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Monday, February 20, 2006
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On this day, let us pause and recall a few especially poignant words spoken by George Washington and recently read on the Senate floor by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO). It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield. Amen.
(Via Nitpicker.)
10:04:27 PM 
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How many friends should one have? Aristotle pondered it.
[F]or friends too there is a fixed number perhaps the largest number with
whom one can live together (for that, we found, thought to be very
characteristic of friendship); and that one cannot live with many
people and divide oneself up among them is plain. Further, they too
must be friends of one another, if they are all to spend their days
together; and it is a hard business for this condition to be fulfilled
with a large number. It is found difficult, too, to rejoice and to
grieve in an intimate way with many people, for it may likely happen
that one has at once to be happy with one friend and to mourn with
another.
11:50:57 AM
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For Gary, Camille Paglia on Dylan:
Twenty years ago I invented a course called “Art of Song Lyrics” at the University of the Arts to help student musicians develop their lyrics. I’ve found that quite a few Dylan lyrics do transfer quite well to the printed page — above all “Desolation Row,” which is a masterpiece. It always takes three class days to analyze it fully. It’s a dark epic of modern civilization with a surreal cast of characters and a theatrical sense of scene and gesture. “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” Dylan’s breakthrough radio hit, also works on the page. It’s really a rap song — long before hip-hop. Dylan deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature far more than the obscure, minor novelists who keep getting it.
(Via Expecting Rain.)
8:59:37 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 3/2/2006; 9:10:10 AM.
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