People From Delaware

"A fundamental problem with arguments from analogy is the assumption that, because some aspects of A are similar to B, other aspects of A are similar to B. It ain’t necessarily so."

"Now some philosophers, and I’m not mentioning any names—mostly because I can’t pronounce them—try to hide the fact that they feel their way to the Big Answers just like the rest of us do. They spin out all kinds of fancy, impersonal reasons for coming to their conclusions, but the way they really got there is they trusted their gut in the first place, just like the rest of us. But because they wanted an impressive philosophy that matched what they felt in their guts, they constructed it out of their heads. And here’s where they got a little sneaky, for my money: they kinda cherry-picked the universe for evidence that backed up what their gut told them to start with, and they ignored anything that didn’t jibe with it."

"Lost in discussions of séances is any consideration for the dead respondents. Why do they have to appear on demand? Might they not have busy schedules too? Aren’t they at least entitled to caller ID?"

"But in the 1870s, weirdness was in the air."

"The monitor confirmed cardiac arrest as an elderly man suddenly lost consciousness. After about twenty seconds of resuscitation, he came to. Explaining to him that his heart had momentarily stopped, the doctor asked if he remembered anything unusual during that time. “I saw a bright light,” he said, “and in front of me a man dressed in white. Excitedly, the doctor asked if he could describe the figure. “Sure, Doc,” he replied. “It was you.”"

"One criterion to bear in mind when choosing a religion is where its particular afterlife is being held."

"How does conventional wisdom become conventional? As Stewart informs us, it usually starts with talking points. Party A decides how it wants us to think about the candidates of Party B and then sets out to get their unflattering labels repeated so often in the media that they stick in our minds. The media cooperate because it gives them a hook for their stories. And we, the public, are only too glad to latch onto these labels, because they are so catchy. And more significantly, it’s way easier than thinking."

"The clear implication of the term is that this self-evidence is evident to everyone who is paying attention. But you don’t need to be an epistemologist to realize that one person’s “self evident” is another person’s “huh??” Our local shaman finds it self-evident that there are multicolored pixies fluttering around our heads. We are willing to accept that said pixies are evident to his self; they just don’t happen to be evident to ours."

"Cum hoc and post hoc arguments so much of their appeal to our fanciful/poetic sides, which, from a strict philosopher’s point of view, are our pudding-headed sides."

"The excuse of “God made me do it”—as both a principle of action and an excuse for it—declined after Genghis, replaced by “the devil made me do it.” In both cases, personal moral responsibility was nullified, so it was just a hop, skip, and jump to “My unconscious drives made me do it,” a.k.a. the insanity defense. What is striking about all three Über-motivators is that they almost exclusively make us do criminal acts. As one comedian quipped, “Have you ever heard anyone cry, ‘God made me trim the hedges!’”"

"It is often said that all of life is high school—over and over again. But we beg to differ, at least when it comes to political rhetoric, where a good part of life is grade school."

"A perennial favorite hidden assumption is that something is morally right because it is “natural,” the way Mother Nature intended it."

"Any political commentator worthy of having his own program on Fox News knows that when it comes to hiding the truth, burial is a nifty option. Why risk a blatant, in-your-face fib when a questionable assumption buried in a seemingly logical argument might slip right by the listener?"

"Many of these fallacies, formal and informal, were identified by Aristotle nearly twenty-five hundred years ago. Has that stopped politicians from using them? On the contrary, they’ve treated them as formal and informal strategies!"

"The bottom line is that the values we think are timeless and absolute are really in constant historical flux relative to who has power and how it gets used."

"Another way to differentiate denominations is according to what behavior qualifies someone for a divine dressing-down. For Catholics, it’s missing Mass. For Baptists, it’s dancing. For Episcopalians, it’s eating your salad with your dessert fork."

"In theology, schisms have opened over such pressing issues as, “Does the Spirit proceed from the Father or from the Father and the Son?” The layperson clearly needs a simple guide to theological differences and, thank God, the comedians are always willing to oblige."

"The agnostic is one step short of an atheist, who considers the case against the existence of God closed. If both of them came across a burning bush saying, “I am that I am,” the agnostic would start looking for the hidden tape recorder, but the atheist would just shrug and reach for his marshmallows."

"Another problem with following Divine Law is interpretation. What exactly qualifies as honoring thy father and mother?"

