With 175 days delay

Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'Pray, tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe' - and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steam-boat blown up, or one cow ran over the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications. To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure - news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.


Henry David Thoreau (July 12th, 1817 – May 6th, 1862)

Happy Birthday, Henry

 

One of the reasons
to love my daughter's bookshop:
Blackboard's daily news.

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)

A Walden of mine

What chaos you think?
A pleasure for all senses!
A Walden of mine.

My Walden III

. . . always when I need . . .

. . . some moments of contemplation.

Who would have thought

Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behaviour at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favourable attitudes toward greed.

More.

My Walden II

... sort of, anyway.

:)
And voilá, CherryPie,
a place for you
to sit and rest a while.

My Walden

... sort of, anyway.

[...] to be anything but ...

[...] the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day ; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men ; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but an earthworm*."
Thoreau, Walden

* Err, don't know how it could happen. Please replace an earthworm by a machine.

Gap is widening

Well, actually it's no news that the gap between rich and poor is widening. Those who have eyes to read, ears to hear and a tiny bit capacity for remembering will know that this 'metapher' in 25 years has become a set phrase, being repeated every now and then.
In so far it's one of those 'news' of which I think with Thoreau a ready wit might have written it a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Anyway, for those few on this planet who still consider Germany a land where milk and honey flows.

A new study by a German welfare organization shows that the gap between rich and poor is widening in the country, with the east and northwest lagging clearly behind the south.

Full article here.

Greedy after gossip?

Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'What's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. After a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'Pray, tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe' - and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.

For my part [...] I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steam-boat blown up, or one cow ran over the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter - we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications. To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure - news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or Life in the Woods, 1854

How amazing: Global Unease with Major World Powers

There are some interesting thoughts to be read in Sylvia Tiryaki's TDN-article about survey datas recently published by Washington based Pew Research Center.

But what is the news?

Rather seems to prove - like so often - as correct what can be found in Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" .

[...] If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? [...] A news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve months or twelve years beforehand with sufficient accuracy."