I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
January 30, 2006 - 12:17 a.m.
Today was pretty much a wasted day, I didn't do my laundry and hardly got any reading done. It started to rain as soon as I took my mother out for a walk. She did set a new record in how far she walked on the way back. She went about 20 yards further than Friday. I just realized that I can easily find out how far she walks. Each square on the sidewalk is 5 feet. I'll count next time we go out. I have a strange way of knowing how big each square is. When I was a 12 years old I was exactly five feet tall and I laid down on a square and I was exactly the same size. Was that a strange thing for me to do?
If Jane Austen were alive today she's have been a writer on Seinfeld. Well OK if she were alive 10 years ago. I'm not sure what show she'd be writing for today. Any suggestions?
I was able to keep my mother much more occupied with TV today than usual. She spends all of her time watching TV but it so often doesn't engage her. Today there were three great films on TCM that she watched. They had stars that she loved and there were no commercials to break her concentration. The three films were It Happened One Night, Roman Holiday, and The Merry Widow. I watched all but Roman Holiday.
I tried to read Northanger Abbey while watching It Happened One Night but couldn't. The film is way too engaging. It was the first great talkie comedy and it is still one of the greatest. That isn't saying enough, it is not just one of the greatest comedies, it is one of the greatest films ever. Jane Austen definitely could have written for it. The relationship between the hero and heroine were straight out of Pride and Prejudice. The film is incredibly funny with incredible insight. I was laughing out loud and thinking the whole way through. There are so many great scenes, the walls of Jericho, The doughnut dunking lesson, hitchhiking, the mock fight to make people believe they were married, and the tumbling downs of the walls of Jericho. Gable and Colbert were brilliant and sexy and the sparks flew between them. It is a perfect film. It is amazing that it was made in 1934; most films from them seem so dated. IHON holds up beautifully.
One interesting social point I noticed. People talk about how the real news gets driven out by fluff like the runaway bride. It Happened One Night is essentially about a runaway bride dominating the headlines. I'm guessing that Capra didn't make that up out of thin air; that it was a perfectly believable thing to happen in 1934.
It was so nice watching it with my mother and enjoying the same thing she was enjoying. Usually if I suggest watching an old movie she objects but once she starts watching she enjoys it. She enjoys the real old ones the best. Too bad AMC doesn't show them anymore.
I just gave it a 10 on IMDB. Here is a link to the films I've rated.
There is something that I often think about writing about but I'm not sure if I ever did. This is a total change in subject, thus the horizontal rule before this paragraph.
Democracy is more than just majority rules. To make it a democracy function the government has to respect the rights of minorities and individuals. Without that you have not democracy but ochlocracy, what Alexis DeTocqueville's called the "tyranny of the majority." Not understanding the difference between democracy and ochlocracy is one of the root problems today. The perfect example is Iraq. There was an election but people simply voted for the party that represented their ethnic group. A census would have served as well. There is no spirit of compromise or accommodation. The Shia's feel that they are the majority so what they say goes. Iraq will not be a functioning country till they realize the difference.
Of course many people in America don't realize the difference either. There has always been many majoritarians here. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is largely to keep the majority in check. The government in power will usually follow the dictates of the majority, it is the constitution that protects the individual. The thing that most dismays me about Alito is that he does not seem to appreciate the vital role that the courts have in protecting each of us from the mob.
I bet a lot of you wish I kept up not writing about this. I know I haven't because I searched and I never used the word "ochlocracy" here. I never remember the word, I had to google "mob rule" + ocracy to find it. Maybe now that I've used it a few times in writing it will stick in my head.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile January 30, 2006
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