"There are complications. The first is, how can we be sure what God really thinks? Fundamentalists have that one covered: Scripture says so. But how did the people in Scripture know the signals they were getting were really from God? Abraham thought he was called by God to sacrifice his son on the altar. Abraham figures, “If God says so, I’d better do it.” Our first philosophical query to Abraham is, “What around you, nuts? You hear ‘God” tell you to do a crazy thing, and you don’t even ask for identification?”"

"In its post-World War II heyday, bebop was known as much for its precarious lifestyle as for musical daring. Generated in no small part by the aura surrounding the mythic, self-destructive Charlie Parker, drug addiction became an occupational hazard among aspiring jazz players. But amid this chronicle of disaster, Clifford Brown presented a shining alternative. The most brilliant young trumpeter of his generation, he was completely drug-free, a model both as musician and man – disciplined and good-natured. Thus it seemed a particularly cruel trick of fate that, in 1956, he died in a car accident, aged just 25. Though he had only been recording for four years, Brown left a considerable legacy on disc. He enlivened every session with his bright sound, impeccable facility and, above all, the sense that everything he played was driven by delight, an insatiable urge to say something new in each solo. Sheer fluency is perhaps his most striking quality, carried along by a rich tone, and an attack as crisp, intelligent and varied as the buoyant logic that informed his improvisations."

"This was not a strong case, and a loss at trial was a distinct possibility. In recognition of the weakness of the case, the assigned prosecutor offered a plea and sentence recommendation that guaranteed the defendant would be required to register as a sex offender, participate in court-ordered sex offender rehabilitation therapy and to have no contact with the victim and any other child under the age of 16. A loss at trial would have rendered any of these restrictions impossible."

"Beau should be the one running for president, not me He was worried I would walk away He is part of me, and so is my surviving son, Hunter, and Ashley"

"I'm happy to defend my dad. I don't think he needs any defensiveness. Any time the other side -- Karl Rove or folks on the far right -- are going after my father for smiling too much, you know that's a victory. My father spoke clearly to the American people about the facts, and you saw him do that for 90 minutes straight. You know, this isn't, Jake, about how much my father smiled or how many gallons of water that the congressman drank nervously on that stage. It's about talking directly to the American people about very important facts, and what you saw from my father were him articulating the vision that the president and he have to continue to build this middle class, you know, out and take this country forward. And, you know, from -- you know, I was struck by Paul Ryan by a number of fronts, you know, especially the congressman's position on Afghanistan, which I feel -- I feel very strongly about."

"Look, immigration as a system, as a national policy, is broken. No one on either side of the debate needs me to tell them that. But that’s not what the novel is about. It’s about the human faces, the human stories, the human lives behind what for many people has become only an issue. As one of the characters says, “We’re the unknown Americans, the ones no one even wants to know, because they’ve been told they’re supposed to be scared of us and because maybe if they did take the time to get to know us, they might realize that we’re not that bad, maybe even that we’re a lot like them. And who would they hate then?”…"

"I think to some degree, all politics is personal. It would be naïve of me to say I wrote a book just about immigrants and there's nothing political about it. As has been pointed out to me in the past, it's political to have the last name that I have. There's nothing that's not political…"

"…I also think I was wrestling with the issue of God in a very large, philosophical sort of way. I think if you’re a believer there’s a certain comfort in that. I’m trying to figure out if I’m a believer at this point; I’m not even sure. And so you’re just trying to wrestle with it, to pin it down for yourself. That just comes through somehow in the characters. The further I get into my career, the less autobiographical the stories are getting, though in a way they are more so. All of a sudden my preoccupations go into my work in a more forceful way, even though the characters, and the circumstances they find themselves in, are less like me."

"…It does seem to me that the way many people define “American” is limited, and that insofar as that’s the case, it’s usually limited to white America. But to me the very essence of America is that it’s as expansive and as inclusive as possible, and therefore the word “American” should encompass as many different kinds of people as possible, too."

"I go into things thinking, it will be a short story. It’s easier. It’s not overwhelming, and I know I can do that in a few weeks or a few months. If I go in thinking novel, it feels so overwhelming. It just has to do with your natural stride as a writer. My natural stride is short story. I think in those components. It’s just me."

"In the old, old days when men were wiser than they are in these times, there lived a great philosopher and magician, by name Nicholas Flamel. Not only did he know all the actual sciences, but the black arts as well, and magic, and what not."

