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Queen Elizabeth II was formal, interested, uncomplaining, and always respectful. Her warehouse’s worth of matching coats and whimsical hats were an aspect of that respect. It didn’t matter if she had arrived for a tour of your rat-extermination business in Manchester; she was dressed as if attending a new exhibit at the National Gallery.
~ Caitlin Flanagan via The Atlantic

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As we no longer have an economic policy that is managed democratically, it should not be surprising that it produces unfair outcomes. Nor should it be surprising that in the wake of the mortgage crisis, Covid, the war in Ukraine and so-called Bidenflation, this unfairness would give rise to what Wolfgang Streeck calls “tendencies toward deglobalization” — such as those that emerged with a vengeance on November 5, 2024.
~ Christopher Caldwell

via This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time
published by The New York Times on November 28, 2024

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We have a crisis of leadership in America because our overwhelming power and wealth, earned under earlier generations of leaders, made us complacent, and for too long we have been training leaders who only know how to keep the routine going. Who can answer questions, but don’t know how to ask them. Who can fulfill goals, but don’t know how to set them. Who think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place.
~ William Deresiewicz

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