Why America Should Become Great Again

SOMETIMES SMALL stories capture large truths. So it is with the fiasco that is the repair of the Anderson Memorial Bridge, connecting Boston and Harvard Square. Rehabilitation of the 232-foot bridge began in 2012, at an estimated cost of about $20 million; four years later, there is no end date in sight and the cost of the project is mushrooming, to $26.5 million at last count.

The Anderson Bridge is approximately one-sixth the length of the bridge Julius Caesar’s men built across the Rhine in 10 days in 55 BC. Caesar’s feat is admired not just for its technical mastery but also for its boldness. An allied tribe had offered boats to carry Caesar’s troops across the river, to avoid the difficult task of bridge-building. Yet Caesar rejected this offer, on the grounds that it would not be “fitting for the prestige of Rome.”

"A lesson on infrastructure from the Anderson Bridge fiasco" by Larry Summers

Peter Thiel pulled an iPhone out of his jeans pocket and held it up. “I don’t consider this to be a technological breakthrough,” he said. “Compare this with the Apollo space program.”

No Death, No Taxes: The libertarian futurism of a Silicon Valley billionaire.

There are ways that the government is working far less well than it used to. Just outside my office is the Golden Gate Bridge. It was built under FDR’s Administration in the 1930s in about three and a half years. They’re currently building an access highway on one of the tunnels that feeds into the bridge, and it will take at least six years to complete.

"A Conversation with Peter Thiel" by Francis Fukuyama

It’s hard to remember this, but our government was once high tech, too. When I moved to Cleveland, defense research was laying the foundations for the internet. The Apollo program was just about to put a man on the moon–and it was Neil Armstrong, from right here in Ohio. The future felt limitless.

But today our government is broken. Our nuclear bases still use floppy disks. Our newest fighter jets can’t even fly in the rain. And it would be kind to say the government’s software works poorly, because much of the time it doesn’t even work at all. That is a staggering decline for the country that completed the Manhattan project. We don’t accept such incompetence in Silicon Valley, and we must not accept it from our government.

[...] When Donald Trump asks us to Make America Great Again, he’s not suggesting a return to the past. He’s running to lead us back to that bright future.

Peter Thiel’s Speech at the Republican National Convention

You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket.

Frank Sobotka from the Wire

In the United States, Federal Net Infrastructure investment last year, was zero. That was the lowest level since 1947 and it was zero. That cannot possibly be rational at a time of epically low interest rates.

"Reflections on the Productivity Slowdown" by Larry Summers

It's no secret that the MTA has been having some difficulty maintaining its century-old infrastructure—track fires, signal problems, and all-around calamity plague morning, evening, and off-hour commutes on a regular basis. And in a video released this week, the agency shows off just how horrifically ancient the machinery that runs one of the world's largest subway systems—most of the machines date back to the 1930s or before, and upgrades have been few and far between.

The NYC Subway System Is Controlled By These Vintage Steampunk "Interlocking" Machines

The MTA has a thankless and extremely difficult job: They have to keep the trains running. They have to do it with equipment from the 1930s, in a hostile funding environment, as administrations come and go, as public interest comes and goes, in the face of storms and accidents and pieces of aluminum foil. This they manage to do. 1.6 billion people every year take the New York subway.

Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks

Addendum:

The Straussian interpretation of the Republican Convention is the correct one, which is perhaps one reason why Peter Thiel will be speaking there. They are not saying what they are saying, in fact they are saying “the world is going to hell, and many of those amongst us have been traitorously disloyal. That is why we scream out stupidities, debase ourselves, and court attention by waving our arms in ridiculous ways. We are a small church seeking to become larger.” Is that not how many smaller churches behave? Is that not how some of the early branches of the Christian church behaved? Did they have any influence? See also the remarks of Cass Sunstein.

"Does Lucifer in fact inhabit the corpus of Hillary Clinton?" by Tyler Cowen

Contrasting Argument

In the UK, and other common law jurisdictions, the executive and legislature are closely entwined. The Prime Minister and a majority of his or her ministers are Members of Parliament and sit in the House of Commons. The executive is therefore present at the heart of Parliament.

By contrast, in the USA, the President may not be a member of the legislature (Congress), and is elected separately from congressional elections. This may result in the President being a member of a different political party from the majority of members of Congress.

The UK’s integration of executive and legislature is said to provide stability and efficiency in the operation of government. It has been described as “a system that intentionally promotes efficiency over abstract concerns about tyranny”. For example, the Prime Minister is usually both head of the executive branch and leader of the majority party in the legislature, which gives the executive branch much more freedom of action than a president usually enjoys in a presidential system of government.

Briefing on the separation of powers from the Parliament of the UK

The Wisdom of Larry Summers

Lessons from Government Service 

KRISTOL: Any special tips you would have for people? I was at a much lower level position of having been a professor and suddenly being in government and having to do things and take responsibility for things. Any advice anyone gave you that was particularly useful? Any book you read that you would tell some 35-year-old Harvard or anywhere else professor who’s now going into the next administration to think about? Or just your own advice?

