October 2011
September 2011
Things to be west of, in order of longitude:
- Zanzibar
- Rome
- the Hudson
- the Mississippi
- the Alamo
- the 405
How 2011 is like 1765.
Thomas Hutchinson, Royal Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1765:
The common run of the people, lacking the necessary education, leisure, and economic independence to make an impartial assessment of public problems, were mercurial playthings of leaders who could profit by exciting their fears. Some of these leaders were pure demagogues, lovers of power adept at manipulating the mob. Some of these leaders had only too much to lose —by certain policies. [Namely, customs taxes imposed by the Stamp Act and later the Tea Act.]
Together, these demagogues and malcontents had deliberately raised the fears of a people bred to liberty and set them against the government.
So I guess the 2011 Tea Party isn’t that much different from the 1770s Tea Party, after all!
“When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.”
—Nate Silver calculates the odds of last night happening at 1 in 278 million.
Everybody Loves the Sunshine
Roy Ayers
just bees and things and flowers
