Mark Twain’s “Luck” – August 10, 2016

My analysis of this neglected story can be found at the Victorian Web, where it appeared some years ago: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/crimea/beck/1.html – or just do a search for “Mark Twain on the Crimean War” and the link should come right up.

I mention it because whoever wrote up the topic at Wikipedia evidently did not bother to read beyond the first page.  Including the bibliography, there are in fact six pages.  There you can also find reference to my article (not online) about teaching this story in Moldova.

Quotation of the Day – August 9, 2016

In the great American tradition, millennials would like to have their cake and eat it, too. A few years ago, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis came out with a song called “Can’t Hold Us,” which contained the couplet: “We came here to live life like nobody was watching/I got my city right behind me, if I fall, they got me.” In the first line they want complete autonomy; in the second, complete community.

David Brooks, “The Great Affluence Fallacy,” in today’s NY Times; the whole thing is worth reading

Thought of the day – August 7, 2016

Here’s something that has been trending in American culture for some time now, and shows no sign of abating:  A fascination with food.  “Foodies” (Wikipedia says the term first came into recorded use in 1980, around the same time as “Yuppie”) are people who not only love to eat – they talk about it obsessively, post pictures of what they are about to consume, then write blog posts about how delicious it all was.

The education section of today’s Washington Post (not the food section) has a selection of essays written by high school students as part of their college applications.  One of them contains a complete recipe for preparing linguini and sauce.  She was admitted to Smith College.

Thought of the Day – August 5, 2016

It’s hard to credit the Democrats with this degree of competence, but it seems they have managed to postpone opening their big lead over Trump until now, when it is too late for the Republicans to do much about it (in terms of finding a replacement candidate).  The Dems must go to bed every night wishing the election were three weeks from now, not three months from now.  In this, they are like most Americans, who pretty much made up their minds a while back.  The only thing that could still prove a pothole on Hillary’s road to Inauguration Day: the debates.

Thought of the Day – August 3, 2016

On one level, Trump makes missteps because he’s a political novice.  They’re not too surprising – he lacks the experience and discipline to stick to the message of the day.  On another level, he behaves erratically because deep down he knows he has no business being president.  The reason he says outrageous things?  He’s unconcerned about undermining his own campaign – with the proviso that always he’s careful to do so in such a way that he can blame the coming disaster on others, for allegedly misunderstanding him for example, or through being too p.c.  Never on himself.