1900 was the first year in which religious works (at least in England) did not outnumber all other publications

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Brian Jacques. Page 10.

Could this really be true? There is no footnote to the passage but Barzun is an exemplary scholar. His comment is in the context of a discussion of the volume of communication, discussion and writing attendant to the Reformation.

From his unexpected sabbatical onward, Luther kept addressing the Germans on every issue of religious, moral, political, and social importance. Pamphlets, books, letters to individuals that were "given to the press" by the recipients, biblical commentaries, sermons, and hymns kept streaming from his inkwell. Disciples made Latin translations of what was in German and vice versa. It was an unexampled barrage of propaganda to pose a countrywide issue. Opponents retorted, confrontations were staged at universities and written up. A torrent of black-on-white wordage about the true faith and the good society poured over Christian heads. It did not cease for 350 years: 1900 was the first year in which religious works (at least in England) did not outnumber all other publications.

Such is, roughly, how revolutions "feel."

From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life by Brian Jacques. Page 7.

Though written in 2000 and Barzun's comments are in the context of the religious and political revolution sparked by Martin Luther posting his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, his description seems fresh and pertinent to the events of the Middle East in the past three months.

How a revolution erupts from a commonplace event - tidal wave from a ripple - is cause for endless astonishment. Neither Luther in 1517 nor the men who gathered at Versailles in 1789 intended at first what they produced at last. Even less did the Russian Liberals who made the revolution of 1917 foresee what followed. All were ignorant as everybody else of how much was about to be destroyed. Nor could they guess what feverish feelings, what strange behavior ensue when revolution, great or short-lived, is in the air.

First, a piece of news about something said or done travels quickly, more so than usual, because it is uniquely apt; it fits a half-conscious mood or caps a situation: a monk questions indulgences, and he does it not just out of the blue - they are being sold again on a large scale. The fact and the challenger's name generate rumor, exaggeration, misunderstanding, falsehood. People ask each other what is true and what it means. The atmosphere becomes electric, the sense of time changes, grows rapid; a vague future seems nearer.

On impulse, perhaps to snap the tension, somebody shouts in a church, throws a stone through a window, which provokes a fight - it happened so at Wittenberg - and clearly it is no ordinary breach of the peace. Another unknown harangues a crowd, urging it to stay calm - or not to stand there gaping but *do* something. As further news spreads, various types of people become aroused for or against the thing now upsetting everybody's daily life. But what is that thing? Concretely: ardent youths full of hope as they catch drift of the idea, rowdies looking for fun, and characters with a grudge. Cranks and tolerated lunatics come out of the houses, criminals out of hideouts, and all assert themselves.

Manners are flouted and customs broken. Foul language and direct insult become normal, in keeping with the rest of the excitement, buildings are defaced, images destroyed, shops looted. Printed sheets pass from hand to hand and are read with delight or outrage - Listen to this! Angry debates multiply about things long since settled: talk of free love, of priests marrying and monks breaking their vows, of property and wives in common, of sweeping out all evils, all corruption, all at once - all things new for a blissful life on earth.

A curious leveling takes place: the common people learn words and ideas hitherto not familiar and not interesting and discuss them like intellectuals, while others neglect their usual concerns - art, philosophy, scholarship - because there is only one compelling topic, the revolutionary Idea. The well-to-do and the "right-thinking," full of fear, come together and defend their possessions and habits. But counsels are divided and many see their young "taking the wrong side." The powers that be wonder and keep watch, with fleeting thoughts of advantage to be had from the confusion. Leaders of opinion try to put together some of the ideas afloat into a position which they mean to fight for. They will reassure others, preach boldness, and anyhow head the movement.

Voices grow shrill, parties form and adopt names or are tagged with them in derision and contempt. Again and again comes the shock of broken friendships, broken families. As times goes on, "betraying the cause" is an incessant charge, and there are indeed turncoats. Authorities are bewildered, heads of institutions try threats and concessions by turns, hoping the surge of subversion will collapse like previous ones. But none of this holds back that transfer of power and property which is the mark of revolution and which in the end establishes the Idea.

[snip]

Such is, roughly, how revolutions "feel." The gains and the deeds of blood vary in detail from one time to the next, but the motives are the usual mix: hope, ambition, greed, fear, lust, envy, hatred of order and of art, fanatic fervor, heroic devotion, and love of destruction.

