Manufacturing Consent

And thus when, by a series of measures undertaken everywhere and at the same time—always thanks to the power in its hands at the command of the Government—a certain portion of the people, chiefly the…

The Golden Rule

Tzu-Kung asked saying, Is there any single saying that one can act upon all day and every day? The Master said, Perhaps the saying about consideration: ‘Never do to others what you would not like…

The Miracle of Being Awake

Suddenly some force shoved him in the chest, in the side, choked his breath still more, he fell through the hole, and there, at the end of the hole, something lit up. What was done…

How Some Saw Simone

A very Jewish soul. There was something of the Talmud in her. Very stringent in her logic. 206 [W]hat most struck me in her were her nobility, her straightforwardness, the purity of her soul. 218…

He Must Go on, He Can’t Go on, He’ll Go on

Everything was doomed [in 1943]: [Yankev Glatshteyn’s] people, his tradition, its language, his artistic freedom, his chances of contributing to a continuing literature. Even his awesome responsibility as the chronicler of the last days of…

The Canon in the Canon

Of all the gospels, the Sermon on the Mount was the portion that impressed me most, and I studied it more often than any other part. Nowhere else does Christ speak with such solemnity; nowhere…

Drop Pop Culture, Some Say

Miles Davis–why bother with any of it–Jazz, modern musicians, dope addicts, punks–Monk, crooks, killers, Bud Powell, Dizzy’s razor and Dizzy’s scorn & Al Sublette’s scorn–no. Give me the Bodhi men. Don’t even play the radio…

Biden and Putin Would Despise Tolstoy

To destroy governmental violence only one  thing is needed: it is that people should understand that the feeling of patriotism which alone  supports that instrument of violence is a rude,  harmful, disgraceful, and bad feeling,…