April 26, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Quick bites
I will be back to blogging soon . . . it's just that I sort of got promoted, but while we wait for the guy who's taking over my old job to come on board, I have to do my new job and my old job, which barely leaves time to breathe, much less blog.
But for your delectation, I offer this headline from the Wall Street Journal:
G-7 officials agreed at their weekend talks that oil prices should go down and the Chinese currency be allowed to rise
In other news, the nation's schoolchildren unanimously agreed that recess should replace arithmetic, penmanship, and social studies, and every snack period should feature unlimited ice cream and candy supplies.
Meanwhile, I offer you this quotation from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, from which I am currently reading selections:
That kings are the servants of the people, to be obeyed, resisted, deposed, or punished, as the public conveniency may require, is the doctrine of reason and philosphy; but it is not the doctrine of Nature. Nature would teach us to sumbit to them for their own sake, to tremble and bow down before their exalted station, to regard their smile as a reward sufficient to compensate any services, and to dread their displeasure, though no other evil were to follow from it, as the severest of all mortifications. To treat them in any respect as men to reason and dispute with them upon ordinary occasions, requires such resolution, that there are few men whose magnanimity can support them in it, unless they are likewise assisted by familiarity and aquaintance.
As you can see, the version I'm reading has been cleaned up for 21st-century eyes; I imagine that the original looked something like this:
That Kings are the servants of the People, to be Obeyed, Resisted, Deposed, or Punished, as the Publick Conveniency may require, is the Doctrine of REASON and PHILOSOPHY; but it is not the Doctrine of NATURE. . . . [etc]
It makes it easier to read, of course, but one does lose a little of the flavour.
More later, I hope . . .
Posted by Jane Galt at April 26, 2004 12:42 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksCongratulations on the promotion!
You've been there like, what, two weeks? Sweet jeebus, you must be good at your job.
Congrats again.
Congratulations, and good luck with the two jobs at once thing. I was promoted a month and a half ago and my replacement doesn't come on board until Monday. I will be entirely bald by then, having torn out all my hair. I hope things move more quickly for you.
Well, with Megan and Katherine both doing two jobs at once, it's no wonder U.S. productivity is up sharply.
Congrats on the promotion. Now you won't need any help getting the stuff on your Amazon wish list... except it looks like you keep adding stuff. And the Segway is still there!
Flavour? It looks like the subeditors are subconciously flavoring your prose... ;-)
Ah, so the fact that you're so busy must explain why you haven't responded to my e-mail, even though you told me you would at Seth & Kym's wedding...leaving me no choice but to pubicly shame you into responding in the comments section ;-)
Congrats on the promotion & don't work too hard. Based on your wish list, you've got a lot of reading to catch up on...
I remember the Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations from college.
I remember one professor who was happy when one student suggested "the invisible hand" was actually God.
I remember that two things brought down Capitalism, according to Smith.
Corporate collusion. Smith was convinced business people couldn't have DINNER together without the consumers getting screwed. Nowadays the gov't organizes their get-togethers.
Trinkets & Baubles. Smith didn't like buying junk. I'd like to think he would have thought the Rubik's Cube was a good thing, but I am not completely sure.
Kind of congratulations on sort of getting promoted. You maybe deserve it, a little.
You need to throw some of those esses that look like effs into the reconstructed Smith. I always crack up at Stan Freberg's History of the United States when Ben Franklin complains that all of Jefferson's esses look like effs... Jefferson says it's stylish, very "in."
"The purfuit of happinefs?"
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