Had a thought on the way to work this morning — in a democratic country with an essentially capitalistic economy, war instincts are sublimated to other kinds of survival efforts, like making money. If this is true, democracies are healthy things.
Or to reverse it…
Received an interesting email forwarded by a friend:
“
(Cicero, 55 B.C.)
So, what have we learned in two millennia?”
Are we really that badly off?
Of the two marmalades I made this weekend, the grapefruit was the more bitter. The clementine marmalade was lovely to the nose and succulent on the tongue, but the grapefruit felt good in my tummy – it was refreshing and cleansing.
Or is it newscreens, newswebs or newsnets? I haven’t bought a paper paper in more than a year. One of my fav’s, TOI, isn’t available at my local newsstand. What’s the newsstand guy going to do when we’re all reading digitally?
Today at NYTimes.com…
There’s a green revolution, like a tsunami, coming.
Wave after wave of green technology that has been pent up for many years, hiding behind Bushes, well more like hiding from the Bushes.
The flood gates are open, the garage scientists bent on saving our planetary lives can come out of the closet and mass produce their passionate dreamy techno greeny products.
I have been asking around to see if any of these green jobs are on the grow, retrofitting our cribs to the new green grid. Maybe installing solar systems on your roof or twisty turbines, with two way power play and checks from utility shmecks.
Yo
derek
I’ve heard it said, God makes two of everything, one fictional and one non-fictional. That’s so people who can’t handle non-fiction can still read the news…………. Continue reading
The Sunday Times of India carries a nice article by Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar ” Capitalism is reinventing itself.” He points out how the current dooms day forecasts about capitalism being in its last throes are nothing new.
For almost 150 years, experts have been writing its obituary:
Karl Marx claimed capitalism was dying in the 1850s.
Rosa Luxemburg – 1913 The Accumulation of Private Capital pronounced “..imperialism is ..prolonging…capitalism. It is also a sure means of bringing it to a swift conslusion.”
Lenin in 1916 Imperialism:the last stage of capitalism.
Ferdinand Fried, 1930, The End of Capitalism.
Karl Mannheim in 1940, Man and Society in an Age of Reconstruction said democracy could only survive without capitalism.
AJP Taylor declared on the BBC in 1955 nobody believes in the American way of life.
The Indian communists have for the last 60 years been declaring capitalism is now in its last death throes.
Isn’t it strange then that the only death throes we have witnessed in our lifetimes have been that of the fountainhead of communism? I am now firmly of the opinion that a sure fire way of losing money is to listen to the left. I’m happy to manage my own affairs tyvm and let them keep redistributing their poverty.
Have a great week end all of you. Am off for a break till Thursday.
Dara
In this NY Times article about Judd Gregg, Republican Senator, withdrawing from being considered for Commerce Secretary, take a look at the photo at the top. The pic was taken on 3 Feb, when Gregg’s nomination was announced. Niether Biden or Obama look too happy with the guy. Their instincts are expressed clearly on their faces. They turned out to be right. He didn’t look too happy, either. So now I guess he is. 
– Heath
Gail Collins bats about 850, missing the ball so rarely, I’m sure she deserves a lot more money than she probably makes writing her sharp-and-funny opinion pieces in the New York Times.
