Euripides may not have been surprised

Once unleashed, almost any pretext can serve as cover (so the observation that the people we saw trying on and looting trainers and HD televisions may not have been personally inconvenienced by the curtailment of public library hours or the raising of student fees, while amusing, is slightly beside the point). We are not all responsible for the English riots (sorry, criminality) of August 2011. But their roots are in us all, as Euripides showed us long ago, deny it as we will. And in The Bacchae it was precisely when right-thinking and enlightened people tried to deny the destructive aspects of our nature that havoc and murder ensued. Broken society, perhaps, but underlying that, a broken nature we find so hard to come to terms with. And in reflecting on what it needs to keep our broken nature in check, we might also ask ourselves about a striking difference between riots in American cities and those in Britain.

Nonetheless significant

Were not Marx's ideas responsible for despotism, mass murder, labor camps, economic catastrophe, and the loss of liberty for millions of men and women? Was not one of his devoted disciples a paranoid Georgian peasant by the name of Stalin, and another a brutal Chinese dictator who may well have had the blood of some 30 million of his people on his hands? The truth is that Marx was no more responsible for the monstrous oppression of the communist world than Jesus was responsible for the Inquisition. For one thing, Marx would have scorned the idea that socialism could take root in desperately impoverished, chronically backward societies like Russia and China. If it did, then the result would simply be what he called "generalized scarcity," by which he means that everyone would now be deprived, not just the poor. It would mean a recycling of "the old filthy business".

Transfinít

”Despre ce vor vorbi azi? Nu ştiu, poate că aş putea sugera vreo temă. Totuşi, ei vorbesc deja, fără să mai aştepte. Gravă şi sonoră, vocea lui Sábato. Stinsă şi slabă, vocea lui Borges. Închid ochii fără ca ei să-şi dea seama şi-mi închipui un teatru unde sînt singur în faţa scenei. În fund sînt un oraş şi alte multe oraşe, iar Sábato şi Borges le privesc. (Borges, în realitate, şi le aminteşte).”

“Barone: Şi ce crezi Domnia Ta despre Dumnezeu, Borges? Borges: (cu ironie solemnă) El e creaţia maximă a literaturii fantastice! Ce-au imaginat Wells, Kafka sau Poe e zero faţă de ce-a imaginat teologia. Ideea unei fiinţe perfecte, omnipotente, atotputernice e cu adevărat fantastică.

Sábato: Da, dar ar putea fi vorba şi de un Dumnezeu imperfect. Unul care să nu poată manevra bine afacerea sau împiedica seismele. Sau de unul care doarme şi are coşmaruri sau accese de nebunie: cum ar fi ciumele sau catastrofele… Borges: Sau noi doi. (Rîd.) Nu ştiu dacă Bernard Shaw e cel care a spus: <>

Sun's Wooing

The morning fluttered, staggered,
Felt feebly for her crown, --
Her unanointed forehead

Henceforth her only one.

Hypertext

A power of butterfly must be

The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.

Antigéni

'Neuroscience and psychology have identified willpower, largely a co-production of genetics and early childhood training, as essential to success in school and beyond. And while overall levels of willpower vary from person to person, there’s only so much of it any of us can expend over a given time period; like a battery, willpower gets depleted, and needs time to recharge. We tend to think of willpower as the drive to achieve. The more willpower you have, the more productive you can be...Willpower, as neuroscience understands it, is mainly a matter of self-restraint, or effortful self-control. At the most basic level, it’s the ability to resist a slice of quadruple chocolate mousse cake with buttercream frosting, or to avoid quittingin the middle of a tiring workout. The better able you are to resist your own natural impulses, the more effectively you can focus your mental energy on the task at hand, however pleasant or irritating it may be. The net result: getting more things done, and doing each thing better. Because no matter how cool your job is, no matter how much fun your friends are, no matter how cushy your financial reserves, life demands discipline.
Willpower is Like a Muscle . . . it can be developed through exercise, and exhausted through overwork. The preschool years, up to about age 6, are a crucial period for developing willpower. While Tiger Mothering may actually cause counterproductive stress in developing brains, structured play, second language learning, and music lessons have all been shown to help children build this essential habit of mind. So what if you’re an adult whose parents allowed you to run amok, feasting on ice cream sundaes at will?

Another way

'There were many cataclysmic failures along their roads to success. After the struggles of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, the post-World War II boom ushered in a period of relative stability in the United States, which lasted for about half a century. Now, the ground is once again shifting under our feet. Economic uncertainty and the globalization of industry have made short work of traditional career pathways – the large, stable corporation, the 9 to 5 job, the reliable pension waiting (along with the gold watch) at the end of several decades of tireless service. Recent grads find themselves entering a job market driven by small, fast-moving companies that reward employees who can think on their feet. These volatile times call for a heroic mindset, one that recognizes risk and takes bold action anyway. One that embraces failure, learns from mistakes, and starts over again.'