“It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.“
“Welcome, Prince,” said Aslan. “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?”
“I—I don‘t think I do, Sir,” said Caspian. “I‘m only a kid.”
“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.”
“Nothing uses up alcohol faster than political argument.”
Not about what you might think, given the title. It is instead THE preeminent novel about Texas politics. The cover also features an Austin that looks VERY different than it does today. #bookhaul
Look what came in the mail this Election Day! #WheelOfTime #bookhaul
Does anyone know who Blake‘s mom is? So I can let her know her ungrateful son dumped her thoughtful gift on the secondary market.
Walked outside to read a little Odyssey and drink a little Woodford only to discover Amazon came through with a #bookhaul and my replacement vinyl inner sleeves.
Trying to read when you have kids.
“‘Man is ever bound by obligations, but to lose them gives no freedom but abandonment.‘ That‘s Eudiricles. He was saying that it‘s our bonds to others that allow us freedom, that to be without ties is to be floating in chaos. Man must seek out obligations if he is to be whole.”
I‘m also reading about whiskey and drinking a bourbon smash while I smoke the brisket, because it is hot and a day off work.
Getting some #Juneteenth reading in while I wait out the stall on our brisket.
“At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in his inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up on the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.”
“Am I in love with her? Or is it merely charm that met a longstanding celibacy, like steel meeting flint? I don‘t know. I never will know unless I can see her again. Often.”
“This Earthside brandy was heady stuff. She warned herself to go slow. Well, not too slow. Moderation in all things, including moderation.”
The evening spin while I dig into The Steal.
Okay, I think this definitively answers the “are the Barsoomians really naked” question.
“I don‘t drink tea. I hate it. It‘s mud. Moreover it‘s one of the main reasons for the downfall of the British Empire. Be a good girl and make some coffee.”
I realized that the uncontrolled spread of new nonfiction hardcovers on my nightstand is even worse than I thought. Justice Harlan, as was his wont, was off doing his own thing and missing from my earlier picture.
“Then isn‘t it better to do what‘s up to you—like a free man—than to be passively controlled by what isn‘t, like a slave or a beggar?”
Breakfast and a book.
“Daddy, let me read you a story. It‘s a real big story!”
Latest #ARC. My first Drizzt book in many, many years.
pickI enjoyed Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby; Razorblade Tears absolutely blew me away. This is just a tremendous book. It has a killer premise and succeeds entirely in the execution. It works fully from both literary and pulp perspectives.
https://hillbillyhighways.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/country-noir-razorblade-tears...
“It has been said that most of the world‘s injustices are inflicted, not with the fists, but with the elbows. When we use our fists we use them for a definite purpose, and we are answerable to others and to ourselves for that purpose. Our elbows, we may comfortably suppose, trace a random pattern for which we are not responsible, even though our neighbor may be painfully aware that he is being systematically pushed from his seat.”
“The CDC did many things. It published learned papers on health crises, after the fact. It managed, very carefully, public perception of itself. But when the shooting started, it leapt into the nearest hole, while others took fire.”
“The evidence thus far introduced before this committee tends to show that men upon whom fortune had smiled benevolently and who possessed great financial power, great political power, and great governmental power; undertook to nullify the laws of man and the laws of God for the purpose of gaining what history will call a very temporary political advantage.” - NC Senator San Ervin during the Warergate hearings
“To love my family, truth and justice. It was through him that I . . . conceived of a society of equal laws, governed by equality of status of speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else.”
Happy #July4th
Started my review copy yesterday evening to celebrate surviving a weekend with my toddler while my wife was out of town. Along with a bourbon or two.
“When, for decades, you have been able to make a man compromise his manhood by threatening him with cruel and unjust punishment, and when suddenly he turns upon you and says: ‘Punish me. I do not deserve it. But because I do not deserve it, I will accept it so that the world will know that I am right and you are wrong,‘ you hardly know what to do. You feel defeated and secretly ashamed. You know that this man is as good a man as you are.”
“Nonviolent direct action did not originate in America, but it found its natural home in this land, where refusal to cooperate with injustice was an ancient and honorable tradition and where Christian forgiveness was written into the minds and hearts of good men.” #Juneteenth
Starting this for my #Juneteenth read, along with continuing Ted Gioia‘s magisterial history of the Delta Blues.
I hope nothing important happens this page... #usedbooks
“[T]hanks to the emergence of ‘precision agriculture,‘ chemical use on farms has decreased significantly, not just relative to output but often in absolute terms as well. Fertilizer use on America‘s farms has remained flat for the past four decades while total production was increasing more than 40 percent, and total insecticide use on farms is now more than 80 percent lower than in 1972.”
“Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury.” - Cato the Elder
Drinking a hard cider on this lovely sunny day while I read about a less legal substance.
“We are not gonna have an industrial ‘Michael‘, in which it is perceived as tragic that a son fails to succeed his father on an assembly line.”
I wonder if Wendell Berry watched The Wire. (Probably not. He doesn‘t own a television.)
“If Washington was the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government.”
“If the laws are to be trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government” - George Washington
This line from a letter from Angelica to Eliza probably inspired the reference to sharing Hamilton in the musical:
“By my Amiable, you know that I mean your husband, for I love him very much and, if you were as generous as the old Romans, you would lend him to me for a little while.”
It‘s hard for us to fathom today, but at the dawn of our country response to an epidemic became politicized.
Hamilton, who never officially finished college, authored most of the Federalist Papers, served as Secretary of the Treasury, and received honorary doctorates from Columbia, Dartmouth, Princeton, Harvard, and Brown before he turned 40.
