Peace – in international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
– The Devil’s Dictionary, 1911 edition.
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September 18th, 2002 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
 There’s a nice review by blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh of Ayn Rand’s 1940s classic The Fountainhead, and it got me thinking not so much about architecture, where I think Rand’s views were often an uncritical acceptance of Modernist ideology, as about the fact that she missed a key argument for free enterprise – it can be a lot of fun! Let’s face it, the main hero, Howard Roark, doesn’t come across as the kind of guy to let his red hair down at a blogger bash, does he? I think one of the unacknowledged aspects of liberal capitalism is that it can tap into humans’ need to play and experiment. Paleo-conservatives like David Brooks, author of Bobos In Paradise, which is a mild send up of 1990s America, seems almost offended that geeky tech entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley and elsewhere liked to have fun even as they made – and later lost – their billions. But what’s the problem with that? In fact, one of the most potent memes we can inject into the culture is the idea that not only is collectivism morally and economically bankrupt, it is also bloody boring. For a good and more considered take on this point, Virginia Postrel’s excellent The Future and Its Enemies is highly recommended. some graffiti: tblives! September 18th, 2002 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
September 17th, 2002 | Comments are closed
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points to a career in politics. September 16th, 2002 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
There are five Great National Delusions. The first is that there are solutions to all the problems. The second is that only a strong centre can solve the problems. The third is that the strong centre must embody one’s own views exclusively. The fourth Great Delusion is that heroic surgery is required, and the fifth, that the heroic surgeons must be oneself and one’s cronies armed with scalpels as big as machetes. September 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
September 14th, 2002 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
September 11th, 2002 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
Leather trousers should be tight because they are to men what ‘Wonderbras’ are to women September 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Rydell has a theory about virtual real estate. The smaller and cheaper the physical site of a given operation, the bigger and cheesier the website. September 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Lewinsky and Clinton have shown September 5th, 2002 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
From time to time, the Lima newspapers publish stories about such and such a community’s having “invaded” properties of latifundists or miners. The informed reader knows what is happening. Disgusted with being dispossessed, lacking official justice, the Indians have decided to take through their own efforts what has always belonged to them. September 4th, 2002 | Comments are closed
He whose desires have been throttled, This passage, to me, is about a free cosmopolitan, freed from imposed ties, much of his life seemingly empty but in fact intellectualised and indeed virtualized, his actions seemingly random to those who look on from outside but, like the birds, actually quite purposeful September 3rd, 2002 | Comments are closed
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