social-commentary

Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine.

Poor Sasha. Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of live. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get. The treacled pop songs, the dresses described in the catalogs with words like 'sunset' and 'Paris.' Then the dreams are taken away with such violent force; the hand wrenching the buttons of the jeans, nobody looking at the man shouting at his girlfriend on the bus

Human history is full of depressing things like colonization, disease, racism, sexism...inventions of things which they had no idea how to handle (the atomic bomb, the Internet, the semicolon)....And through it all there has always been some truly awful food.

Tyrena did not laugh again but her smile slashed upward in a twist of green lips. __artin, Martin, Martin,_ she said, __he population of literate people has been declining steadily since Gutenberg__ day. By the twentieth century, less than two percent of the people in the so-called industrialized democracies read even one book a year. And that was before the smart machines, dataspheres, and user-friendly environments.

It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame.

I alternate between feeling sympathetic toward humanity and being a misanthrope. When I'm sympathetic, it usually means I haven't been around people in awhile.

I saw America's economy last night, people raiding dumpsters at a higher rate than normal in my home town. Digging through garbage shouldn't be a career. Thanks Democrats. Thanks Republicans.

A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy.

Welcome to Hell. Here's your accordion.

If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother. You don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality.

Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just behind my shoulder, looking out for me...only he's an imbecile.

It__ not the word that__ important, it__ the right to say any word you want to and to form any sentence you want to, that__ the point and once they start to legally restrict what we can say and what we can__ say then we are on a slippery slope to authoritarianism._ __e__e talking about racists,_ said Karen. __o one should be allowed to be racist,_ said Mark. __ut that__ not down to the Government or the courts,_ said Rob desperately, __hat should be down to us, we should make it difficult for people to be racist, we should frown upon such language and activity, it should be by peer pressure that we stop people from being abusive and unpleasant, not down to the Government._ __hy not?_ demanded Karen, __hey make the laws so it__ down to them to make the punishments._ __t__ not about punishment,_ pressed Rob, __t__ about morality and social conscience, it__ about standing up for what__ right versus moral laziness, it__ about courage versus cowardice.

I can't give you the white picket fence, and if I did, you'd set it on fire.

I know all those words, but that sentence makes no sense to me.

Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?

We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for nothing

If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.

Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).