RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/i-take-a-dim-view-of-todays-lightbulbs-11597006857?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

I like to think of myself as a smart shopper who knows what to look for when buying a car or a computer—or even a townhouse. But recently I was flummoxed looking at a display of lightbulbs: Which packet of four bulbs should I buy? Since this was a chain pharmacy, there was no one to ask for help. I decided to buy the cheapest pack, but I kept the sales slip. I thought I might want to return the packet after learning more about lightbulbs.

When I got home I found an article on the internet that explained what to look for in a lightbulb. Every writer admits that buying a lightbulb is not easy. There are so many types of bulbs: standard incandescent bulbs, fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent swirls, halogen pucks and LEDs. Though I had no idea what a “halogen puck” is, I read on, in search of illumination.

I learned about lumens, which measure how bright the light is. Maybe all I need to know about lightbulbs is how many lumens is the equivalent of a 100-watt bulb, which is the lightbulb I used to buy. But I soon realized that I need to choose the kind of lightbulb I want before I check out the lumens. I ruled out fluorescent bulbs because I hate fluorescent light. LED bulbs are popular but they are expensive. They last much longer than other lightbulbs—11 years, according to one account, as opposed to roughly one year for an incandescent bulb. But I’m 79, so why should I spend twice as much money for lightbulbs that probably will outlast me?

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/free-speech/2020/08/an-age-of-wretched-and-rotten-rhetoric/

“Words are everything, the precursor to fierce ideas and therefore of sound politics. In an era when a misjudged word can and will end a career beneath a social media pile-on, ideas will lack vigour and politics be reduced to the predictably poor. Meanwhile, the town square becomes a bloody battleground, the pursuit of truth a casualty found wrapped in the dead arms of butchered civility.”

Politics becomes wretched when the ideas in circulation turn bad, and ideas degenerate when the rhetoric is rotten. The words are everything. They are the lungs of politics and the foundation upon which parties, factions, fiefdoms and scholarship of all uniforms is built. Regrettably, the poverty of our political discourse is such that it has divided us to the point of conquering us. It would have taken those with the powers of prophesy to predict that the leaders of the Free World – the US – would be ravaged by large-scale civil unrest in 2020. With November’s US presidential election looming it is impossible to envisage a scenario – regardless of the result – where the looting, violence and diabolical dialogue is ameliorated one iota. The discourse is sick with no vaccine being developed and, problematically, this illness has multiple causes.

At some point in the not too distant past, a fissure opened up, irreversibly separating the warring blocs and creating the perfect wasteland for bloody tribalism and rage without sage. The fissure grows wider as the months roll on and the opposing combatants shriek more and listen less.

Far below in the abyss of this political and cultural rupture dwell the everyday people of the world, just trying to get on with their lives. Bewildered and baffled, they stare up and watch the verbal punch-ups, trying to follow the shots being fired as though they were spectators of a tennis match to the death. Up above in the battleground, diplomacy and measured words are muddied corpses being squelched into the trenches by the boots of dogged partisanship and zero-sum tactics. Because this is a war, it is personal. Talk to either sides’ foot soldiers and you quickly see the fire in the belly and the survivalism in the eyes. Incensed, they don’t seek allies, but subordination. Utter and complete victory is the name of the game. Any suggestion of peace talks or compromise would sooner see an individual sacrificed as cannon fodder than moved up the ranks. The biggest casualty in this squalor is, of course, the truth and measured solutions to real problems.