Troubled Water

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must coöperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sp...

«At a wholly different moral level is the objection to the very goal that sociology shares with the other social sciences — the discovery of natural laws, as distinguished from moral laws, of human behavior. This objection tends to come from deeply religious men. Far from laughing at the pretensions of sociology to be a science at all, they take them more seriously than do most sociologists themselves. Their objection implies a fear that there may indeed be such laws, and that some men might apply them to control the behavior of others. But to control their behavior, even for their own good, would be to cheat them of their birthright. Was not man created "sufficient to have stood, but free to fall"? And if he is not left free to fall, where is his humanity? Success in the sociologists' aim might lead, in T. S. Eliot's phrase, to "systems so perfect that no one would need to be good." This view forgets that men long ago committed themselves to the endeavor to...

Kent Monkman - Study for Wild Women of the Woods (Acrylic on canvas 32” x 50”) 2024 It gives me pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the Government, steadily pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation. Two important tribes have accepted the provision made for their removal at the last session of Congress, and it is believed that their example will induce the remaining tribes also to seek the same obvious advantages.  The consequences of a speedy removal will be important to the United States, to individual states, and to the Indians themselves. The pecuniary advantages which it promises to the government are the least of its recommendations. It puts an end to all possible danger of collision between the authorities of the general and state governments on account of the Indians. It will place a dense and civilized population in large tracts of country now oc...

[...]  Kivnick was a trained musician who believed in the power of music to foster deep and healing connections among diverse peoples from all walks of life and to advance social justice. In 1984, Kivnick and her husband Gary Gardner travelled to South Africa to learn about the traditional singing of the Black community. Kivnick stayed up all night to judge traditional Zulu choral singing long before Ladysmith Black Mombazo was made famous by Paul Simon. She and Gardner produced two albums from the innovative recordings they made and the resulting “Mbube! Zulu Men’s Singing Competition” was nominated for a 1987 Grammy Award. Mbube means “lion” in Zulu and the genre refers to a male vocal music ensemble that is traditionally performed a cappella. Kivnick provided program notes and ethnological notes, texts, and translations of the Zulu passages. Her book, Where is the Way: Song and Struggle in South Africa (Penguin Books, 1990), documented the role of singing in Black life under ap...

[...] After Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky 's coup in April 1918, Petliura headed the Kyiv Gubernial Zemstvo and All-Ukrainian Union of Zemstvos. He was arrested by the Hetman government in July 1918 but was released after four months, and went to Bila Tserkva. There he took part in the popular uprising against Skoropadsky's regime and was then elected a member of the Directory of the Ukrainian National Republic and supreme otaman of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic. On 11 February 1919, after the army's retreat from Kyiv and Volodymyr Vynnychenko 's flight abroad, Petliura succeeded him as president of the Directory and resigned from the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers' party. In the difficult conditions of the next 10 months he commanded the UNR Army and later joint UNR Army and Ukrainian Galician Army (UHA) against the Red Army and Volunteer Army ( see Ukrainian-Soviet War, 1917–21 ). On 5 December 1919, surrounded by the enemy and faced with certain de...

Lá na úmida senzala,  Sentado na estreita sala,  Junto ao braseiro, no chão,  Entoa o escravo o seu canto,  E ao cantar correm-lhe em pranto  Saudades do seu torrão...  De um lado, uma negra escrava  Os olhos no filho crava,  Que tem no colo a embalar...  E à meia voz lá responde  Ao canto, e o filhinho esconde,  Talvez pra não o escutar!  “Minha terra é lá bem longe,  Das bandas de onde o sol vem;  Esta terra é mais bonita,  Mas à outra eu quero bem!  “O sol faz lá tudo em fogo,  Faz em brasa toda a areia;  Ninguém sabe como é belo  Ver de tarde a papa-ceia!  “Aquelas terras tão grandes,  Tão compridas como o mar,  Com suas poucas palmeiras  Dão vontade de pensar...  “Lá todos vivem felizes,  Todos dançam no terreiro;  A gente lá não se vende  Como aqui, só por dinheiro”.  O escravo calou a fala,  Porque na úmida sala  O fogo estava a apa...

