Author: Tetman Callis
The story I’m posting this week, “The Congenital Fiance”, first appeared in Caketrain a couple of years ago. I wrote it some years back, not long before the Umpteenth World War started. The world wasn’t any younger or more innocent or necessarily safer or nicer in those days, but part of the world that ended on the bright autumn day when the towers came down–ending in the unpredictable way in which worlds end–was the world in which an American could casually engage in street photography with a 35mm SLR without being suspected of being either a terrorist or a government agent.
Which is neither here nor there and has practically nothing to do with “The Congenital Fiance”.
“In an earlier era men like John Milton and John Stuart Mill had argued that liberty depended on a press free from censorship and intimidation. They were concerned primarily with freedom of belief and expression. But in modern democracies the problem was different. The press could be ‘free’ and still fail to do its job. Without accurate and unbiased information the public could not form intelligent decisions. Democracy would be either a failure or a sham.” — Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century
“If the voter cannot grasp the details of the problems of the day because he has not the time, the interest or the knowledge, he will not have a better public opinion because he is asked to express his opinion more often.” — Lippmann, The Phantom Public
“Most political theory assumed that the average man could, if presented with the facts, make reasonable decisions. But what if access to the facts was blocked by propaganda, ignorance and willful distortion? How would this affect the assumption that the average man could make intelligent decisions about public issues?” — Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century
“Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (from Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century)
It should be noted here and now (if not earlier) that the Lippmann quotes being posted to this site are sourced from Ronald Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century, published in 1980 by the Atlantic Monthly Press.
“It is labor organized that alone can stand between America and the creation of a permanent, servile class.” — Lippmann, Drift and Mastery
“The curse of great fortunes is the degradation of the poor.” — Walter Lippmann
“Once you touch the biographies of human beings, the notion that political beliefs are logically determined collapses like a pricked balloon.” — Lippmann, A Preface to Politics
“The decade 1840–1850, preceding the rush to the gold-diggings, was an important period in the history of Australian poetry. The development of New South Wales brought about an increase in the number of newspapers, and the newspapers gave opportunities for the publication of verse.” — from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XIV, Ch. XII
For two years I worked as a criminal defense paralegal. As with everything I’ve done since I was twelve or thirteen years old, I did the job with one eye on how I could milk it for stories to write. Some might call that “bearing witness,” which would be a very nice thing to call it. Others might call it things that are not so nice, but would probably be just as true.
Last week I posted “Legal Advice,” one of the stories derived from my criminal defense paralegal days. This week I’m posting “Taking Calls,” another such story. It was first published a year ago in Cutthroat.
“The days and months are passing; and the years do not wait for us.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XVII (trans. Jennings)
“Be clear in vision, quick in hearing, genial in expression, respectful in demeanor, true in word, serious in duty, inquiring in doubt, firmly self-controlled in anger, just and fair when the way to success opens out.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XVI (trans. Jennings)
“Farmers without land, workers without jobs, ordinary men and women without hope, all were fodder for visionaries promising the earth.” – MacMillan, Paris 1919
“The man who in his youth could show no humility or subordination, who in his prime misses his opportunity, and who when old age comes upon him will not die—that man is a miscreant.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XIV (trans. Jennings)
“Dying used to be accompanied by a prescribed set of customs. Guides to ars moriendi, the art of dying, were extraordinarily popular; a 1415 medieval Latin text was reprinted in more than a hundred editions across Europe. Reaffirming one’s faith, repenting one’s sins, and letting go of one’s worldly possessions and desires were crucial, and the guides provided families with prayers and questions for the dying in order to put them in the right frame of mind during their final hours. Last words came to hold a particular place of reverence. These days, swift catastrophic illness is the exception; for most people, death comes only after long medical struggle with an incurable condition–advanced cancer, progressive organ failure (usually the heart, kidney, or liver), or the multiple debilities of very old age. In all such cases, death is certain, but the timing isn’t. So everyone struggles with this uncertainty–with how, and when, to accept that the battle is lost. As for last words, they hardly seem to exist anymore. Technology sustains our organs until we are well past the point of awareness and coherence.” — Atul Gawande, “Letting Go”
“Total freedom is both the dream of every artist and a promise of catastrophe.” — Anthony Lane, “Wives’ Tales”
“The words of the man who has a proper regard for his fellows are uttered with difficulty.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book XII (trans. Jennings)
“If a cat walks around smelling like yesterday’s lunch it is much more likely to attract the unwanted attention of both what it is hunting and what is hunting it.” — Dodman, The Cat Who Cried for Help
“People who don’t know much tend not to recognize their ignorance, and so fail to seek better information.” — James Surowiecki, “Greater Fools”
“Learn, as if never overtaking your object, and yet as if apprehensive of losing it.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book VIII (trans. Jennings)
Twenty years ago I began working in legal support, first as a data entry clerk and soon after that as a paralegal. The story I’m posting this week, “Legal Advice”, is written from my experiences in the trade. It was first published a half-dozen years ago in Ontario Review.
“Ki Wan was one who thought three times over a thing before he acted. The Master hearing this of him, observed, ‘Twice would have been enough.'” — The Analects of Confucius, Book V (trans. Jennings)
“Learning, without thought, is a snare; thought, without learning, is a danger.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book II (trans. Jennings)
“To govern simply by statute, and to reduce all to order by means of pains and penalties, is to render the people evasive, and devoid of any sense of shame.” — The Analects of Confucius, Book II (trans. Jennings)
“Words give wings to the mind and make a man soar to heaven.” — Aristophanes, The Birds (trans. unknown)
“Every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.” — Alan Shepard, pilot of Freedom 7, May 5, 1961
“Weak mortals, chained to the earth, creatures of clay as frail as the foliage of the woods, you unfortunate race, whose life is but darkness, as unreal as a shadow, the illusion of a dream.” — Aristophanes, The Birds (trans. unknown)
“There is no sufficiency principle, no ability to say ‘enough.’ Every last scrap of material, every last inch of earth, every last iota of human attention and experience, must become a commodity in order to feed the market maw. There is no other option. A system that supposedly embodies ‘choice’ in the end doesn’t give us any. The mechanism grinds on, out of synch with both the natural systems that sustain it and the needs of the humans who comprise it. ‘Prosperity’ becomes another word for ecological and social dysfunction, and a staggering increase in illth. This dysfunction is a daily experience for most of us. Yet for most economists it does not exist. In their view an increase of expenditure is by definition an increase in well-being, so there is no need to inquire further. To the contrary, problems make the GDP go up. Cancer begets costly cancer treatments; stress leads to the consumption of prescription drugs, and on and on.” — Bollier and Rowe, “The ‘Illth’ of Nations” (http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.2/jonathan_rowe_david_bollier_economy_commons.php)
“Play is never taken seriously by the players–that’s one of its hallmarks. If it does become serious, it ceases to be play.” — Dodman, The Cat Who Cried for Help