Java Zen:Thinking Out Loud Friday, 2024.03.29
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would
like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics...

It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many
of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with
the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather
than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding
characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on
the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense
feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed."
Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to
positive results or the lack thereof.

		Irving Kristol, Symbolic Politics and Liberal Reform, Dec. 15, 1972

2005.04.22

A Great Light has Gone Out

Janet
Janet Laurel 1953-2005

Companion, confidant, best of friends, beloved wife, and soul partner. Godspeed, my love. Peace be the journey. I miss you.

“There is no cure for birth and death other than to enjoy the interval.”

George Santayana

“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.'”

Erma Bombeck 1927-1996 American author, columnist

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life, and that is love.”

Sophocles


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