“An average of 1,033 people have died every day since the first known death in February. … Nearly 80% of deaths occur in people over age 65.”As I watch the pictures on TV of the young people enjoying themselves on beaches and in bars part of me slightly envies their freedom. I am 68. I […]
Archives for June 2020
Anachronisms and -isms
Anachronism — [second definition] a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other (Example: “By the time I reached my teens, the housewife was an anachronism, replaced on television by the perky, glamorous, character of That Girl, Marlo Thomas, who kept her boyfriend at bay in the interest of pursuing her acting career.” […]
With great power …
“[I]n this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility.” S. Lee and S Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “Spider-Man,” p. 13 (1962) In 2015, the Supreme Court quoted this line in a patent dispute case involving a Marvel-related product. The Supreme Court said: Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but […]
None of us want pure justice
I found an interesting quote in a Japanese magazine. “During history, ‘justice’ killed way more people than ‘evil.’ Justice is a drug. It gives you a high and blinds you. Once infected, you can kill countless people.” This quote was written before the current riots and bears no relation to what is going on in […]
St. Thomas More on social philosophy
“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” St. Thomas More, Utopia St. […]
COVID-19 and statistics
It has become popular in the USA to cite a 99% survival rate for COVID-19. However, this survival rate fits into the saying popularized by Mark Twain that “there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.” The 99% figure is only possible through an absolutely true statistic that leads to a […]
