Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke on the necessary evil of capitalists.

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There must be some impulse besides public spirit, to put private interest into motion along with it. Monied men ought to be allowed to set a value on their money; if they did not, there would be no monied men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the State could not exist.

The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States. In this natural, this reasonable, this powerful, this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose the ridiculous; it is for the moralist to censure the vicious; it is for the sympathetick heart to reprobate the hard and cruel; it is for the Judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression: but it is for the Statesman to employ it as he finds it; with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. It is his part, in this case, as it is in all other cases, where he is to make use of the general energies of nature, to take them as he finds them.

-- Edmund Burke, quoted at Sully's Dish, May 4, 2013 @ 9:46 pm

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1609 American Colonialists and Indians

The discovery of a young colonial settler, named Jane, has opened up some discussion on the early settlement of America. Her remains were eaten, and not by the Indians, but be the settlers.

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Adjusting To New Routines

It had been a long time since my laptop would not come back when I flipped it open.

This is also the first personal post I have made in this blog since I reopened my Two Journal. This trivial event was obviously not something to include there, and maybe this will get me back in gear to blurt away freely here.

Elvis

Elvis succumbed to his masculine pride and tried to play on the high school football team, but I guess he really wasn’t one of the tough guys.

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“I think,” says Red, “that Elvis lasted on the squad about three weeks. The coach, a good old guy called Coach Boyce, just couldn’t stand Elvis and his long hair. Coach Boyce could be a real tough sonofagun and he was always onto Elvis to cut his hair. He just shamed ‘E’ so much, he finally left the squad.

“I really felt sorry for him. He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn’t seem to be able to fit in. But I gotta admire him. All that razzing that the kids and some of the teachers gave him about his hair. Elvis would never cut it.”

-- “Elvis: What Happened?” by Steve Dunleavy

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Big Blue

I finally got around to washing my bedding, and despite that weirdly late cold front with its wintry blast, I wager that it is safe for me to put away Big Blue, the heavy blanket that Mother made for me. It is May, for crying out loud!

‘Children Becoming Buddhist Monks’

A child rubs his head after a Buddhist monk shaved his hair off during the ‘Children Becoming Buddhist Monks’ ceremony, in advance of Buddha’s birthday, at a Chogye temple on May 3, 2013 in Seoul, South Korea. The children will stay at the temple to learn about Buddhism for 14 days. Buddha was born approximately 2,557 years ago, and although the exact date is unknown, Buddha’s official birthday is celebrated on the full moon in May in South Korea, which is on May 17 this year. By Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images.

-- Andrew Sullivan

Daily Fun

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