According to his spokesman, Bill Gates was referring to Epstein’s décor. That reminds me, I need to vacuum the cat hair from my lifestyle.
When he dismissed blowback as “an inverted pyramid of piffle,” Great Britain’s former Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip proved there’ll always be an England ruled by a class of person able to toss off a Bullingdon clubbable sneer. Americans can only dream of such abuse.
“After the Trump era is over, much will be said about the lasting damage it has done to civic discourse. In addition to other reforms and acts of reconciliation, repairs will need to be made to the ways we engage in public argumentation and decision-making…” (Aubrey Clayton)
Lately I realize that Clayton’s tweaks to civic discourse would address the sour gas issuing from America’s bowel while ignoring the infection. A broadly based reconciliation with factuality and truth-telling would be medicinal. Less is gluing bullfeathers on a jackass.
What ultimately makes Mr. Epstein a significant figure is not his personal pathology but what his career says about the culture that found him useful. (Jacob Weisberg)
Causes, not symptoms. What makes our debased discourse significant is not its meanness but what it says about a culture that elects mean leaders.
The dread of war is not enough. If you don’t want the effect, do something to remove the causes. There is no use loving the cause and fearing the effect, and being surprised when the effect inevitably follows the cause. (Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain)
Merton, a Trappist monk, took it to the divine place, saying the cause of wars is “sin.” He might have been on to something! If I can think of “sin” as “crime” I’m good. Wealth inequality is a sin. Citizens United is a sin. Algorithmic predation is a sin. Monopolies are a sin. Capital punishment is a sin. The list goes on. The wars go on.
I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.
EthicalDative 
Truth Facial
According to his spokesman, Bill Gates was referring to Epstein’s décor. That reminds me, I need to vacuum the cat hair from my lifestyle.
When he dismissed blowback as “an inverted pyramid of piffle,” Great Britain’s former Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip proved there’ll always be an England ruled by a class of person able to toss off a Bullingdon clubbable sneer. Americans can only dream of such abuse.
“After the Trump era is over, much will be said about the lasting damage it has done to civic discourse. In addition to other reforms and acts of reconciliation, repairs will need to be made to the ways we engage in public argumentation and decision-making…”
(Aubrey Clayton)
Lately I realize that Clayton’s tweaks to civic discourse would address the sour gas issuing from America’s bowel while ignoring the infection. A broadly based reconciliation with factuality and truth-telling would be medicinal. Less is gluing bullfeathers on a jackass.
What ultimately makes Mr. Epstein a significant figure is not his personal pathology but what his career says about the culture that found him useful.
(Jacob Weisberg)
Causes, not symptoms. What makes our debased discourse significant is not its meanness but what it says about a culture that elects mean leaders.
The dread of war is not enough. If you don’t want the effect, do something to remove the causes. There is no use loving the cause and fearing the effect, and being surprised when the effect inevitably follows the cause.
(Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain)
Merton, a Trappist monk, took it to the divine place, saying the cause of wars is “sin.” He might have been on to something! If I can think of “sin” as “crime” I’m good. Wealth inequality is a sin. Citizens United is a sin. Algorithmic predation is a sin. Monopolies are a sin. Capital punishment is a sin. The list goes on. The wars go on.
(c) 2026 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
Share this:
About JMN
I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.