Daily Office:
Thursday, 16 September 2010
(Note: The Daily Office will resume on Tuesday, 21 September.)
¶ It’s our settled idea that the world would be a better, certainly safer, place if narcotic were regulated and not prohibited stands firm, but John Murray’s historical essay on the coincidences that have made Mexico a worse, certainly deadlier country remind us that globalism, like nuclear power, is complicated in ways that may exceed our powers of judgment. (The Awl)
¶ Whenever we have occasion to take a sip of New York Social Diary, we find that the cocktail’s bang bypasses elation entirely and goes straight to hangover. At the Obersver, NYSD Publisher David Patrick Columbia shares the current esprit de cour about David Koch, the billionaire benefactor whose family’s political activities have made a lot of New Yorkers sit up and take another look at the State Theatre.
¶ What’s the best way to monetize a blog? Felix Salmon doesn’t recommend trying this at home, but he’s impressed by John Hempten’s Bronte Capital entry about NYSE-listed Universal Travel Group, a Chinese outfit whose shares lost 20% of their value when Mr Hempten’s readers heard what he had to say about his troubles trying to use UTG’s online services, about his diligent inquiries into UTG’s dodgy financials — and about shorting the stock.
¶ Kyle Munkittrick argues beguilingly for pursuing the Transhumanist agenda, precisely because, as Francis Fukuyama has described it, it is “the most dangerous idea in the world.” (Science Not Fiction)
¶ Kevin Nguyen’s “Monophonic Memoir” about the major ringtones in his life has been around for a few days, but we keep coming back to it, because it captures the sweetness of youth’s dreams, which are vast because the world is so small. (The Bygone Bureau)
¶ The only curious thing about Rachel Donadio’s handy Lega Nord update in today’s Times, “New Power Broker Rises in Italy,” is its title, which the story itself contradicts.
¶ Lydia Davis’s remarks about her new translation of Madame Bovary are so concise that she doesn’t mention the translator whose version almost everyone alive today has read, Francis Steegmuller. (Paris Review; via The Rumpus)
¶ The last of Scott Horton’s Six Questions for Julian Young (Reconsidering Nietzsche), at Harper’s. The topic is postmodernism and reality.
¶ Oddee‘s 10 Coolest Desks.
¶ Coming Soon: Dessicant air-conditioning. 90% more efficient, so they say. (Good)
¶ J Carter: What I Did This Summer. (NYT)
Narcotic is an archaic term of common usage which only serves to muddy the waters.
Opium, morphine, herorin these are narcotics. Cocaine, methamphetaime, caffiene these are stimulants. Phenobarbital,Thiopental, Pentobarbital these are sedatives. All of these are drugs, pure and simple. Psychotropic or psychoactive if you like but drugs all the same. The BNDD became the DEA for just the reasons I allude to here.
If anyone can buy a gun, or a hand gun with a suitable background check, then similar controls should be applied to drugs, that perhaps is politically feasible. Me, personally, I’m your worst nightmare I suppose as a pure libertine, cut it all loose. You know an armed society is a polite society. A stoned society might be rather polite as well.