Murray Kempton on William F. Buckley Jr.’s campaign for mayor of NYC:
“an Edwardian resident commissioner reading aloud the 39 articles of the Anglican establishment to a conscript of assembled Zulus.”
Fourteenth century plague doctors who wore a bird-like mask were referred to as “beak doctors”.[6][7][8] Straps held the beak in front of the doctor’s nose.[9] The mask had glass openings for the eyes and a curved beak shaped like a bird’s. The mask had two small nose holes and was a type of respirator which contained aromatic items.[10]
The beak could hold dried flowers (including roses and carnations), herbs (including mint), spices, camphor or a vinegar sponge.[11][12] The purpose of the mask was to keep away bad smells, which were thought to be the principal cause of the disease in the miasma theory of infection, before it was disproved by germ theory.[5][9] Doctors believed the herbs would counter the “evil” smells of the plague and prevent them from becoming infected.
Dwight Macdonald on Life magazine:
“Life is a typical homogenized magazine, appearing on the mahogany library tables of the rich, the glass cocktail tables of the middle class, and the oilcloth kitchen tables of the poor. Its contents are as thoroughly homogenized as its circulation. The same issue will present a serious exposition of atomic energy followed by a disquisition on Rita Hayworth’s love life; photos of starving children picking garbage in Calcutta and of sleek models wearing adhesive brassieres; an editorial hailing Bertrand Russell’s eightieth birthday (A GREAT MIND IS STILL ANNOYING AND ADORNING OUR AGE) across from a full-page photo of a matron arguing with a baseball umpire (MOM GETS THUMB); nine color pages of Renoir paintings followed by a picture of a roller-skating horse […] Somehow these scramblings together seem to work all one way, degrading the serious rather than elevating the frivolous. Defenders of our Masscult society society […] see phenomena like Life as inspiriting attempts at popular education—just think, nine pages of Renoirs! But that roller-skating horse comes along, and the final impression was that both Renoir and the horse were talented.”
Good editorial writing has less to do with winning an argument, since the other side is mostly not listening, than with telling the guys on your side how they ought to sound when they’re arguing. It’s a form of conducting, really, where the writer tries to strike a downbeat, a tonic note, for the whole of his section. Not “Say this!” but “Sound this way!” is what the great editorialists teach.
(Source: newyorker.com)
It turns out Ayn Rand was a big fan of Charlie’s Angels:
Because it’s the only romantic television show today. It’s not realistic. It’s not about the gutter. It’s not about the half-wit retarded children and all the other kinds of shows today. It’s about three attractive girls doing impossible things, and because they’re impossible that’s what makes them interesting. It shows three young girls who are better than so-called real life, and that’s a romantic school of literature.
Nogi Maresuki was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and a prominent figure in the Russo-Japanese war.
At the end of the war, Nogi made a report directly to Emperor Meiji explaining battles of the Siege of Port Arthur in detail, he broke down and wept, apologizing for the 56,000 lives lost in that campaign and asking to be allowed to kill himself in atonement. Emperor Meiji told him that suicide was unacceptable, as all responsibility for the war was due to imperial orders, and that Nogi must remain alive, at least as long as he himself lived.
Once the Emperor passed, Nogi and his wife committed seppuku. In his suicide letter, he said that he wished to expiate for his disgrace in Kyūshū, and for the thousands of casualties at Port Arthur. Nogi spent most of his personal fortune on hospitals for wounded soldiers and on memorial monuments erected around the country in commemoration of those killed. He also donated his body to medical science.
(via elsewh3re)
(via stage03)
From a Michael Hastings interview with Julian Assange:
Back when we last did a survey, in February, there were a total of 33 million references on the Internet to the word “rape” in any context, from Helen of Troy to the Congo. If you search for “rape” and my name [i.e., Julian Assange], there were just over 20 million. In other words, perceptively, two-thirds of all rapes that have ever happened anywhere in the world, ever, have something to do with me.
riiiiight
