Quotes and Links: the mid January 2010 edition.

From The Journey to the West

"Brother Li," said Zhang Shao, "it seems to me that people who struggle for fame kill themselves for it; those who compete for profit die for it; those who accept honors sleep with a tiger in their arms; and those who receive imperial favours walk around with snakes in their sleeves. Taking all in all, we are much better off living free among our clear waters and blue hills: we delight in our poverty and follow our destinies."

 

Yiddish Proverb

You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails."

Obama's Legacy as a Community Organizer in Chicago

In fact, "there is zero legacy from when Obama was here,"

What was Obama's solution at the time to Chicago's crime problems?

Obama attacks the Christian Right and the Republican Congress for "hijack[ing] the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility." Yeah, sure, family values are fine, he says, but what about "collective action . . . collective institutions and organizations"? Let's take "these same values that are encouraged within our families," he urges, "and apply them to a larger society."

Socialism.

David Warren on Ice Hockey and Effeminacy

David Warren, being Canadian and Catholic, I am interested in his opinions of the game of Ice Hockey.  In the article linked above, he abhors the attempts to abolish fighting and brawling from Hockey.  He says:  We need to appreciate the greater evil presented by the intrusion of effeminacy into what is essentially a man's game.  

His view of Hockey in general is appreciative and realistic:

Hockey is itself a surrogate for warfare, and if you doubt it for a moment, listen to the crowd. (Including the women. Especially the women.) And while I might think professional sports in general a circus for the masses, and a lure into couch potatodom -- real men don't watch, they play -- hockey in particular has become valuable as a museum exhibit of many forgotten virtues.

He goes on to relate the sport to what as happened to Airport Security -- a further example of effeminacy of society in general.

I wish he could have commented on the use of helmets in the game.  Hockey, I feel, was a much better sport, when they didn't wear helmets and those ugly wire-caged goalie masks.  While the players are faster and stronger today, they are so in all sports.  In American football with all its padded equipment, there are more injuries than say rugby where they wear practically no equipment.  The game has become less about stick-handling and more about tackling -- offensive skill and initiative doesn't seem to get rewarded.

I further wish the institution of the bench-clearing brawl was, instead of being abolished, added to other endeavors like politics, synchronized swimming, and ping-pong.  The brawls in Taiwan are an argument for democracy.  Parliament should be civil war for the masses instead of the childish name-calling and government evasiveness it has become.  I, for one, would respect Stephen Harper more if he had socked that Iggy guy in the jaw a few times.  To have seen some Reform members duking it out with the NDP caucus would have been a great service for the country.  Parties like the NDP and politicians like Obama and Trudeau can only flourish in time of effeminacy.