Clippings 2

To judge rightly of the present we must oppose it to the past; for all judgement is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known.
The History of Rasselas, Samuel Johnson

It's certainly got the old man's lessons, the ones you thought were so full of hooey. Remember when he told you, "Stick to it until it's done"? What did he know?

And then there was: "Get along with your boss. He's your boss because he's earned it." What a crock.

And then, "Don't whine, don't make excuses, just do the job." Boy, that one was a bummer. What was he, a Republican or something?

And finally, worst of all, the one nobody wants to hear, it hurts so much: "Work like hell." I hate that one.
'Pursuit of Happyness': An Uphill Climb That's an Exhilarating Breath of Fresh Air, Stephen Hunter

If you go to an Island Parliament in the Caribbean, if you go the parliament in Grenada, they’ve got their miniature Hansard, they’ve got their mace, they’ve got their wigs, and that is the kind of thing that Tony Blair wanted to abolish from the House of Commons at Westminster. The difference is that in Grenada, and St Kitts and St Lucia, they understand that all that stuff is what connects them to peaceful constitutional evolution across the centuries, and in that sense it is the difference between them and Cuba or Haiti, or these basket case states. They understand it but Tony Blair and Gordon Brown don’t, and David Cameron doesn’t.
Mark Steyn at the New Culture Forum