Brian Mackey > Recent Status Updates

'Churchill decides from very early on that he will create a political position that is somehow above left and right, embodying the best points of both sides and thereby incarnating the will of the nation. […] He has a kind of semi- ideology to go with it— a leftish Toryism: imperialist, romantic, but on the side of the working man.'

On the attitude of Capital toward Labor after a decade of wage stagnation, ca. 1910: "As for the workers, he did not expect them to see eye to eye with him, and the only method that suggested itself was to give them a black eye the moment they showed any disposition to see at all."

Why did Churchill decide to step into a hornet's nest by giving a pro-Irish-independence speech in rabidly pro-unionist Belfast? '[T]he scent of battle was in the air; the newspaper headlines beckoned; there were stupid minds all waiting to be outraged. It was impossible for him to resist such congregated opportunity.'

On the House of Lords: 'In normal circumstances the upper chamber was an empty place; it was only in crises such as this that it was filled with a horde of hereditary nobodies, possessed with a gentlemanly anxiety to do the wrong thing.'

"Throughout the history of albinism, hard men have earnestly concocted rationalizations by which they believe they can outsmart the mountains. The inescapable fact is, however, that in the remote ranges there is no avoiding what climbers dryly call objective dangers — avalanches, rock fall, storms, hidden crevasses, and the like, the bobby traps laid by the mountain gods that

Sullivan's game is making me alternate between aspiring to be a much better writer and just giving up altogether.

"For almost the first time in the history of public beaches, this beach is conceived as a spot for recreation, not amusement stimulated by honky-tonk."

'[O]ur efforts to keep up with the latest Tweet or update do not connect us to the present moment but ensure that we are remaining focused on what just happened somewhere else. We guide ourselves and our businesses as if steering a car by watching a slide show in the rearview mirror.'

On "the CNN effect": "[Former Secretary of State James] Baker isn't simply talking about needing to work and think faster; he's expressing the need to behave in real time, without reflection. Policy, as such, is no longer measured against a larger plan or narrative; it is simply a response to changing circumstances on the ground, or on the tube."

'On the third day, God's girlfriend came over and said He'd been acting distant lately. "I'm sorry," God said. "Things have been crazy this week at work." '

'Otto could be extremely convincing. During our sophomore year, he'd persuaded me to boycott McDonald's even though they'd recently brought back the McRib. But no matter how hard he tried, he hadn't been able to get Jen to date him.'

'A prominent Washington Post reporter sanctimoniously told us that the Post is dedicated to presenting both sides of the story. In our view, the Post and other important media should report the truth. Both sides in politics are no more necessarily equally responsible than a hit-and-run driver and a victim; reporters don't treat them as equivalent, and neither should they reflexively treat the parties that way.'

"Democracy's most essential power — the ability of the citizenry to 'throw the bums out' — proved wholly inadequate to the task of governing effectively."

'They had both been engineering students in the marching band — that is, double nerds.'

'Fundamentally, ExxonMobil's executives doubted the transformational power of ethanol; as with wind and solar, executives knew the technologies and chemistry well enough, from past work with them, to have earned their skepticism. Tillerson derisively referred to ethanol in public as "moonshine."'

I need to try this: 'The prince kept an unusual schedule. He slept in two four-hour shifts, one between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. and a second between 8 a.m. and noon.'

"ExxonMobil employed considerably more geologists than political scientists."

'The tobacco industry's near bankruptcy had demonstrated that not even talented lawyers could overcome terrible facts in a product liability matter. Yet that example had also shown how industry funding and purposeful, subtle campaigning could profitably delay a legal reckoning for a dangerous product through the manipulation of public opinion, government policy, and scientific discourse.'

'The great principle of industrial mediocrity and uniformity is, "Unless everybody wants it, nobody gets it." That is the inviolable rule of mass tourism, the same rule governing such other group experiences as mass feeding and mass education.'

"The snapshots of the Japanese skulls were taken (and preserved for a lifetime) because the marines were proud of their success in humiliating, punishing, and finally destroying an enemy who, violating a quiet American Sunday, had dared bomb Pearl Harbor, thus inaugurating the marines' prolonged misery by seeking to terminate in maximum agony their brief, unspent lives."

'Understanding the past requires pretending that you don't know the present. It requires feeling its own pressure on your pulses without any ex post facto illumination.'

'Still, her departure was a sad one, as she was returning to America and a life of illiteracy, canines, and multicolored condoms.'

'Lazy and unmotivated, Americans stay up late, engaging in television, homosexuality, and even religion, anything to fill their selfish appetites.'