In our zeal, we refuse to understand past generations as they understood themselves. We expect them to have organized their mental categories the way we organize ours—and we are greatly disappointed when we discover that they did not.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Empires of the past were built upon the idea that conquest was the divine right of great powers. There was no legal distinction between the acquisition, occupation and takeover of foreign territory. The Portuguese did as they wished in Angola, and the British did as they wished in India.
~ Linda Kinstler via The New York Times
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Cameron has never been in love – at least, nobody’s ever been in love with him. If things don’t change for him, he’s gonna marry the first girl he lays, and she’s gonna treat him like shit, because she will have given him what he has built up in his mind as the end-all, be-all of human existence. She won’t respect him, ’cause you can’t respect somebody who kisses your ass. It just doesn’t work.
~ Ferris Bueller
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Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
~ Joseph Heller
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Persistent current account deficits also drive the increasing dominance of financial activities in the American economy, a process known as “financialization.” Because the current account deficit means the United States purchases more goods and services from abroad than it sells, foreigners accumulate dollars that must ultimately be invested in dollar-denominated financial assets.
~ Michael Starr via American Affairs
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The Kreung people of northeastern Cambodia build huts for their adolescent daughters to use for erotic liaisons and encourage them to have as many of these as possible before choosing a husband.
~ Elizabeth Kolbert via The New Yorker
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One important—maybe the most important—thing about noir is that it can’t get by on plot alone. Almost every page of A Violent Masterpiece has a spark and crackle of language, detail, idea.
~ Carolyn Kellogg via The Atlantic
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Thoughtless reliance on technology is a liability.
~ Jim Collins, Good to Great
Repossessors and tow-truck drivers work different jobs but use the same equipment. The tow truck was patented in 1918 by Ernest Holmes, Sr., the owner of an auto-repair shop in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who pulled vehicles out of ditches using a modified Cadillac and chains. Today’s tow trucks, also known as wreckers, are computerized work stations with integrated digital dashboards, camera systems, blind-spot monitoring, and hydraulic rotators.
~ Paige Williams via The New Yorker
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In the past quarter century, food culture has become ever more personal and confessional; perhaps the inevitable conclusion was that it would encompass, well, its inevitable conclusion. Like so many trends, this one was pioneered by gay men: one of the early luminaries of FibreTok was a sex educator and amateur chef named Alex Hall, who posts recipes on an account called The Bottom’s Digest. I admit to feeling some relief around the breaking of this taboo—after all, everyone poops, and we might as well do it better.
~ Hannah Goldfield via The New Yorker
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