- December 3, 2025
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30 December 1837. Concord, Mass. (Thoreau to Orestes Brownson)
My apology for this letter is to ask your assistance in obtaining employment. For, say what you will, this frostbitten ‘forked carrot’ of a body must be fed and clothed after all. It is ungrateful, to say the least, to suffer this much abused case to fall into so dilapidated a condition that every nothwester may luxuriate through its chinks and crevices, blasting the kindly affections it should shelter, when a few clouts would save it. Thank heaven, the toothache occurs often enough to remind me that I must be out patching the roof occasionally, and not be always keeping up a blaze upon the hearth within, with my German and metaphysical cat-sticks.
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Paolo Freire
No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption.
- November 22, 2025
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Kritik der Gewalt, cit Spivak , Death of a Discipline p. 33
Diese göttliche Gewalt bezeugt sich nicht durch die religiöse Überlieferung allein, vielmehr findet sie mindestens in einer geheiligten Manifestation sich auch im gegenwärtigen Leben vor. Was als erzieherische Gewalt in ihrer vollendeten Form außerhalb des Rechtes steht, ist eine ihrer Erscheinungsformen. Diese definieren sich also nicht dadurch, daß Gott selber unmittelbar sie in Wundern ausübt, sondern durch jene Momente des unblutigen, schlagenden, entsühnenden Vollzuges. Endlich durch die Abwesenheit jeder Rechtsetzung. Insofern ist es zwar berechtigt, diese Gewalt auch vernichtend zu nennen; sie ist dies aber nur relativ, in Rücksicht auf Güter, Recht, Leben u. dgl., niemals absolut in Rücksicht auf die Seele des Lebendigen.
- November 19, 2025
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He is said to have extracted the word Merz from the name Commerz Bank which appeared on a piece of paper in one of his collages.
from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/merz
- November 16, 2025
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Commençons donc par écarter tous les faits, car ils ne touchent point à la question.
(Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes)
- November 12, 2025
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(no subject)
‘Guanyem Barcelona’ citizens’ platform launch
in September 2014, she answered the question
‘¿Qui Som?’ (‘Who are we?’) as follows:
… women underrepresented in the political domain
but overrepresented in the invisible labor of care;
rights and services; struggling working-class and
unemployed people taking public transportation to
educators and nurses defending basic elements
of social welfare; migrants in search for a more
hospitable city without repression and detention
centers; experienced municipal public servants
demanding a fair and transparent use of public
institutions and an acknowledgment of their
capacities; diverse familial groupings denouncing
the criminalization of the personal choices they
made when building their relationships; children
elderly people and retirees hoping for an assurance
of their well-being and the recognition of their
experiences.
- November 7, 2025
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On the Chinese equivalent to "caravanserai" from ibn Battuta's Rihla ("A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling")
China is the safest and best country for the traveller. A man travels for nine months alone with great wealth and has nothing to fear. What is responsible for this is that in every post station in their country is funduq which has a director living there with a company of horse and foot. After sunset or nightfall the director comes to the funduq with his secretary and writes down the names of all the travellers who will pass the night there, seals it and locks the door of the funduq. In the morning he and his secretary come and call everybody by name and write down a record. He sends someone with the travellers to conduct them to the next post station and he brings back a certificate from the director of the funduq confirming that they have all arrived. If he does not do this he is answerable for them. This is the procedure in every post station in their country from Sin al-Sin to Khan Baliq. In them is everything the traveller needs by way of provisions, especially hens and geese. Sheep are rare among them.
- October 31, 2025
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Epigoni (epic)
Only the first line is now known: "Now, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men ..."
♡ | - October 28, 2025
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Justinian, Institutiones. Prooemium
Imperatoriam maiestatem non solum armis decoratam, sed etiam legibus oportet esse armatam [...]
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(no subject)
is autem memoratur prudenter doctissimeque dixisse, oportuisse hominum pectora fenestrata et aperta esse, uti non occultos haberent sensus sed patentes ad considerandum.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/3*.html#Intro.1