Gongol.com Archives: February 2024
February 28, 2024
The Irish have been readers a lot longer than you'd think
Ireland has made a big deal out of its disproportionate impact on the world of literature in modern centuries, but there's also reason to believe it's been a literate culture for a lot longer than might be obvious -- as in, back to the days before Christianity came to its shores. Some are concerned that illiteracy in the modern day is holding the country back far more than is right.
There's something truly wicked about institutions that charge premium fees for financial performance that's worse than what ordinary investors could have obtained with no real effort at all. Roger Lowenstein writes: "They regard investors not as partners but as pigeons. They practice their own form of socialism (socialism to benefit the privileged, mind you), extracting a tax on the owners of capital."
It would be wrong for a person to sacrifice another person's life as an act of political protest. It strains all reason to believe that it is any less wrong for a person to sacrifice their own life in the same way. Attempts to valorize a self-immolation are dangerous, but widespread.
