“I was cleaning and, meandering about, approached the divan and couldn’t remember whether or not I had dusted it. Since these movements are habitual and unconscious I could not remember and felt that it was impossible to remember – so that if I had dusted it and forgot – that is, had acted unconsciously, then it was the same as if I had not. If some conscious person had been watching, then the fact could be established. If, however, no one was looking, or looking on unconsciously, if the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.” – Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, quoted by Viktor Shklovsky in “Art as Technique” (trans. unknown)
Month: August 2024
“For the first time in our Nation’s history, a grand jury has charged a former President with committing crimes while in office to overturn an election that he lost. In response, the defendant claims that to protect the institution of the Presidency, he must be cloaked with absolute immunity from criminal prosecution unless the House impeached and the Senate convicted him for the same conduct. He is wrong. Separation-of-powers principles, constitutional text, history, and precedent all make clear that a former President may be prosecuted for criminal acts he committed while in office—including, most critically here, illegal acts to remain in power despite losing an election.” – from “Introduction” by Special Counsel Jack Smith, et al., “Answering Brief for the United States”, Filed December 30, 2023, Circuit Court for the District of Columbia
“Civil war, in which father kills son, brother brother, is the worst thing of all.” – A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare: The Thinker
“In the field of base construction, the needless refinements, such as special ovens, meat grinders, steam tables, etc., appear excessive in a combat theater and exceed the capabilities of the constructing units.” – Colonel Joseph A. Jansen, “Operational Report – Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, Period Ending 31 July 1967 ”
“Airfield repair during use of facility – As often happens in Vietnam tactical necessity dictates immediate heavy usage of an abandoned or deteriorated runway. In order to insure continued use during the emergency, and to upgrade the field for greater capacity, an engineer repair force is airlifted to the assault field. Military police must keep unnecessary traffic off the runway.” – Lieutenant Colonel John R. Manning, “Operational Report – Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, Period Ending 31 July 1967 ”
“Blasting – substitute for delay caps – The non-availability of delay caps called for the innovation of some type delay firing system. The problem was successfully solved by removing the rheostat from a fan speed control box so that five (5) circuits could be fired in rapid sequence by simply turning the knob.” – Lieutenant Colonel John R. Manning, “Operational Report – Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, Period Ending 31 July 1967 ”
“Safety equipment – The primary hazards to Rome plow operators are sniper fire, shrapnel, and being struck by limbs and trees. In addition red ants and bees cause a great deal of discomfort. The wearing of flak jackets and steel helmets must be mandatory. No Rome plow should be operated without the protective cab. An ample supply of insect repellant should be on hand at all times.” – Lieutenant Colonel John R. Manning, “Operational Report – Lessons Learned, Headquarters, 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, Period Ending 31 July 1967 ”
“There is an old maxim of school-teachers: ‘Don’t say “Don’t”.’ Don’t say, ‘Don’t draw on the walls,’ to children who, until that moment, had never thought of doing so.” – A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare: The Thinker
“Resisting the naturalness of death is a fight that can never be won.” – Deborah Thompson, “The Meaning of Meat,” Animal Disorders
“It is important to listen when women are talking. But it is hard to do this when the men make so much noise.” – A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare: The Thinker
“If one is trapped in a convention of restless badinage so that one is never able to look steadily at anything, the appropriate reality will be perhaps the great negative fact of death; this alone can stop the witticisms.” – A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare: The Thinker
“Nature is herself the answer to art and needs neither words nor wit to make her fundamental point.” – A. D. Nuttall, Shakespeare: The Thinker
“True power does not need arrogance, a long beard and a barking voice. True power strangles you with silk ribbons, charm, and intelligence.” – Oriana Fallaci (as quoted by Slavoj Žižek in First As Tragedy, Then As Farce)
“There is no such thing as a neutral market: in every particular situation, market configurations are always regulated by political decisions. The true dilemma is thus not ‘Should the state intervene?’ but ‘What kind of state intervention is necessary?’” – Slavoj Žižek, First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
“See the classically stupid statement of Sir Charles Oman in the first and worst edition of his History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages . . . which is better not quoted here in the hope that it may one day be forgotten.” – R. Allen Brown, footnote 53 to Chapter III, The Normans
“Not all knights were great men, but all great men were knights, which meant that knighthood brought social elevation as well as membership of a military élite.” – R. Allen Brown, The Normans
“Real life opens before you only in the face of death, when you realize that at any moment you will be gone, only at this moment you understand what life is and how beautiful this world is.” – ZOV at Czmyt’s Pubs
