Less well known is Prometheus’ second gift. In Aeschylus’ “Prometheus Bound,” the chained Titan is pitilessly interrogated by the chorus. They ask him whether he gave human beings anything else. Yes, he says, “I stopped mortals from foreseeing doom.” How did you do that, they ask? His response is revealing: “I sowed in them blind hopes.”
~ Simon Critchley, from Abandon (Nearly) All Hope
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If you are one of the newly-visible others, this all sounds whiny compared to the problems you face every day. It’s tempting to blast through such privileged resistance with anger and insult.
Tempting, but also, I think, a mistake. The privileged are still privileged enough to foment a counter-revolution, if their frustrated sense of entitlement hardens.
So I think it’s worthwhile to spend a minute or two looking at the world from George Parker’s point of view: He’s a good 1950s TV father. He never set out to be the bad guy. He never meant to stifle his wife’s humanity or enforce a dull conformity on his kids. Nobody ever asked him whether the world should be black-and-white; it just was.
~ Doug Muder, from The Distress of the Privileged
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Everything in life is temporary. So if things are going good, enjoy it because it won’t last forever. …and if things are going bad, don’t worry; It won’t last forever either.
~ unknown
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We’re coming up on halfway through; After February, it’s all downhill to Spring. Here’s a couple shots I snapped while strolling around our neighborhood last year.
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Ever since I started running a website about health and fitness, I’ve noticed a key difference between people who find long-term success with getting healthy and those who don’t. When dealing with people who will NOT find success, I feel like a parent on a road trip.
~ Steve Kamb, from «http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2014/02/20/are-we-there-yet/»
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Cursive or not, the benefits of writing by hand extend beyond childhood. For adults, typing may be a fast and efficient alternative to longhand, but that very efficiency may diminish our ability to process new information. Not only do we learn letters better when we commit them to memory through writing, memory and learning ability in general may benefit.
~ Maria Konnikova from, What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades
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I agree that America faces a major discipline problem, but I see the lack of discipline at the top: the bankers, the billionaires, the CEOs. Like Mike Rice, they’re out of control and need to face the consequences of their actions.
The Rice video was seen by Rutgers officials months ago, and their response was a wrist-slap: Rice was suspended for three games and told not to do it again. Isn’t that typical of how things go in America?
~ Doug Muder, from Mike Rice, Sean Hannity, and the Real American Discipline Problem
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The practice of politeness is a collection of habits of mind and expression you do on a daily basis. You learn to say “thank you” because you are honestly grateful and “I’m sorry” because you honestly don’t want to contribute to the pain of the world. You learn to say “it’s ok” because you’re honestly forgiving and letting go of small things other people do wrong. This practice makes the rate of unproductive and acrimonious conversations go down, and the enemies you make are usually only the unavoidably unpleasant.
~ Quinn Norton, from How to be Polite… for Geeks
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The pessimist complains about the wind;
~ William A. Ward
The optimist expects it to change;
The realist adjusts the sails.
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But why do women make less? Is it for reasons we can all live with, or is the pay gap an injustice that needs fixing? Several reasons are frequently offered, together with explanations why we can live with those reasons. (Never forget that those are two separate conversations. Even if the whole pay gap could be boiled down to something as simple as “Girls don’t like math”, we’d still need to discuss whether that’s a problem we can or should fix.)
~ Doug Muder, from 77 cents, part II
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VERY interesting gender/salary math.
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Many seem to believe that if we worked our way out of debt problems in the past, we can do the same thing again. The same assets may have new owners, but everything will work together in the long run. Businesses will continue operating, and people will continue to have jobs. We may have to adjust monetary policy, or perhaps regulation of financial institutions, but that is about all.
I think this is where the story goes wrong. The situation we have now is very different, and far worse, than what happened in the past.
~ Gail Tverberg, from Debt
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Anyone who works with computers learns to fear their capacity to forget. Like so many things with computers, memory is strictly binary. There is either perfect recall or total oblivion, with nothing in between. It doesn’t matter how important or trivial the information is. The computer can forget anything in an instant. If it remembers, it remembers for keeps.
~ Maciej Cegłowski, from The Internet With A Human Face
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…from his talk at Beyond Tellerrand
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True friendship develops not as a result of money or power, but on the basis of genuine human affection.
~ Dalai Lama
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This tweet appeared the day I returned from training at the Académie Québécoise d’Art du Déplacement. Clearly I’m becoming a softie in my middling years, but I felt a real connection to the many people I had the privilege of training with. They were strong, humble, joyful, welcoming, and so much more.
On commence ensemble; On finit ensemble.
Art du Deplacement – Force, Dignite, Partage
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Put it all together, and even a student who works part-time and attends a second-rate state university can easily graduate owing over $100,000.
Welcome to the professional class, kid. Just don’t expect to keep any of the money you make. And I almost forgot to mention: We’ve let public transportation go to hell, so you’ll need to buy a car. (Here’s another loan.) We’re letting public schools fail, so if you have kids and want them to stay in the professional class, you’ll need to send them to private schools (Here’s another loan.) And we’re going to toss that national-health-care idea out on its ear, but don’t worry, if you get sick you can put it on your Visa.
~ Doug Muder, from Student Debt
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This change really seperates people. It’s not going to be like it used to be. You can’t ‘go back to training’ as you once did. That one Jam that you remember is a small part of your whole experience that you remember fondly. It’s one highlight in a long journey, which isn’t just highlights. What’s the constant in these memories?
It’s Parkour.
~ Chris Grant, from Change
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No character can be simple unless it is based on truth — unless it is lived in harmony with one’s own conscience and ideals. Simplicity is the pure white light of a life lived from within. It is destroyed by any attempt to live in harmony with public opinion. Public opinion is a conscience owned by a syndicate — where the individual is merely a stockholder. But the individual has a conscience of which he is sole proprietor. Adjusting his life to his own ideals is the royal road to simplicity. Affectation is the confession of inferiority; It is an unnecessary proclamation that one is not living the life he pretends to live.
~ William G. Jordan
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Relax, find a croissant…
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Wonderful food and laughter with new friends after our last eve at ADD Quebec!
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Julia spotted this swirl on rue St Jean. #swirlsOnTheMove
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That’s the only test that counts. It’s not how hard you work, it’s what happens if you stop. If quitting means real hardship for you or your family, you have a job. If you keep at it even though you could spend the rest of your life skipping rocks at your house by the lake, you have a hobby.
I’ve got nothing against hobbies. The Weekly Sift is a hobby. One way to describe the Marxist vision of Utopia is that we’d all be hobbyists, and the world’s work would get done by people who just wanted the satisfaction of doing it. (That vision even works sometimes: Wikipedia, open source software, and so on.)
~ Doug Muder from, Rich People Don’t Have Jobs
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