"I found myself in Twilight Land. How I ever got there I cannot tell, but there I was in Twilight Land. What is Twilight Land? It is a wonderful, wonderful place where no sun shines to scorch your back as you jog along the way, where no rain falls to make the road muddy and hard to travel, where no wind blows the dust into your eyes or the chill into your marrow. Where all is sweet and quiet and ready to go to bed. Where is Twilight Land? Ah! that I cannot tell you. You will either have to ask your mother or find it for yourself."

"Once upon a time there came a soldier marching along the road, kicking up a little cloud of dust at each step—as strapping and merry and bright-eyed a fellow as you would wish to see in a summer day. Tramp! tramp! tramp! he marched, whistling as he jogged along, though he carried a heavy musket over his shoulder and though the sun shone hot and strong and there was never a tree in sight to give him a bit of shelter."

"There was once upon a time a man whom other men called Aben Hassen the Wise. He had read a thousand books of magic, and knew all that the ancients or moderns had to tell of the hidden arts."

"“Rest content,” said the Talisman of Solomon, “with knowing that which concerns thine own self, and seek not to find an answer that will be to thine own undoing. Be thou also further advised: do not question the Demon Zadok.”"

"“You look as hale and strong as ever,” says St. Nicholas. “Ah, yes,” says Ill-Luck, “I find plenty to do in this world of woe.”"

"Give a fool heaven and earth, and all the stars, and he will make ducks and drakes of them."

"When man’s strength fails, woman’s wit prevails."

"My son," said he, "if every one in your case should shed tears as abundantly as you have done, the world would have been drowned in salt water by this time. As for your friend, think not ill of him; no man loveth another who is always giving."

"Many and many a man has come to trouble—so he will say—by following his wife’s advice."

"Spanish story hours were held outside the libraries wherever they were requested...Howard Pyle was a favorite author, and The Wonder Clock (1904) was the collection of stories they liked best."

"[Being vegan] improved my performance off and on the field. Plant-based foods have no cholesterol, so I don’t have a cholesterol issue. My blood pressure is good, and the toxicity level in my body is good. You’re able to take more energy from plant-based sources than animal-based sources. The list goes on, and it translates to the field and how I recover."

"No steak "every now and then," no ribs, no burgers, none of that. … Culturally there needs to be a change, and why not start with myself?"

"Increase on productivity and decrease in unit costs (often identified with economies of scale) resulted far more from the increases in the volume and velocity of throughput then from a growth in the size of the factory and plant."

"The minutest details of cost of materials and labor in every department appeared from day to day and week to week in the accounts; and soon every man about the place was made to realize it. The men felt and often remarked that the eye of the company were on them through the books."

"Effective coordination of throughput required the placing of vigorous management controls over these despots."

"In most British enterprises senior executives worked closely in the same office building, located in or near the largest plant, having almost daily personal contact with, and thus directly supervising middle and often lower-level managers. Such enterprises had no need for the detailed organization charts and manuals that had come into common use in large American and German firms before 1914. In these British companies, selection to senior positions and to the board depended as much on personal ties as on managerial competence. The founders and their heirs continued to have a significant influence on top-level decision-making even after their holdings in the enterprise were diminished."

"To maintain and continue a high volume of flow demanded organizational innovation. It would be achieved only by creating an administrative hierarchy operated by many full-time salaried managers."

"In the 1850s and 18605 the modern commodity dealer who purchased directly from the farmer and sold directly to the processor took over the marketing and distribution of agricultural products. In the same years the full-line, full-service wholesaler began to market most standardized consumer goods. Then in the 1 870s and 188os the modern mass retailer — the department store, the mail-order house, and the chain store — started to make inroads on the wholesaler's markets."

"Men's mind and abilities grow and expand with use of responsibilities."

"The swift victory of the railway over the waterway resulted from organizational as well as technological innovation. Technology made possible fast, all-weather transportation; but safe, regular, reliable movement of goods and passengers, as well as the continuing maintenance and repair of locomotives, rolling stock, and track, roadbed, stations, roundhouses and other equipment, required the creation of a sizable administrative organization. It meant the employment of an administrative command of middle and top executives to monitor, evaluate, and coordinate the work of managers responsible for the day-to-day operations. It meant, too, the formulation of brand new types of internal administrative procedures and accounting and statistical controls. Hence, the operational requirements of the railroads demanded the creation of the first administrative hierarchies in American business."