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December 18, 2017

From Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny:
Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.

From The Economist:
Buoyant financial markets meant that global wealth rose by 6.4% in the 12 months to June, the fastest pace since 2012.

From The Economist:
If the world’s wealth were divided equally, each household would have $56,540. Instead, the top 1% own more than half of all global wealth. The median wealth per household is just $3,582; if you own more than that, you are in the richest 50% of the world’s population.

From Harper's:
Tennis players’ grunts rise in pitch during the matches they lose.

From The TLS (Katherine Duncan-Jones on Books of the Year 2017):
Almost miraculously, but I suppose in great measure thanks to the skilful ministrations of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, Clive James still lives. Injury Time (Picador) heads the latest/last collection of his poems, which are rightly heralded as “a major literary event”. Though the title’s sporting metaphor is characteristic, it has very little to do with “sport”. The poems are as widely ranging and inventive as ever, both in their form and their content. They range daringly from a splendidly substantial celebration of the deaf Beethoven to various self-revealing meditations on his own carcinoma. The latter can be admired at full strength in “Night-Walkers Song”, but his playful wit and imagination are as ever wonderfully varied. They include playing games with “Splinters from Shakespeare”, here performing Master Shallow: “He sucked up his great sack-butt and moved on, / And left me here alone to nurse my pride. / I, too, have lived: a small life, but not mean. / Jesu, Jesu, the days that I have seen”. Though he now dances with death, James seems still to rejoice wittily in what is left of his life: “. . . . of this be sure: I loved it here”. This exit line is almost sentimental – but not quite.
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