The Door Opens

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

-- Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH (1904 - 1991), English novelist, playwright, short story writer, and critic, The Power and the Glory (1940) Pt. I, ch. 1

Always The Same

We are always the same age inside.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, as quoted in The American Treasury, 1455-1955 (1955) edited by Clifton Fadiman, p. 946

A Matter Of Time

President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin's ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine.  Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration. 

Putin doesn't want peace.  Putin wants Ukraine.  I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia's military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.  

-- Former Vice President Mike Pence posting as @Mike_Pence (10 October 2026)

Bad Luck Follows

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

-- Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946), American expatriate writer, poet, feminist, and playwright, Mrs. Reynolds and Five Earlier Novelettes (1952) Pt. 1 (written 1940-1943)

Studying Economics

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

-- Joan Robinson FBA (1903 - 1983), British post-Keynesian economist, Contributions to Modern Economics (1978) Chapter 7, "Marx, Marshall and Keynes", p. 75

Why So Expensive?

Last year, the daily cost of hiring an oil supertanker (known as a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC) to sail from the Persian Gulf to China was just $65,000, according to Clarksons, a London-based research firm.

By the time the Iran war was about to begin, that cost had climbed to $230,000 per day.

Now?  It costs $1.6 million per day to hire a VLCC for that route, according to Clarksons.

All of this -- the cost to hire a tanker, exorbitant payments to sailors and surging insurance rates -- is making it more expensive for consumers and businesses around the world.

It used to cost just $2 per barrel to get crude out of the Persian Gulf.  Now, that cost has spiraled to about $33, according to Tom Kloza, chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil.

"We're getting a reasonable amount of crude out, but that's misleading because the cost of that crude exiting is incredible," he said.

-- CNN, "If the Strait of Hormuz is open, why are gas and diesel so expensive?" (9 October 2026)

All Beginning Is Dangerous

All Beginning is Dangerous.  The Poet can choose whether to raise emotion from one grade to another, and so finally to exalt it to a great height -- or to try a surprise attack, and from the start to pull the bell-rope with might and main.  Both processes have their danger -- in the first case his hearer may run away from him through boredom, in the second through terror.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), German philosopher, cultural critic, and writer, Human, All Too Human (1878) Aphorism #163