Kusaimamekirai’s Reviews > Revolution and Other Essays > Status Update

"Life was a matter of food and shelter. In order to get food and shelter men sold things. The merchant sold shoes, the politician sold his manhood, and the representative of the people,with exceptions, of course, sold his trust; while nearly all sold their honour. Women, too, whether on the street or in the holy bond of wedlock, were prone to sell their flesh. All things were commodities, all people bought and sold."

“What do you think of the Japanese?” was asked an American woman after she had lived some time in Japan. “It seems to me that they have no soul,”

I have made many observations after living in Japan for 10 years. I can honestly say this has not been one of them.

I read something the other day arguing that Jack London wasn't racist. For those with doubts, read his piece here celebrating Kipling and anglo saxon hegemony. Love social justice and animal rights Jack London. Not a fan of racist Jack.

"When one has turned the same person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into the abyss."
Poor Jack London. These people keep going into his poppy field and stealing his flowers. The imagery of tough guy London protecting his flowers is kind of sweet though.

"The world, when it knows nothing else of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more fling it from him than can the bashful young man his self-consciousness when crossing a ballroom floor."

"And the funniest thing about it is that this arch-deceiver believes all that they tell him. He reads only the newspapers and magazines that tell him what he wants to be told, listens only to the biologists who tell him that he is the finest product of the struggle for existence, and herds only with his own kind, where, like the monkey-folk, they teeter up and down and tell one another how great they are."