“…the crackpot realists are frauds. We ordinary people, the great multitude on the bottom rungs of the power ladder, need to understand more clearly that when we look up at the self-anointed “deciders” who have the cosmic effrontery to presume themselves fit to rule us, we are looking up at fools.” ~ Robert Higgs.
Category Archives: Art and Ideas
Lord Acton on ethics and liberty
“Obscure ethics imply imperfect liberty. For liberty comes not with any ethical system, but with a very developed one.…sanctifying freedom…teaching men to treasure the liberties of others as their own, and to defend them for the love of justice and charity more than as a claim of right, has been the soul of what is great and good in the progress of the last two hundred years.”
Media-trix: FOX notes Paul supporters include brothel owner…
“RENO, Nevada — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, an underdog Texas congressman with a libertarian streak, has picked up an endorsement from a Nevada brothel owner.
Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite BunnyRanch near Carson City, says he was so impressed after hearing Paul at a campaign stop in Reno last week that he decided to raise money for him.”
More at FOX.
Trust the MSM to pay attention to Paul only in ways that (they hope) will diminish him with mainstream voters.
Won’t work, especially since the founder of Dr. Paul’s religion was a pretty libertarian guy too and counted a few women of uncertain repute in his following too….(I wrote Magdalene first, but I recall that’s not so).
You’ll notice that Paul has gone from “dark horse” to underdog.” The move up the mammalian kingdom signals that pretty soon Ron’s going to be duking it out in the ring with the front runners.
Tibor Kalman on crashing planes and the media
“We live in a society and a culture and an economic model that tries to make everything look right…But by definition, when you make something no one hates, no one loves it. So I am interested in imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability. That’s what we really pay attention to anyway. We don’t talk about planes flying; we talk about them crashing….”
– Tibor Kalman, influential New York designer/editor and radical activist
well known for his images of figures like the Pope and Queen Elizabeth II with a brown skin.
Comment:
Collage, the juxtaposition of contradictory images – they all disrupt our ease. They make us look a second time at our logic, our comfortable narratives..
I want to create a kind of cubism of ideological fragments — from the left, from the right, from the secular and the religious, from east, from west. Where will that lead? No idea….
Cass Sunstein on distributed knowledge and prediction markets
“Hayek’s claim is that in a system in which knowledge of relevant facts is dispersed among many people, prices act as an astonishingly concise and accurate coordinating and signaling device. They incorporate that dispersed knowledge and in a sense also publicize it, because the price itself operates as a signal to all.
Hence Hayek argues that it “is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering changes, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual produces to watch merely the movement of a few pointers.” Hayek describes this process as a “marvel,” and adds that he has chosen that word on purpose so as “to shock the reader out of the complacency with which we often take the working of the mechanism for granted.”
On the Internet, prediction markets are an obvious illustration of Hayek’s point. They can be found on many sites, and they tend to do exceedingly well, because they incorporate dispersed information so as to generate a price. That price often works as a probability, that is, the price of the “bets” accurately captures the probability that the event will occur. For elections, Oscar winners, and economic events, prediction markets have been uncannily accurate…”
Cass Sunstein on Hayek in TPM Cafe.
Comment:
Wiki, the blogosphere, pricing….they all reflect the value of the decentralization of knowledge and decision making. They all support political devolution to the states and local governments and the elimination of much of the (unconstitutional) mandate of federal government.
From violent revolutionary to non-violent visionary: Aurobindo in jail…
“…as it was the Almighty Power of God which had raised that cry, that hope, so it was the same Power which had sent down that silence. He who was in the shouting and the movement was also in the pause and the hush. He has sent it upon us, so that the nation might draw back for a moment and look into itself and know His will. I have not been disheartened by that silence because I had been made familiar with silence in my prison and because I knew it was in the pause and the hush that I had myself learned this lesson through the long year of my detention.”
“He turned the hearts of my jailers to me and they spoke to the Englishman in charge of the jail, “He is suffering in his confinement; let him at least walk outside his cell for half an hour in the morning and in the evening.” So it was arranged, and it was while I was walking that His strength again entered into me. I looked the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me.
I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me….I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies. Amongst these thieves and dacoits there were many who put me to shame by their sympathy, their kindness, the humanity triumphant over such adverse circumstances.
One I saw among them especially, who seemed to me a saint, a peasant of my nation who did not know how to read and write, an alleged dacoit sentenced to ten years’ rigorous imprisonment, one of those whom we look down upon in our Pharisaical pride of class as Chhotalok…(lower orders) Once more He spoke to me and said, “Behold the people among whom I have sent you to do a little of my work. This is the nature of the nation I am raising up and the reason why I raise them.”
When the case opened in the lower court and we were brought before the Magistrate I was followed by the same insight. He said to me, “When you were cast into jail, did not your heart fail and did you not cry out to me, where is Thy protection? Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting Counsel.”
I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was Naryana who was sitting there on the bench….”
