TITLE: Sentences of the Day
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 24, 2015  2:07 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Three sentences stood out from the pages of my morning reading.
The first two form an interesting dual around power and
responsibility.

<B>The Power to Name Things</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Among the many privileges of the center, for example, is the
 power to name things, one of the greatest powers of all.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Costica Bradatan writes this in
<A HREF="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/change-comes-from-the-margins/">
   Change Comes From the Margins</A>,
a piece on social change.  We programmers know quite well the
power of good names, and thus the privilege we have in being
able to create them and the responsibility we have to do that
well.

<B>The Avoidance of Power as Irresponsibility</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Everyone's sure that speech acts and cultural work have power
 but no one wants to use power in a sustained way to create
 and make, because to have power persistently, in even a small
 measure, is to surrender the ability to shine a virtuous
 light on one's own perfected exclusion from power.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

This sentence comes from the heart of Timothy Burke's
<A HREF="http://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2015/07/20/all-grasshoppers-no-ants/">
   All Grasshoppers, No Ants</A>,
his piece on one of the conditions he thinks ails our society
as a whole.  Burke's essay is almost an elaboration of Teddy
Roosevelt's well-known dismissal of critics, but with an
insightful expression of how and why rootless critics damage
society as a whole.

<B>Our Impotence in the Face of Depression</B>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Our theories about mental health are often little better
 than Phlogiston and Ether for the mind.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Quinn Norton gives us this sentence in
<A HREF="https://medium.com/message/scientists-link-dna-variations-to-major-depression-for-the-first-time-arielle-duhaime-ross-www-dbb2c8d69e3d">
   Descent</A>,
a personally-revealing piece about her ongoing struggle with
depression.  Like many of you, I have watched friends and
loved ones fight this battle, which demonstrates all too
readily the huge personal costs of civilization's being in
such an early stage of understanding this disease, its causes,
and its effective treatment.
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