“Many men with malaria were hospitalized more than once . . . many suffered from a milder form of malaria or other illness and did not turn in at the hospital at all. It became a rule of thumb in front-line units that unless one had a temperature of more than 103 degrees there would be no light duty or excuse from a patrol mission. The tropics weakened nearly everyone. Food had been in short supply during the early weeks of the [Guadalcanal] campaign, much of the fare had been substandard, and most of the long-time veterans of the fighting suffered some form of malnutrition.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Final Period, 9 December 1942 to 9 February 1943,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“All underground fuel storage areas on Sand Island [at Midway] were prepared for emergency destruction by demolition. The demolition system worked, too. On 22 May [1942] a sailor threw the wrong switch and blew up a good portion of the aviation gasoline.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Midway Girds for Battle,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“The [Pan-American] clipper took off for Midway at 12:50 that afternoon [December 8, 1941] to evacuate certain PAA personnel plus all passengers. Mr. H. P. Hevenor, a government official who missed the plane, was marooned on Wake and eventually ended up in Japanese hands. ‘It struck me as a rather drastic lesson in the wisdom of punctuality,’ commented Colonel Devereux [Officer-in-Charge, USMC 1st Defense Battalion Detachment, Wake Island].” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “The Enemy Strikes,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“Earthenware bowls are fragile and so easily broken, they are only made of a little clay on which fortune has precariously bestowed some consistency, and the same could be said of mankind.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“Even grown men revert to being children when they are frightened or upset, they do not like to admit it, poor things, but there is nothing like a good cry to relieve one’s sorrow.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“Russia is basically a millennium-long project of colonizing the vast expanses of Great Russian plains, Siberia and Far East. Our economic foundation has always been extracting natural resources from these lands and selling them to our neighbors.” – Dima Vorobiev (propaganda executive for the Soviet Union, 1980–1991), “Why was the Soviet Union behind in computer science compared to USA?”
“The United States had no intention of defending America on its own soil as long as the situation permitted any other choice.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “The Marine Corps on the Eve of War,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“At the outbreak of the war Iceland enjoyed the status of autonomous parliamentary monarchy, sharing the same king with Denmark. When the Nazis overran the latter nation in April 1940, the Icelandic Parliament voted to take over the executive power of the Danish King and to assume control of foreign affairs. The strategic island became, for all practical purposes, a completely independent republic—and a wholly defenseless one without even the pretense of an army or navy. This state of affairs gave rise to considerable concern in London and Washington, more genuine concern than it caused initially among the insular-minded Icelanders. To the British the threat appeared very desperate indeed. Early in May they determined to occupy Iceland, and the need for speed and secrecy fused decision and action. There was no time to stand on ceremony; despite Churchill’s bland assertion that the British occupation of Iceland was effected ‘with the concurrence of its people,’ they had, in fact, not been consulted beforehand. ‘As the attitude likely to be adopted by the Icelandic Government toward such an ‘invasion’ was in some doubt they were not informed of the proposed expedition.’ Indeed the first inkling the natives had that anything out of the ordinary was afoot came when early-rising fishermen discovered a British destroyer nosing up to a jetty in the harbor of the island capital, Reykjavik. At 0620 on 10 May, a reinforced battalion of Royal Marines landed and occupied the town, moving so swiftly that it was able to seize the German Consulate before the hapless Consul could destroy his papers.” – Lt. Col. Frank O. Hough, USMCR, Maj. Verle E. Ludwig, USMC, and Henry I. Shaw, Jr., “Marine Occupation of Iceland,” Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal, History of U.S. Marine Corps Operations in World War II, Vol. I
“It has been said whoever possesses Iceland holds a pistol firmly pointed at England, America, and Canada.” – Winston Churchill, The Grand Alliance
“We really do not know what happens to life’s sorrows after death, especially those last moments of suffering, it is possible that everything ends with death but we cannot be certain that the memory of suffering does not linger at least for several hours in this body we describe as dead, nor can we rule out the possibility that matter uses putrefaction as a last resort in order to rid itself of suffering.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“Were we humans as foolhardy or daring as those butterflies, moths, and other winged insects, to throw ourselves all together onto the flames, then who knows, perhaps the blaze would be so fierce and the light so dazzling that God would open His eyes and be roused from His torpor, too late, of course, to recognize us, but in time to see the impending void once we had gone up in smoke.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“We say, Only yesterday, and we might as well say, A thousand years ago, for time is not a rope one can measure from knot to knot, time is a slanted and undulating surface which only memory can stir and bring closer.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)
“One day we a shall learn not to raise useless questions but until that day comes let us take this opportunity to ask ourselves, What will this new dawn bring.” – José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (trans. Giovanni Pontiero)