A life in words

  • The Return of Russian Despotism

    This Washington Post article sums up the state of affairs in Russia. Key points include: Supression of free media outlets Forced nationalization of key economic sectors, such as the oil industry Punishment of neighboring countries using oil prices as a weapon Manipulation of the national legislature to make it subservient to the Kremlin The net…

  • Longing and Delight

    The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what…

  • Performancing – What’s the License?

    The folks over at Performancing are offering a pretty nifty Firefox extension that allows blogging integrated into the web browser. Here’s a screenshot: But what license is it released under? Is it open source so I won’t have to worry about it suddenly not being free anymore? If anybody knows, drop me a line.

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech … Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. … A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their freedom of speech. … Freedom of speech is ever the symptom, as well as the effect of a good government. … Guilt only dreads liberty of speech, which drags it out of its lurking holes, and exposes its deformity and horror to daylight.Benjamin Franklin, Silence Dogood no. 8, 1722 (orthography and spelling modernized)