"Assim, e apesar de séculos de discussões científicas e filosóficas, os cientistas e filósofos modernos continuam bastante divididos sobre o que significa ser consciente e sobre que tipos de sistemas podem exibir consciência. David Chalmers propôs uma partição do problema da consciência em duas componentes, os «problemas fáceis» e o «problema difícil». De acordo com Chalmers, os «problemas fáceis» consistem em perceber os mecanismos, físicos e fisiológicos, pelos quais o cérebro humano (e o dos outros animais) processa informação, raciocina, integra informação sensorial e planeia formas de actuação. Embora saibamos pouco como os cérebros desempenham estas funções, estes problemas são comparativamente fáceis porque dependem apenas de desenvolvermos os nossos conhecimentos científicos, objectivos, dos mecanismos físicos subjacentes ao funcionamento do cérebro. por comparação, o «problema difícil» permanecerá sem solução porque, mesmo que venhamos a conhecer em pormenor cada um dest...

Il se trouve dans certaines provinces des maisons dont la vue inspire une mélancolie égale à celle que provoquent les cloîtres les plus sombres, les landes les plus ternes ou les ruines les plus tristes. Peut-être y a-t-il à la fois dans ces maisons et le silence du cloître et l’aridité des landes, et les ossements des ruines. La vie et le mouvement y sont si tranquilles qu’un étranger les croirait inhabitées, s’il ne rencontrait tout à coup le regard pâle et froid d’une personne immobile dont la figure à demi monastique dépasse l’appui de la croisée, au bruit d’un pas inconnu. Ces principes de mélancolie existent dans la physionomie d’un logis situé à Saumur, au bout de la rue montueuse qui mène au château, par le haut de la ville. Cette rue, maintenant peu fréquentée, chaude en été, froide en hiver, obscure en quelques endroits, est remarquable par la sonorité de son petit pavé caillouteux, toujours propre et sec, par l’étroitesse de sa voie tortueuse, par la paix de ses maisons qui ...

  Anselm Kiefer - The Fertile Crescent (2009)   Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of the body and mind, as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For, as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.    And, as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules called science, which very few have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst...

One of the most successful physicians I have ever known, has assured me, that he used more bread pills, drops of colored water, and powders of hickory ashes, than of all other medicines put together. It was certainly a pious fraud. Thomas Jefferson to Caspar Wistar, June 21, 1807 « Henry Beecher was an anesthesiologist and pain therapist in Italy during World War II. On the battlefield he noted no correlation between the intensity of pain experienced by soldiers and the severity of the injuries. When Beecher returned to his practice in the United States after World War II, he compared the injuries of his patients with those of the soldiers, and found that the requirement for painkillers was substantially higher in civilian patients than in the soldiers on the battlefield, thus emphasizing the lack of relationship between the extension of the wounds and the perceived experience of pain. Beecher suggested that this discrepancy between soldiers and civilians could be attributable to the...

«I have no objection, by the way, to appearing on radio and TV with creationists, and have done so many times. In this format, it is possible to have some sort of point-counterpoint which is (though it seems odd to say it) not possible in a formal debate format. On the radio, I have been able to stop Gish , et al, and say, "Wait a minute, if X is so, then wouldn't you expect Y?" or something similar, and show that their "model" is faulty. But in a debate, the evolutionist has to shut up while the creationist gallops along, spewing out nonsense with every paragraph. Now, there are ways to have a formal debate that actually teaches the audience something about science, or evolution, and that has the potential to expose creation science for the junk it is. This is to have a narrowly-focused exchange in which the debaters deal with a limited number of topics. Instead of the "Gish Gallop" format of most debates where the creationist is allowed to run on for...

[...] Consider, for example, the conflict with respect to locating public housing, described in Meyerson and Banfield's study of the Chicago Housing Authority - disagreement which occurred despite the clear objective of providing a certain number of public housing units in the city. Similarly conflicting are objectives in highway location, traffic control, minimum wage administration, development of tourist facilities in national parks, or insect control.  Administrators cannot escape these conflicts by ascertaining the majority's preference, for preferences have not been registered on most issues; indeed, there often are no preferences in the absence of public discussion sufficient to bring an issue to the attention of the electorate. Furthermore, there is a question of whether intensity of feeling should be considered as well as the number of persons preferring each alternative. By the impossibility of doing otherwise, administrators often are reduced to deciding policy with...