Tuesday, April 27, 2021

gossip, cherry-picked facts and baseless speculation—America’s second, third and fourth favorite past times [sic]

 --- Jason Gay, in "Why the NFL Draft Is Unstoppable, Even Now," WSJ, April 27, 2021

In context:

Get it right, get it wrong, the draft is a huge deal, really an optimal event for these times, a windy feast of gossip, cherry-picked facts and baseless speculation—America’s second, third and fourth favorite past times, after screaming at each other on social media about pandemic face masks. In the information-is-everywhere era, the draft has turned marvelously democratic: You don’t need to be decked in Brioni on TV to have a sizzling, or even smarter, take on BYU quarterback Zach Wilson, Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, or the current, allegedly-surging quarterback darling, Trey Lance of North Dakota State. You don’t have to be able to finish a 40-yard dash to have profound wisdom on the proper 40-yard dash time for an NFL player. All you need is access to a computer. And a mouth.

he lives well who lives unseen

 --- Descartes, according to Michael Allen Gillespie in The Theological Origins of Modernity (2008, 183)

Gillespie excerpt:

Why did Descartes leave Paris and hide himself away from the public eye? He himself gives us a preliminary answer to this question with his famous assertion that “he lives well who lives unseen.” This humanist claim, however, does not capture the truth of the matter, for Descartes did not really retreat from society. In fact, he moved around a great deal, spending considerable time in Amsterdam, which he called his “urban solitude,” and in a number of smaller towns. It was not therefore a bucolic, Petrarchian solitude that Descartes was seeking. It is more likely that he wanted to find a place he could work and publish more freely and without fear of retaliation. On May 5, 1632, he wrote a paean on Holland to his friend, the poet Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac: “What other land [is there] where one can enjoy a liberty so entire, where one can sleep with less inquietude, where there are always armies afoot expressly to guard you, where poisonings, treason, calumnies are less known, and where the innocence of former times remains?” It is important to remember that he had already been accused of Rosicrucianism. His fears on this score were not misplaced, as the actions taken against a number of the libertines indicate. Already in the Little Notebook, he had recognized the need to conceal his true features and during his years in Holland he went to great lengths to develop and perfect this mask. In fact, Descartes assiduously cultivated the appearance of orthodoxy, although it is clear that at least theologically he had adopted heterodox positions from very early on.

Tuesday, April 06, 2021

Future events such as these will affect you in the future

 --- Criswell, in Plan 9 From Outer Space by Ed D Wood Jr.

Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7apnH01sf0I&ab_channel=JWood