"Actually, the biggest problems I saw were innumerable broken promises by UN agencies and NGOs. If you want to give unemployed young men a grievance, try promising them something worth their annual income and then fail to deliver for 12 months. Are UN procurement problems and bureaucracy the greatest enemy of peace in fragile states? I might say so."
— Chris Blattman criticises the UN and NGOs in the threat broken promises play in fragile states.
"ack, reading is just another cultural consumer dilemma. This is a cycle, too – a striving for balance. And then why am I at this party? It’s not just for the free food and drinks and the nice people… I’m commodifying myself. Even here, now…a shaky mix of the self and the self-as-who-I-want-to-be-perceived-as-being. And we’re all mixing together shyly revealing some aspects of our true selves by talking about our work, our art, but also putting a box around it (or a cover on it, perhaps)."
— Angela Meyer of Literary Minded fame, resonating with her words.
"That might seem counterintuitive but I think we’re wrong about this idea of free. There has to be an exchange. All I’ve ever wanted from readers was to be read, but if I printed a thousand books at my own expense and left them lying in cafes that wouldn’t be effective at all. Most readers want to know that someone else was moved enough by the text to invest something of their own."
— Stephen Elliott of The Adderall Diaries fame, in his The Daily Rumpus letter (17 Nov 2010). I think he might be on to something here. The impact of ‘free’ in the Chris Anderson sense is changing, lessening, even, as more and more things do become free.
"We can only experience the outside world through our own slanted perception of it. Who knows what you’re really like, I just see what I think you’re like."
— A Single Man, the 2009 film masterfully directed by Tom Ford and based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood.
"…we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities…"
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which might just well be the most quotable book I have ever read. Keep in mind this was published in 1890. The more things change…
"I think sometimes amazing things do happen in people’s lives. Not often, and not to everyone. But sometimes."
— Jonathan Franzen interviewed by The Rumpus.
"I can understand the argument that information, in an ideal world, should be free. But I’m also familiar with free information. Free information is usually free for a reason. Mostly, it’s free because it’s a press release, or an ad, or it’s been nicked from TMZ.com, or because it’s so incredibly banal that even its creator can’t bear to look you in the eye and shake you down for cash. Free information, ladies and gentlemen, tends to be crappy information."
— Annabel Crabb, a highlight of Australia’s politico-journalist scene, delivers the A.N. Smith Lecture in Journalism (via New Matilda)
"
One of the most difficult things to do is to stand up for what you believe in, in the face of near unanimous opposition.
But because the majority is so often wrong there are so many opportunities. Will you step up?
"
— SAMBA offers up another gem of wisdom.
"For Socrates, the reason to write, to think, to make the effort to live intelligently, isn’t because of what you hope you’ll achieve — even though it is at the same time — but to avoid the alternative, which is not to try."
— Veronica Mittnacht, Generation Gap at The Rumpus. This is by far the best analysis of my generation I have read in one article in a very long time.
"It’s internet litter, the mean things people will say when they think you don’t know who they are."
— Stephen Elliott from The Rumpus expressing how I feel about nasty, anonymous comments on the internet. This is real life people, put your name to it.
"The US military now employs more PR people than any other organisation in the world."
— says Noel Turnbull for Crikey. Wow.
"Our minds are small, but our hearts are big."
— Sugar Advice column at The Rumpus (this month’s column is especially good. I promise.)
"You don’t grow dreadlocks to end poverty."
— Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like, on 3RRR Radio
"Let’s not forget that there is immense value in “talking.” This sharp differentiation between “talking” and “action” is a false dichotomy and suggests that there isn’t value in talking and learning about the issues in front of us. If anything, I think we need to be talking more about the challenges our world faces to deepen our understanding and commitment to solving them."
— Chris Hughes, of Facebook and the Obama campaign fame, talks about social media for social good in this pretty cool article.
"It had never occurred to me until now that almost all the news got made and reported by a small elite who’d met each other at a few Ivy League schools."
— Edmund White, The Beautiful Room is Empty, p.135.