Business Pundit: thumbs up for “Mobs,” but with a warning label…
Rob May at the hugely popular business blog, Business Pundit, wrote this great review of “Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets” that I just came across:
“Where do I begin with a book that takes a shot at pretty much anybody and everybody, including the authors themselves? To say that this book is skeptical or contrarian is like saying Warren Buffett has money. This book could set the standard for skeptical writing. That said, it’s part of the reason I enjoyed the book so much.”
But in the end, however, he doesn’t really recommend it to everyone:
“Francis Scott wrote that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” I do not think most people have this capacity, but if you do, I highly recommend this book. For everyone else, it will just be offensive.”
(sigh). Read the rest of the review here.
This is one of the nicest reviews we got. My other favorites include one by Daniel Ryan at the libertarian site, Enter Stage Right.
Here’s an excerpt:
“If you’re the alpha type, you’ll undergo something rarely experienced in this day and age, despite the number of Mencken imitators currently around: you’ll actually feel the same way that a good, worthy, successful U.S. burgher felt in the 1920s when reading one of Mencken’s works when it was hot off the presses. The two authors are that good at being intellectually detached from all parts of the popularity-and-leadership game.
Some may find it roundly offensive, but it would be tragic if the reader, through umbrage, expels him- or herself from the Bonner/Rajiva School for Creative Cynics. After reading this book, you will re-evaluate some of your more cherished ideas. Some will find grist for self-reflection in its material.”
And Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty of the popular philosophy site, Radical Academy also gave us a big thumbs up. Here’s a part:
“Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets by William Bonner and Lila Rajiva is a fascinating work which considers how people think and behave, privately and collectively, and the effects these different modes have within the public sphere. I haven’t quite decided which specific literary genre this book falls into; maybe that is inconsequential anyway. There’s a lot of history, much economics and politics and, well, almost every other recognized social science comes into play….Fortunately for the casual reader, this book is not the least bit “dry” or dull, as all too many book dealing with this or similar topics seem to be. In fact, there are many times in this work where the authors relate or allude to something that is downright hilarious. Be that as it may, this is a serious look at an important phenomenon in the human condition.”
Then there was this review by Mark Lamendola, which smacked us for lurching into lala land at the end with our gold recommendation (well, it was right so far, wasn’t it?), but was still pretty favorable :
“Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets provides insights that run counter to the propaganda spewed by the mainstream media. Thought-provoking and myth-challenging, it will delight those who value liberty. People who believe the government is “here to help you” or that the tooth fairy really does leave coins under your pillow won’t like Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets. That’s their problem.
Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets looks at how and why people do stupid things en masse. Understanding how mass manipulation works can help you avoid trotting off the cliff in a herd of lemmings, so this stuff is good to know. One of the tools of mass manipulation is the really big lie. Quite adroitly, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets looks at specific lies and gives them a sound thrashing.”
Read the rest at the Mind Connection
So, let’s see. That’s
1. An electrical engineer/systems designer/business prof and major blogger (Business Pundit)
2. A widely- published philosopher of the natural law tradition (Radical Academy)
3. A time management/business self-help expert who’s written 6000 articles (Mind Connection).
Systems analysis, philosophy, and business management.
That was roughly where we hoped to be. I think if we had eliminated the antiwar stuff and toned down most of the language, we might have been mentioned in more mainstream reviews in print newspapers. But since one of the main targets of the book is the mainstream news business, I guess that would be missing the point….
But underground fav isn’t too bad…..
Scott Fitzgerald on writers
“Writers aren’t exactly people…they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Oxbow Incident: the law is more than words
“A man just naturally can’t take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin’ everybody in the world, ’cause then he’s just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It’s everything people ever have found out about justice and what’s right and wrong. It’s the very conscience of humanity. There can’t be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody’s conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?”
From the Oxbow Incident (1943).
The Oxbow Incident was based on a 1940 Western by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and starred Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, among others. It tells the story of a posse that goes after suspected cattle rustlers in the Oxbow Valley in Nevada in 1885. The rustlers are also presumed to have killed a popular rancher. When the posse happens on three suspicious-looking men, it ignores its own qualms and the protests of the local judge and proceeds to hang them. On going back home, the vigilantes are overwhelmed with guilt to find the rancher alive.
A 75 minute classic that was one of Orson Welles’ favorites and the only Western he considered making, the film won an Academy Award in 1998 but performed poorly at the box-office. Although it was intended as a defense of war-time American values, audiences disliked the implicit connection it drew between Nazi mob rule and the Old West. It seemed to say that America might not be immune in the future to eruptions of cowboy justice and that even people who are mostly law-abiding in their daily lives can commit murder, while convincing themselves they’ve had a “reasonable accusation, fair trial, and just execution.”
Feed the world with words….and rice…
Play a word game at Free Rice and for each word you get right, they will donate 100 grams of rice to the hungry.
Neat idea – doing good while having fun – and plenty addictive. I totaled 540 grams playing today and plan to do a bit every day. (Do you know what nitid is? or feracious? Me neither. I could have gone on forever, but I was feeling esurient…and had to go and get dinner….oops, refection).
Here’s what they write on their site:
About Free Rice:
FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.
FreeRice has two goals:
- Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
- Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.
Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.
Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.
Thanks to Chris Kevill at Modern Vedic Astrology for the tip.