Western Civilization

Leon R. Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom, Pp. 406-7.

Jacob’s Summary

“ The biblical counterpart of Odysseus, Jacob must solve the fundamental human difficulties illustrated in the pre-Abrahamic chapters of Genesis. ”

David Pryce-Jones, “Jews, Arabs, and French Diplomacy: A Special Report”

The Zionists Must Understand

“ The Zionists must understand once and for all that there can be no question of constituting an independent Jewish state in Palestine, or even forming some sovereign Jewish body. ”

Robert Graves, I, Claudius

Ask Me Anything

“ The drink was as remarkable as the food, and Caligula became so lively as the meal went on that, deprecating his own generosity to Herod in the past as something hardly worth mentioning, he now promised to give him whatever it lay in his power to grant. “Ask me anything, my dearest Herod,” he said, “And it shall be yours.” He repeated: “Absolutely anything. I swear by my own Divinity that I will grant it.” ”

the United Nations, The Declaration of the Universal Human Rights of Man

Born Free and Equal

“ On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinctions based on the political status of countries or territories.” ”

Francis Fukuyama, “Social Capital and Civil Society”

People Need People

“ There are serious problems with a culture of unbridled individualism, in which the breaking of rules becomes, in a sense, the only remaining rule. The first has to do with the fact that moral values and social rules are not simply arbitrary constraints on individual choice but the precondition for any kind of cooperative enterprise. Indeed, social scientists have recently begun to refer to a society’s stock of shared values as “social capital.” ”

Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Public Library One

“ On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of same rank generally are in other countries. ”

“Nation on the Move” is the magnificent second episode of the America Revealed PBS series. Interestingly, the show is British-made.

Josef Joffe, editor of Hamburg’s Die Zeit, analyses Günter Grass’s What Must Be Said.

Nice review of Scorsese’s documentary on George Harrison, Living in the Material World. “Scorsese is making a film about something that matters, but never quite succeeds in conveying that.” Here’s Variety’s smarter review.

What a tour de force from Edward Luttwak on The Iliad.

What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? 192 responses to this year’s question from The Edge.

Conrad Black. What he said.

More vital than ever is the city, argues Edward Glaeser.

Irit and I were discussing this regarding ET, which still feels contemporary: in arts, entertainment and style, it’s been Groundhog Day for 20 years. “Now that we have instant universal access to every old image and recorded sound, the future has arrived and it’s all about dreaming of the past.”

Defeated US politician sues for loss of livelihood. What next.

Dead. Qua-daffy. The NYT’s potted (and potty) history. “By the time he was done, Libya had no parliament, no unified military command, no political parties, no unions, no civil society and no nongovernmental organizations.”

Billionaire Peter Thiel: “The technology slowdown threatens not just our financial markets, but the entire modern political order, which is predicated on easy and relentless growth.” And when you’re finished with that, here it is again in more depth: “The Optimistic Thought Experiment”.

Today: a world where big stuff can never get done.

My favorite FLLW site is Peter Beers’ Frank Lloyd Wright Road Trip. He’s stayed at the houses wherever you can, and done some benign architectural stalking where the residence remains private.

Text of David Cameron’s address to Parliament on the looting outbreak.

Pew Research Center polls Muslims and Westerners on the same questions. Only 9% of Turks believe Arabs carried out 9/11.

Al Schwimmer, founder of Israel Aircraft Industries, dies at 94. Haaretz obit.

Environmentalism in microcosm in Why your dishwasher no longer works by Jonathan V. Last. The science more often than not isn’t science, the issue snowballs into a platform for political grandstanding, and nobody benefits from the massive waste.

Walter Russell Mead waxes deep on Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. “…The people and the story of Israel stir some of the deepest and most mysterious reaches of the American soul.”

John Podhoretz judges the judge in “The Choice of Richard Goldstone”.

Syria’s about to join the UN Human Rights Council. Well.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, waxes serious on what education should really be for most of us.

Shatner wakes up the Discovery astronauts.

An insightful day at the museum.

A valuable rant against gourmands/gluttons.

Towards a more balanced personal future.

Liberalism 5.0.

Civilization V is out, at least for the PC. It’s a game of never really arriving.

Yes, cancer is new.

Mike Rowe explicates the war on work — the cultural “marginalization of lots and lots of jobs”.

The lovely John F. Burns revisits Iraq with Charlie Rose.

Walter Russell Mead welcomes this incoming college class with some wise words.

Roger Scruton’s oikophobes (PDF) are Yoram Hazony’s New Paradigmers.

Saxondale tells The Sun how it is — an in-character interview.

Another wonderful blog post by Walter Russell Mead, this time hoping that the blogosphere find a not-so-distant mirror in 18th-century London.

Racism is about appearance and the material; anti-Semitism is abstract and about the conspiracy.

Spengler: We lost Turkey due to nation-building in Iraq.

It’s ominous. Spengler reflects on Turkey.

Krauthammer on those troublesome Jews; Kristol in praise of blockades.

Chomsky denied entry into Israel. Personally I hope his ticket was non-refundable.

Netanyahu’s Yom HaShoah speech.

Robert Kagan expounds dispassionately on the Obama Administration’s unhinged approach to world affairs.

Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Happy Dependence Day, America! Love, Mark Steyn

Surprising whirlwind of an article on Afghanistan by national treasure Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic. Surely the world’s greatest magazine?

China overtakes Germany as largest exporter.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for the American Future.

Dr Mercola’s most in-depth article ever. Here’s the skinny on high fructose corn syrup.

Wonderful blog, Letters of Note, exactly what you hope it’ll be.

200 years that changed the world, a fascinating 5-minute video that feels like 2 minutes.

The noughties, a sinister death cult.