Saturday, May 4, 2002

Alexander Solzhenitsyn Quote This is from The Plow Reader, Spring 2002. I don't want to fill my life with the "small and irrelevant." I must say that among educated people politics occupies far too great a proportion of time. All the periodicals, all the newspapers are saturated with politics, although many of the objects they are discussing are very transient and short term. Of course, everywhere in the world people do occupy themselves with higher themes, and not just writer, but they always have a narrow audience, sometimes even appear to be some strange group on the edge of things, peripheral. In truth, questions of higher spirit cannot even be compared to the sort of blinking frivolity of politics. The ultimate problems of life and death show up the colossal nature of this difference even more. Modern humankind is characterized precisely by the loss of the ability to answer the principal problems of life and death. People are prepared to stuff their heads with anything, and to talk of any subject, but only to block off the contemplation of this subject. This is the reason for the increasing pettiness of our society, the concentration on the small and irrelevant. Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-) Russian dissident and long-time prisoner in Siberia. 9:33:33 PM

Harry Potter and the Quest for the Unfinished Volume News about the delay of the next Harry Potter book. [New York Times: NYT HomePage] 8:51:20 PM