Quotes of the week
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
Confucius
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.
Henry Thoreau
Henry Thoreau
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
Lin Yutang
Lin Yutang
Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.
Elise Boulding
Elise Boulding
Meditation of the week
person of the Week
It's the birthday of Rachel Maddow, who began hosting her own political television show on a Monday night in September 2008 and a week later had the most-watched MSNBC show of the night, with more than 1.8 million viewers. She doubled the audience for the station's 9 p.m. hour, and a large chunk of her viewers fall in the much-sought-after demographic of 25- to 54-year-olds.
She writes up essays of commentary for her nightly show, talks about news events that she feels haven't been covered enough (which she calls "Holy Mackerel" stories), announces a "cocktail moment" — a bit of trivia or witticism that can be used to impress friends — and does extensive reporting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
She went to Stanford, studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (the first openly gay Rhodes Scholar ever chosen), and while writing her graduate dissertation, entitled HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons, she moved out to rural Massachusetts in the hopes of depriving herself of distractions and thereby forcing herself to sit down and write. She worked a number of odd jobs to survive, including, she lists, "waitress, bike messenger, bucket washer at a coffee-bean factory, yard help, landscaping laborer, and handyman." Before she appeared on MSNBC, she had her own very popular radio program, also called The Rachel Maddow Show. She still doesn't own a television.
She's at work on a book about the military and politics, and it's being edited by Rachel Klayman, who helped edit then-Senator Barack Obama's 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope.
Best of Craig’s List of the week
Video of the week
You can’t make up such a thing as that, I dare you to even try
You've committed your life to Jesus. You know you're saved. But when the Rapture comes what's to become of your loving pets who are left behind? Eternal Earth-Bound Pets takes that burden off your mind.
Websites of the week
A complete college education is available, free, online.
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
On this day in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He was standing on the balcony of his room on the second floor at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when, at 6:01 p.m., he was shot in the right jaw. The day before, he'd given a speech at the Mason Temple in Memphis. He was addressing a rally for the Memphis Sanitation Strike, which involved 1,300 black sanitation workers protesting dangerous working conditions and discrimination. He'd been delayed getting into Memphis because there was a bomb threat to his plane. Toward the end of his speech, he acknowledged the recent death threats and said:
"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
