Skip to content

Monthly Archives: July 2010

Noted: Remember, nostalgia always disappoints.

Not only is Rieff one of our best guides to what kind of individual we have on our hands today and why, he’s also a bracing antidote to nostalgic thinking about recovering a happy past.

Noted: Independance day pour tous.

Il reste l’essentiel du symbole. « La vie, la liberté et la recherche du bonheur » sont qualifiées de droits inaliénables et les gouvernements sont établis pour les garantir, avec le consentement des gouvernés. Voilà, le sens de la démocratie.

The King at a ballgame, 4 July 1918.

Early in September some good baseball should be seen on the Hyde Park ground, for the championship of England is to be decided there, between the best American team and the best Canadian. It is greatly to be feared that there is no possible chance of an English team carrying off the world’s palm. The Americans would be delighted if there were such a possibility.

Noted: FDR's 'new constitutional order'.

These were the kinds of rights that the New Deal especially promoted: the right to a job, the right to a decent home, the right to sell your agricultural products at a price that would allow you to keep your farm, the right to medical care, the right to vacations from work, and so on. FDR elevated these rights to be parts of what he called “our new constitutional order.”

Noted: Germany's marks men get their revenge.

At the German Federal Constitutional Court, which is located in Karlsruhe, the four professors dropped off a 352-page brief that would change their lives. It was a complaint against the introduction of the euro.

Excerpt: How Voice died on the Somme.

It was one of the awful sights I had ever witnessed and at this point our own lads was coming out wounded as we was following them in. Then the order came down dump everything and fix bayonets you have got to fight for it lads.

Noted: Looking at the Senate and dreaming of ponies.

The Supreme Court hearings [on Kagan’s nomination]…have left most of America in a collective drool-producing nap.