That stuck with me

From Children Are Unfeeling Sociopaths by Tim Cavanaugh

They showed us a movie of the Velveteen Rabbit when I was in first or second grade, and while I was – just as Watson says – not terribly interested in the love story between the boy and the stuffed animal or the magically transformed rabbit or whatever it was, there was one aspect of the story that was fascinating: the idea that a stuffed toy could be so infected with deadly germs that it had to be incinerated. That stuck with me.

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience

Brilliant; I love it. From Miguel de Cervantes:

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

I view proverbs and adages as forms of cultural coding to facilitate rapid communication and decision-making. Cervantes' is a crisp rendition of the idea.

What must an educated person know?

From Quora, What must an educated person know? by Josh Kaufman.

A lot of guff but also some interesting candidates including:

The ability to define problems without a guide.
The ability to ask hard questions which challenge prevailing assumptions.
The ability to quickly assimilate needed data from masses of irrelevant information.
The ability to work in teams without guidance.
The ability to work absolutely alone.
The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one.
The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns.
The ability to discuss ideas with an eye toward application.
The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically.
The ability to think, speak, and write clearly.
The ability to reason critically and systematically.
The ability to conceptualize and solve problems.
The ability to think independently.
The ability to take initiative and work independently.
The ability to work in cooperation with others and learn collaboratively.
The ability to judge what it means to understand something thoroughly.
The ability to distinguish the important from the trivial, the enduring from the ephemeral.
Familiarity with the different modes of thought (including quantitative, historical, scientific, and aesthetic.)
Depth of knowledge in a particular field.
The ability to see connections among disciplines, ideas and cultures.
The ability to pursue life long learning.
The ability to understand human nature and lead accordingly.
The ability to identify needed personal traits and turn them into habits.
The ability to establish, maintain, and improve lasting relationships.
The ability to keep one's life in proper balance.
The ability to discern truth and error regardless of the source, or the delivery.
The ability to discern true from right.
The ability and discipline to do right.
The ability and discipline to constantly improve.
Information-Assimilation – how to find, consume, and comprehend information and identify what’s most important in the face of a problem or challenge.
Writing – how to communicate thoughts and ideas in written form clearly and concisely.
Speaking – how to communicate thoughts and ideas to others clearly, concisely, and with confidence.
Mathematics – how to accurately use concepts from arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, and statistics to analyze and solve common problems.
Decision-Making – how to identify critical issues, prioritize, focus energy/effort, recognize fallacies, avoid common errors, and handle ambiguity.
Rapport – how to interact with other people in a way that encourages them to like, trust, and respect you.
Conflict-Resolution – how to anticipate potential sources of conflict and resolve disagreements when they occur.
Scenario-Generation – how to create, clarify, evaluate, and communicate a possible future scenario that assists in decision-making, either for yourself or another person.
Planning – how to identify the necessary next steps to achieve an objective, account for dependencies, and prepare for the unknown and inevitable change via the use of contingencies.
Self-Awareness – how to accurately perceive and influence your own internal states and emotions, including effective management of limited energy, willpower, and focus.
Interrelation – how to recognize, understand, and make use of key features of systems and relationships, including cause-and-effect, second and third-order effects, constraints, and feedback loops.
Skill Acquisition – how to go about learning a desired skill in a way that results in competence by finding and utilizing available resources, deconstructing complex processes, and actively experimenting with potential approaches.
The ability to make connections between all the knowledge you possess.
The ability to communicate an idea.
The ability to think independently - independent of emotions and the influence of others.
The ability to determine the relevance and intellectual worth of information.
An awareness of different thought styles and their applications to different problems.
The ability to constantly learn through reading, experimentation, observation and conversation.
The ability to determine where the answer may be found - which resource, what academic field or which expert.
The ability to understand and analyse data.
The ability to assimilate information quickly - speed reading, determining relevance and understanding the relevant information.
Awareness of your knowledge and experiences.
The ability to value all perspectives.
The ability to actively research any curiosities you may have and not just wonder about them.
The ability to challenge prevailing assumptions.
The ability to make connections between knowledge and a problem. Seek to solve a problem through deliberate application of knowledge (theories, concepts ) rather than gut instinct.
The ability to re-organise information into new pattern.

Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro

A debate at the Cambridge Union in 1963 between James Baldwin and William Buckley, Jr. on the motion "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American Negro."



A period piece that seems to belong to another age and yet all the issues with which we wrestle today are there in one form or another in this archival relic of two generations ago.

How wonderfully civilized is the whole event. A respectful exchange of ideas, an attentive audience. Articulate. Insightful. Much truth from all parties. The elegance of structured arguments in contrast with the passion of human arguments. Notice the close attention being paid and the sustained focus. No fidgeting, whispering, texting, disrespect.

I have always heard very positive things about Buckley as a writer and speaker. I am not seeing it in this performance. Command of language - absolutely. Effective rhetoric - I am not so sure. And yet, he does also make some telling points. Baldwin and his partner David Heycock had the better of the evening. What a treasure to come across this.

He . . . was concerned that trashy novels were corrupting people’s minds

From John Ray's book reviews in the article, Tomb raiders Some concerns are evergreen. Champollion (1790-1832) -

Champollion was also a poet, pamphleteer and a tireless correspondent. He was interested in the education of the poor, and was concerned that trashy novels were corrupting people’s minds. He could be a bitter satirist, and carried on a running feud with the Catholic Church. He triumphed but overwork killed him at the age of 41. All of this is brought out by Robinson with verve, elegance and perception.

Spending down the capital that its forerunners accumulated

From Is Europe Melting? by Walter Russell Mead. He articulates the common core issue in North America, Europe, Japan and even China.

But it is hard to avoid the impression that, despite the considerable assets the continent still has, this European generation is living off — and spending down — the capital that its forerunners accumulated. And at some point one begins to wonder just how much is left in in the family trust.

When you are spending more than you produce, as almost everyone currently is, that is sustainable only to the extent that that excess spending is creating the capacity for increased future productivity. If excess spending has no positive impact on future productivity, which is definitely the current case for Europe and Japan, and quite probably for North America and China, then the mathematics of the equation will come down like a hammer with no good outcome for anyone.

The only way out is to reduce the spending so that it falls in to line with what is being produced or to change where the money is being spent so that it does in fact increase future productivity. There is pain to be experienced by either route but only one route is pain that leads to gain. In either case, powerful or vocal oxes will be gored.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

An article (Europe Caught in Vise as Austerity Weakens Economy by Jack Ewing and Liz Alderman) in the New York Times begins with the following, rather remarkable, opening paragraph.

Citizens from Prague to Paris to Amsterdam have made it abundantly clear in the past few days that they are tired of the economic austerity forced on them by the euro zone debt crisis.

It would be easy to sound preachy and Franklinesque (Neither a borrower nor a lender be . . .) but that is not my intent. I am simply struck by the unstated sentiment that there is a choice involved in this issue. People are tired of the consequences of overspending and they wish to return to a more pleasant set of circumstances - but where are those circumstances to be found? No one knows. In the meantime, whether one is tired of economic austerity or not, it would appear that there is nothing else credible on the menu.

There are some striking similarities between the religious doomsday of the past and today’s technology-created doomsday.

There is an interesting article, We fear that science will wipe us out, in ScienceNordic.

There are some striking similarities between the religious doomsday of the past and today’s technology-created doomsday.

I will have to ponder what the connection might be between that article and the observations offered by Chesterton in my post earlier, The timidity of the child or the savage is entirely reasonable; they are alarmed at this world, because this world is a very alarming place.

Two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps

From And the Winner Isn’t ... by Ann Patchett. Stating the obvious but the obvious so often needs to be stated.

Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps.

The History of English in 10 Minutes

The History of English in 10 Minutes - prety clever if you onky have ten minutes.