The horror comes not merely from the subject of the listing but from its banality, the reduction of its components to ritualized actions whose principle interest in in its aggregation ("In Italia seicento e quaranta; In Alemagna duecento e trentuna; Cento in Francia, in Turchia novantuna; Ma in Ispagna son già mille e tre"), without regard to rank, value or societal impact ("E v'han donne d'ogni grado, D'ogni forma, d'ogni… [read post]

In Ali’s case, the district judge subsequently decided that the surveillance – Ali was overheard in taps of phones belonging to Elijah Muhammad and Martin Luther King, Jr. [read post]

America, a land that knows little or no history -- most Americans seem to know virtually none -- forgets that the abolitionists and the civil righters were idealistic and pursued the moral, forgets that Martin Luther King pursued the moral though he understood realities, forgets that Eugene McCarthy, the dethroner of Lyndon Johnson, said that sometimes morality is the only practical politics.Nor is this all. [read post]