Fire and Knowledge

Drink because you are happy, but never because you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.

—G.K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905), in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume I (1986), p. 92

There are some things which actually ought not to be scientific… I mean the habit of beginning not with the human soul, which is the first thing man learns about, but with some such thing as protoplasm, which is about the last.

—G.K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905), in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume I (1986), p. 77

All the fundamental functions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with pleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performed with precaution or for precaution. A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, but because he loves foils or horses or high mountains, and loves them for their own sake. And a man ought to marry because he has fallen in love, and emphatically not because the world requires to be populated.

—G.K. Chesterton, Heretics (1905), in The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume I (1986), p. 76

I don’t know what happened to my RSS feed, but there’s been an error there for a while and I just noticed and fixed it. So you will now be getting my posts regularly again. My apologies for any inconvenience.

There are very few letters from modern or living Americans. Numerous requests were sent out, and over and over came the response—there are no letters. From the brilliant economist Milton Friedman came an answer that clearly describes our contemporary predicament, “I am sorry to say I have [no letters] that I would be able to contribute. We have always been close to our children, have been able to communicate with them more directly by personal conversation, telephone calls, and the like so that we have no systematic collection of letters. Sorry.” Sorry indeed are we all and future generations may be sorrier still.

This raises the question of e-mail, as people have often asked if I would include electronic messages in the book. I made the decision that I would not. E-mail is efficient, inexpensive, and instantaneous, but it is not the same as sitting down and composing a letter. Letter writing is generally a thoughtful art and typing e-mail often is not.

—Dorie McCullough, Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children (2004), p. 2

Penguin will release the 20th anniversary edition of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman on Dec. 27th. It has a new introduction by Postman’s son, Andrew Postman (Neil Postman died in 2003). If you don’t have a copy of this book, I highly recommend you get one and read it! You can pre-order the book (or, in two days, purchase it) at Amazon.

IVR Cheat Sheet(tm)

This is an essential list that aids in talking to a real person instead of those horrendous and uncivil computer answering machines. I thought I would post it as many people have to deal with companies over the Christmas season.

This is worth your time reading and pondering about. Very interesting.

In defense of the commercialization of Christmas by Gene Veith. An excerpt:

I love everything about Christmas, including its commercialization. First of all, it is very appropriate for non-Christians and secularists to observe this holiday. “At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. . .and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). This will happen at Judgment, but it happens too in a lesser way at Christmastime. The practically-universal holiday and its observances are signs of Christ’s Lordship, even among those who reject Him. (This is why eliminating the “name” of Christ imbedded in the word “Christmas” really is important for non-believers, though their efforts are ultimately futile.) All of their celebrating, gift-giving, family times, and warm and fuzzy feelings are tributes to Jesus, whether they like it or not. And such honor is fitting for the One through whom all things were made and the redeemer of the world.