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Monthly Archives: September 2010

Noted: The 130 friends you have on Facebook hardly know who you are.

But in restricting ourselves to the thin gruel of modern friendships, we miss out on the more nourishing fare that deeper ones have to offer.

Noted: How the ploughman digs his Georgics.

By GEOFFREY HILL [Poetry Magazine] – What is far hence led to the den of making: Moves unlike wildfire | not so simple-happy Ploughman hammers ploughshare his durum dentem Digging the Georgics

Noted: Where Glenn Beck went right.

Glenn Beck did not adopt nonviolence explicitly for the “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington. That would have been too wrenching a leap for his followers and opponents alike.

Noted: Populism's moment of truth.

Skilled political leaders in a democracy — figures like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan — know what pundits and academics often overlook: that they must move the heart before they can persuade the mind.

Noted: Russia's lost days and nights, 1918.

Under a law passed in 1750, England adopted the Gregorian calendar (to much rioting and resistance across the country), and Wednesday, September 2nd, 1752 was followed by Thursday, September 14th. Russian didn’t adopt this calendar until after the revolution in 1918.

Noted: Flowers erupt following disaster.

Swirsky: “‘Evening in Pompeii’ arrived as a set of strange images written rapidly in ink on a reporter’s pad. The process of writing the poem involved chipping away at the images, to discover the narrative that tied them together.”

Excerpt: Blessed with philosophy amongst the cotton socks.

Philosophy pops up everywhere and the vast majority of people are philosophers pretty often. The strangeness of life, the inevitability of suffering and death, the peculiar fact that most people seem to remain quite cheerful and positive despite what they endure on a daily basis, are all grounds for philosophical reflection.