We encounter all sorts of conundrums and puzzles

From P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty. Page 14.

Human problems are complex. If something isn't complex, it doesn't qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about. Die and that's that. Survive, on the other hand, and we encounter all sorts of conundrums and puzzles.

No cause to rejoice over the death of so many Christian men

From Anthony Mockler's Haile Selassie's War.

Ethiopia has a fascinating (and tragic) history. A native African empire that lasted into the modern era and one of the most ancient continuous Christian communities in the world. Mockler's book (so far) looks to be a well balanced history of the kingdom's (successful) struggle to remain independent at the time of the onslaught of European imperial land grabs in the late 1800s. In the first Italo-Ethiopian War, this culminated in the Ethiopian victory over the Italians on March 1, 1896 in the Battle of Adowa. Italy lost about a quarter or half of their invasion force of 16,000.

The tale is full of the exotic and unexpected from an event that is only a hundred and some years ago: eunuch generals, tribal champions, imperial courts, the Ark of the Covenant, Empresses leading divisions of the army, etc. Among the more striking elements is a moral consistency so rarely encountered in history. From page xxxx.

The Empress Taitu meanwhile had taken up her position on Mount Latsat behind her guns - six quick-firing Hotchkiss directed by the Commander of the Artillery, the young Galla eunuch, Bajirond Balcha. With her, gathered under the black umbrella - raised instead of the Imperial Red as a sign of grief at battle against fellow-Christians - were Woizero Zauditu, her step-daughter, and their maidservants.

[snip]

There was no organized pursuit of the routed [Italian] army. And there were no great rejoicings in the Ethiopian camp. Menelik cut short the boasting ceremonies and the war-songs in favor of 'Abba Dagnew', his horse-name. Later he told Dr. Neruzzini that he saw no cause to rejoice over the death of so many Christian men.

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit

From P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty. Page 12.

In fact, if we use the word politics in its broadest sense, there really is only one political goal in the world. Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by . . . politicians.

Our business is to be good and happy today.

Sydney Smith

We know nothing of tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today.

Nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes

From P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty. Page 9.

On the distinction between theory and practice, ideals and reality.

And worrying is less work than doing something to fix that worry. This is especially true if we're careful to pick the biggest possible problems to worry about. Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.

Thanks to Tylenol and two Bloody Marys.

From P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World: The Lighter Side of Overpopulation, Famine, Ecological Disaster, Ethnic Hatred, Plague, and Poverty. Page 2.

Things are batter now than things have been since men began keeping track of things. Things are better than they were only a few years ago. Things are better, in fact, than they were at 9:30 this morning, thanks to Tylenol and two Bloody Marys.

But that's personal and history is general. It's always possible to come down with the mumps on V-J Day or to have, right in the middle of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a piece of it fall on your foot. In general, life is better than it ever has been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word: "dentistry."

They must change if they are to get better

Just came across this insightful quote from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg:

I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.

Rather neatly sums up the diplomat's dilemma in the Middle East. What existed before was not great and we would wish it to be better. To get better, change must occur. We can't know that, even if there is change, it will end up better.

Here is another of his aphorisms for which he was famous.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinion at all.

I denounced this Prof. Veblen as a geyser of pishposh

Prejudices, First Series by H.L. Mencken. Page 34

Critiquing the economist Thorstein Veblen.

Ten or twelve years ago, being engaged in a bombastic discussion with what was then known as an intellectual Socialist (like the rest of the intelligentsia, he succumbed to the first fife-corps of World War I, pulled down the red flag, damned Marx as a German spy, and began whooping for Woodrow Wilson and Otto Kahn), I was greatly belabored and incommoded by his long quotations from a certain Prof. Thorstein Veblen, then quite unknown to me. My antagonist manifestly attached a great deal of importance to these borrowed sagacities, for he often heaved them at me in lengths of a column or two, and urged me to read every word of them. I tried hard enough, but found it impossible going. The more I read them, in fact, the less I could make of them, and so in the end, growing impatient and impolite, I denounced this Prof. Veblen as a geyser of pishposh, refused to waste any more time upon his incomprehensible syllogisms, and applied myself to the other Socialist witnesses in the case, seeking to set fire to their shirts.