Other Side Of The Hill

All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called "guessing what was at the other side of the hill."

-- Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852), British soldier and statesman, he led the victorious Anglo-Allied forces against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, Remarks to John Wilson Croker and Croker's wife (4 September 1852), quoted in L. J. Jennings (ed.), The Croker Papers: The Correspondence and Diaries of the Late Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, LL.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty from 1809 to 1830, Vol. III (1884), p. 276

They're Back

Well, they're back.  This time about a picture of seashells on a North Carolina Beach a year ago, and this won't be the end of it.  But nothing has changed with me.  I'm still innocent,  I'm still not afraid, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.  So let's go. 

But it's really important that all of us remember this is not who we are as a country.  This is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be.  And the good news is we get closer every day to restoring those values.  Keep the faith.

-- Former government person James Comey, in a video posted to his Substack responding to a felony indictment alleging that Comey did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States, based upon a 2025 social media post of an image of seashells (28 April 2026)

In Short

In short, it is possible to demonstrate that (a) many people support positions or political forces that violate their own professed interests, and (b) many people profess interests that violate their actual well-being.

-- Michael Parenti (30 September 1933 - 24 January 2026), American political scientist, historian, and media critic, Contrary Notions (2007) Ch. 5, Section 20: False Consciousness

The Great Dance

When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something that lasts longer than we do.

-- Hermann Karl Hesse (1877 - 1962), German-Swiss poet, novelist, and painter, 1946 Nobel laureate in Literature, Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) Chapter 10

Crooked Timber

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

-- Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), German philosopher, Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6

Efficacy

A report showing the efficacy of the covid-19 vaccine that was previously delayed by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been blocked from being published in the agency's flagship scientific journal, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.  The report showed that the vaccine reduced emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half this past winter.

The report, which had cleared the agency's scientific-review process, had been delayed.  It now won't be published at all, people familiar with the decision told The Post.

-- Lena H. Sun, writing for the Washington Post, "CDC won't publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits" (22 April 2026)

Far Worse

An ever-expanding capitalism and a fragile, finite ecology are on a calamitous collision course.  It is not true that the ruling politico-economic interests are in a state of denial about this.  Far worse than denial, they are in a state of utter antagonism toward those who think the planet is more important than corporate profits.

-- Michael Parenti (30 September 1933 - 24 January 2026), American political scientist, historian and media critic, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism (1997) Anything But Class: Avoiding the C-Word, p. 156