SOUTH

Just finished reading "South: the story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 Expedition" on Kindle.


An amazing read, and a humbling one. A matter-of-fact description of the kind of heroism, loyalty and determination that we moderns, with our addiction to pointless luxury and gawking inactivity, can not even imagine, let alone hope to emulate. When did hardship become a horror to escape rather than a challenge to accept and overcome?

Genetics account for up to half of intelligence differences

Genetic differences between people account for up to half of the variation in intelligence, according to a University of Edinburgh study of more than 3,000 individuals.

Intelligence Tests Highlight Importance of Genetic Differences

"There is no longer a West .."

"The word "West" used to have a meaning. It described common goals and values, the dignity of democracy and justice over tyranny and despotism. Now it seems to be a thing of the past. There is no longer a West ..."

Once upon a time in the West

Race riot in Milwaukee

Back in a simpler time we called them "race riots." Not sure what we call them now; "unruly youths," I suppose. Our language has become riddled with cowardice.

"Witnesses' accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night."


Witnesses describe mobs, some people claim racially-charged attacks

What the slave wants

“The true desire of the slave is not freedom, but rather that he and his slave master exchange places.” -- Franz Fanon

Where have these guys BEEN all my life???

By all the gods, this shook me to my roots. This should be it, the last song ever, the one you play as you sit in your favorite chair with a smoldering Cuban in one hand and a whiskey in the other hand ... waiting for the medicine to take its final hold.


Blood Axis, Vortex

No, not one jot!

"Where will these millions of to-day be in a hundred years? Will not at least a result be left which those of a hundred years hence may be the better for? No, not one jot! There will not be any sum or outcome or result of this ceaseless labour and movement; it vanishes in the moment that it is done, and in a hundred years nothing will be there ... for nothing is there now." - Richard Jefferies

A nearly complete capitulation ...

"... a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists. It will hurt programs for the middle class and poor, and hinder an economic recovery."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08​/01/opinion/to-escape-chaos-a-​terrible-debt-deal.html?_r=2