…One Less Scene

Hoag, circa 1979
“It was only then, after exhausting all other means of demoralizing the public, that he turned seriously to writing. Several years earlier he had given up bikes “because of the stigma.” After a long stint as a motorcycle messenger he stumbled on the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and thought it necessary to publish [...]

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From A History of Modern Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
“It was an age (3rd century BC) in which a man who had money and no desire for power could enjoy a very pleasant life- always assuming that no marauding army happened to come his way. Learned men who found favour with some prince could enjoy a [...]

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Rogue Economics, Loretta Napoleoni, Seven Stories Press, 2008, 308 pages.
A few generations ago, I might have been a tubercular twelve-year-old, working fourteen hours a day in a textile factory in Massachusetts. Malnourished, miserable, hacking up the airborne cotton fibers that were infecting my lungs. Maybe the kid on the sewing machine next to me, an [...]

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  Ahh, resort culture. In Aruba, just like anywhere else with beautiful beaches and a depressed local/thriving tourism economy,  the locals are treated like second-class citizens by the tourists, and the tourists are treated like walking credit cards by the locals. I wonder if “hospitality” has always looked like this. 
And I’m reading about the [...]

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   The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk, Random House Inc., 2005, 1136 pages  
Who is this guy Fisk? I remember hearing his name years ago; not because I came across one of his articles, but because he was often mentioned as one journalist that opposed invading [...]

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A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca
by Andrés Reséndez, Perseus publishing, 2007, 336 pages
Early in the sixteenth century, an expedition of Spanish explorers wrecked their ship off the coast of Florida. All of the men died except for three Spaniards and an African slave, who ended up walking all the way [...]

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