Quotations

After finishing the work I do to earn a living, I don’t have much energy or motivation to do anything but sleep. I’ve never worked harder in my life. But at least I don’t have to work in an office under insane rules of management. That’s a big plus in this modern world. I don’t think I could make it through an interview for an office job–or a job of any kind–without breaking out in mad laughter. I’m simply no longer fit to be part of the American working world.

Thomas Ligotti (and here.)

Powerline for the fourth gives Lincoln’s speech & Coolidge’s. The letters of the Adamses are on U.S. Constitution.

The government structure of the Internet, too, is highly libertarian. Most of the critical work consists of defining standards, and these are hammered out by ad hoc engineering task forces on a “just-in-time” basis. When I first heard Vint Cerf proselytize about the Internet in 1993, what sold me was not the network structure. It was the political structure. I remember thinking to myself, “My goodness, this is how government really ought to work. When a problem comes up, a task force gets together and proposes a solution. When the solution is adopted, the task force dissolves. How refreshing!”

Arnold Kling, “The Collectivist Feeling”.

Quiz question: How does this comment apply to our recent discussions about the EU?

(The Arnold Kling article is exceptionally good, BTW, so be sure to RTWT.)

Be patient. They load slowly.

The Buzzcocks need no introduction. Here they are doing “What Do I Get?” at the Bradford Hotel Ballroom, Boston, 1980. Here. I was a senior in high school and I saw this show. I think I can see my younger self in the crowd, actually, which is pretty funny.

The legendary Neighborhoods featuring the incredible David Minehan doing “Monday Morning”, 1979. Here. The way the people are dancing is very much the Boston pre-hardcore punk rock style. It takes me back.

I cannot begin to tell you how unbelievably great these guys were in their prime. Minehan is one of the unsung heroes of rock. David Bowie is reported to have said that Minehan was the best live performer he ever saw. It is plausible. I saw them at a bunch of all ages shows back circa 1979-83 and they were as good as anybody I have ever seen. They opened for the Ramones at Taunton High School and it was tough to say who was better. There is not much on the Net about them, though this is pretty good: Here’s a quote: “The club was tiny, about the size of the loft upstairs at the RAT, and despite the absence of a crowd the Neighborhoods played a torrid set, impassioned vocals and fiery solos and the works.” Yes. I saw the ‘Hoods play like they were at Wembley Stadium opening for the Who, like their lives were at stake, for maybe 12 teenage kids, including me, at a crappy bar at the Westgate Mall in Brockton — the Massachusetts equivalent of the butt-end of nowhere. My heroes. It was about the rock, and about the fans, and all in attendance were soaked with sweat by the time the bar made them stop playing … .

Life has had its good moments.

“[C]onservatives tend to believe that the world is going to Hell, and that tends to make them grumpy.”

Charles Krauthammer

(From this good essay about the not grumpy Irving Kristol, on the occasion of the final issue of The Public Interest. While I’m at it, here is Kristol’s very enlightening history of American conservatism 1945-1995.)