Links and Quotes on an AKIC Frimonday

Unattributed

In antiquity and in the Scriptures, it is a common belief that the name given to a person is not just a label but part of the personality of the one who bears it. The name carries will and power. The name conjures up the person; there is a desire to know the name and even a reluctance to give it in the Scriptures. (*I think about this as I think of my son Tony.  Could he have be named other than he was?  I couldn't imagine.  He is a soul for all time.*)

Pascal

We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for truth.

THEODORE DALRYMPLE  Haiti's Apocalypse

This essay says a few more things about Haiti's plight.

Ten reasons why W was a better world leader than O

Good entry.  Very good entry.  I could only add that the people who think the about statement is patently ridiculous better re-check their assumptions and throw their blind prejudices out the door.

A Podcast on the American Federal Reserve

Was Alan Greenspan like a Captain Kirk guiding and directing the Economy known as the USS Enterprise?  He wasn't but for whatever reason, he was portrayed as so.  The more I learn about the details of what America's Central Bank does, the more I become convinced that Greenspan was a fraud perpetuated on the public.  He can be credited with keeping inflation down for the time he was chairman.  If he had stuck to that instead of taking credit for and opinionating on things not under his purvey, like equity markets and jobs growth, he wouldn't be the discredited man he is today.

Suffering

The Haiti Earthquake raised the age-old question of suffering and God.  The article linked above contains one take on the question.

Scoundrels

There are a lot of scoundrel Laowai in China.  I have met a few of them.  I may well be one myself.

 

They don't make men like they used to

Dennis Prager says they don't make men like they used to.  I noticed watching a old movie that the young man in the man looked all adult and not at all a child.  These days, Brad Pitt just always looks like a teenage, and he is in his forties!

 

 What makes a Good Teacher?

I like what this comment says about this question:

 

I have met mostly academics, who loved the star-struck attention of the pupils. It was such a strange sight, almost vulgar (I won't do these academicians a disservice and mention their names). I have also met some teachers: my thesis advisor was late Wayne Booth and he truly was a teacher. I had human conversations with him: from personal experiences of loss to irony in Flannery O'Connor's fiction. Another teacher that comes to mind is Leon Kass. His class on the Book of Exodus will always remain in my memory as one of the greatest classes I have taken. Dialogue was present there: clarity and the order of the mind and above all, virtue.  (Great Teachers must be virtuous)

Ronald Reagan

"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefitting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development."