What Should Be Universal Exercise

Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.
––     Susan Sontag
From:  “At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches“
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On This Day In:
2020	Trying To Keep On Keeping On
	Bending
2019	Ooops (Again)
2018	Two Start Up Front
2017	I Love America Because…
	An Act Of God
	And So It Came To Pass (Act Of God part 2)
2016	As Far From
2015	Rocky 7
	Just Like Politics
2014	Game And Legend
	“Scientific” Pride In Humanity
2013	Real Honor
	Catching Up
2012	Thoughts And Communications
2011	But How Does Peter Feel?
2010	Name That Regret

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True Originality

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original:  whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
—    C.S. Lewis
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On This Day In:
2020	#45: Lies And Hate-Speech Are Not Moral Leadership
2019	Be Brave
2018	What Else Matters?
2017	Slow Go
2016	A Tiny Ripple Of Hope
2015	Liberating Books
2014	Discover God
2013	Without Witness
2012	Nutritarian

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Carrying Humanity

Books are the carriers of civilization.
Without books history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.  They are the engines of change, windows on the world (as a poet said) lighthouses erected in the sea of time.  They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind.  Books are humanity in print.
—    Barbara W. Tuckman
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On This Day In:
2018	Not Necessarily In This Order
	Stock Market Sets More Records Under #DumbDonald
2017	An Accumulation Of Acts
2016	Here’s Lookin’ At You Kid
2015	How To Be Omnipotent
2014	The Promise Of Future Love
2013	Christian, n.
2012	Praise
	Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
2011	A Few More Lyrics From The Past
	5 For The Price Of 1

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Patronage

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature.  Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
―     George Washington
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On This Day In:
2015	For Blogs, Too!
2014	Righteous Anger
2013	An Irish Blessing
2012	But Is It Worth It?
2011	Let Us Start

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Astonishing Choices

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.
—    André Maurois
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On This Day In:
2013	Three Hard Tasks
2012	The Only Remains
2011	Personal Capability
	What Price Failure?
	Both Of W’s Elections
	Tea (Baggers) Anyone?

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