Even among Sedlacek's own small cell, his Viennese anti-Nazi club, it was not imagined that the pursuit of the Jews had grown quite so systematic. Not only was the story Schindler told him startling simply in moral terms: one was asked to believe tha...
The state does not oppose the freedom of people to express their particular cultural attachments, but nor does it nurture such expression—rather [...] it responds with 'benign neglect' [....] The members of ethnic and national groups are protected ...
The buzz about Google these days is that it's like America itself: still the biggest game in town, but inevitably and irrevocably on the decline. Both are superpowers with unmatched resources, but both are faced with fast-growing rivals, and both wil...
The resource of generational history is accorded little attention our society, which seems ever more obsessed with making “new” and “better” synonymous. From my family I became aware of the importance of passing along wisdom from one generati...
Almost everything about Afghanistan was troubling Mullen. As Obama was giving intense focus on the war, Mullen was feeling more personal responsibility. Afghanistan had been marked by 'incredible neglect,' he told some of his officers. 'It's almost l...
Many Detroiters, for example, are beginning to see urban agriculture as a real part of the solution; to grow things right where people live, where they work, and definitely need healthier food on the table. Green city gardens are scattered throughout...
If [the loss of fertility of the soil and the loss of soil as a renewable resource] does happen, we are familiar enough with the nature of American salesmanship to know that it will be done in the name of the starving millions, in the name of liberty...
Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficient: it knows how to survive in hard places. I learned about these qualities during my bouts with depression. In that deadly darkness, the faculties I had always de...
The government of Pakistan is yet to understand that the insurgency is not the disease but the symptoms of the disease. If the government really needs to cure the crisis in the area, then it must engage in genuine treatment procedure rather than enga...
Emotional neglect lays the groundwork for the emotional numbing that helps boys feel better about being cut off. Eruptions of rage in boys are most often deemed normal, explained by the age-old justification for adolescent patriarchal misbehavior, "B...
The problems in every country are the same. Bureaucracy is strangling innovation. Overgrown political sectors are sucking away resources that could otherwise lead to growth. Regulations and taxes are punishing innovation. Public sector services are b...
I know it doesn't feel this way all the time, but we get to choose what we care about and what we spend our resources on. We choose what - or ideally whom - to lust after. We choose what to watch, what to like, what to build, how to spend the breaths...
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instea...
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibri...
We ought not to speak only about the economics of globalization, but about the psychology of globalization. It's like the psychology of a battered woman being faced with her husband again and being asked to trust him again. That's what is happening. ...
In running over the pages of our history for seven hundred years, we shall scarcely find a single great event which has not promoted equality of condition. The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the muni...
Evolution has no foresight. Complex machinery develops its own agendas. Brains — cheat. Feedback loops evolve to promote stable heartbeats and then stumble upon the temptation of rhythm and music. The rush evoked by fractal imagery, the algorithms ...
[Norm said,] 'To all those who argue this war is a mistake, I'd like to point out that we've removed from power one of history's most ruthless and belligerent tyrants. A man who cold-bloodedly murdered thousands of his own people. Who built palaces f...
A great man, Luigi Chinetti. Clever and smart and resourceful. He died in 1994 at the age of ninety-three years. I often wonder who he is now, who possesses his soul. Does a child know his own spiritual background, his own pedigree? I doubt it. But s...
As the war progresses, and as population increases to an even more intolerable level stretching resources to impossible lengths, the strong will begin fighting for their very survival. That’s what we’re seeing right now. Society will become more ...
Leaders are not, as we are often led to think, people who go along with huge crowds following them. Leaders are people who go their own way without caring, or even looking to see, whether anyone is following them. "Leadership qualities" are not the q...
