even with inflation since then. But is that true? I did a quick…
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Quo Vadis Blog 