SUMMERS: I’d say some lessons I learned, Bill, are people – you should maintain a very strong presumption that people are acting reasonably by their lights. And that if it seems to you that somebody’s taking a position that’s completely stupid or unreasonably, it’s probably not because you’re smart and they’re stupid and you should just explain it to them.

It’s probably because given where they sit, given where they sit as part of the government of Japan or given where they sit as part of the Department of Commerce, or given as where they sit as part of General Electric, or given where they sit as a person with responsibility for getting reelected in six months, and that you will achieve your objectives much more effectively if you try to understand why other people are taking a position different than yours. Rather than just simply tell then they should take your position and take more arguments.

That was probably the most important lesson that was uncongenial to me. That in academics what you do is your persuade people with intellectual argument, and what I realized was people probably were taking positions that corresponded to their interest and you had to figure out how to make it work given their interest. That was probably the most important initial lesson learned.

Getting Stuff Done

Graduate school has provided you world-class training in quantitative skills. You are well versed in data analysis, game theory, decision matrices, and linear regression models.

This training offers an excellent foundation.

But what is really exciting about making public policy isn’t evaluating and analyzing and predicting.

It’s getting stuff done.

And if you really want to get stuff done outside the classroom, quantitative analysis needs to be to be complemented by qualitative analysis – the political, bureaucratic, behavioral, social, cultural, and ethical skills.

from “Getting Stuff Done” by Robert B. Zoellick

Addendum: An Insider’s Advice for Obama’s New Team

À une heure du matin

At last! I am alone! Nothing can be heard but the rumbling of a few belated and weary cabs. For a few hours at least silence will be ours, if not sleep. At last! The tyranny of the human face has disappeared, and now there will be no one but myself to make me suffer.

At last! I am allowed to relax in a bath of darkness! First a double turn of the key in the lock. This turn of the key will, it seems to me, increase my solitude and strengthen the barricades that, for the moment, separate me from the world. [...]

Dissatisfied with everything, dissatisfied with myself, I long to redeem myself and to restore my pride in the silence and solitude of the night. Souls of those whom I have loved, souls of those whom I have sung, strengthen me, sustain me, keep me from the vanities of the world and its contaminating fumes; and You, dear God! grant me grace to produce a few beautiful verses to prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.

from Baudelaire's Paris Spleen (Louise Varèse's translation)

A Simple Advice to Potential Policymakers

The advice to potential policymakers is simple: Learn as much as you can, for most of it will come in useful at some stage of your career; but never forget that identifying what is happening in the economy is essential to your ability to do your job, and for that you need to keep your eyes, your ears, and your mind open, and with regard to your mouth--to use it with caution.

"Reflections on Macroeconomics Then and Now" by Stanley Fischer

An Idea Made Architecturally Visible

And there, when the cherry blossom is doing its shameless thing, and the streets of Adams Morgan are warming to the kids on the block, it’s entirely possible to see Washington as not just DC, not just ideology made visible, but as an American community; and a good one at that.

from "Washington DC" by Simon Schama

Stolid Presence and Immobile Features

Xi conveys Napoleonic self-confidence in the importance of his mission and its inevitable success. In person he is said to be affable and relaxed. But his carefully curated public persona follows Mao in displaying a stolid presence and immobile features that seem to convey either stoicism or implacability, depending on whether he is sitting through a boring speech or giving one. The propaganda agencies labor to generate a huggable image of “Daddy Xi,” and Xi appears to be genuinely popular among the public, although this is changing as the economy slows. But his anticorruption campaign affecting a great many people has ground on, leading intellectual and official elites to read his expression as inscrutable and frightening.

from "Who is Xi?" by Andrew J. Nathan

On Conviction

Ana Pauker was a minister in the infamous Stalinist administration that ruled Romania in the early fifties; she was noted for her unswerving devotion to the orthodoxies of Moscow. A favourite anecdote of the day described how she was seen in the streets of Bucharest on a warm spring day under a large umbrella: why? 'Because', she said, 'it's raining in Moscow.'

from the Chatham Lecture at Trinity College, Oxford - "Convictions, Loyalties and the Secular State" by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams

ICYMI

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.


Хубилай Хаан
Б.Амарсанаагийн орчуулга

Хүмүүний зүйрлэлд оршил үгүй ангалыг шувтлан
Гэрэл үгүй түнэр тэнгисийг зорих
Буртаг үгүй ариун Альп мөрөн урсах
Шанду нутагт таашаалын асар цогцлуулахаар
Хубилай хаан зарлиг буулгав.

Distinction Between College and Graduate School

I don't think we should have majors. I don't understand what majors are about. Majors are very late in the [inaudible]--I think just post-WWI or during WWI is when they were introduced. I make the distinction in my own thinking between college, which is for education, and graduate school, which is for professional training.

from Mark Mancall on education

Preëmptive Comment on the Pleasures of Competition

I have played sports (tennis, cricket), I have done a lot of cycling, but in all of this my aspiration has simply been to do as well as I can. Winning or losing—who cares? How I judge whether or not I have done well is a private matter, between myself and what I suppose I would call my conscience.

I don’t like forms of sport that model themselves too closely on warfare, in which all that matters is winning and winning becomes a matter of life and death—sports that lack grace, as war lacks grace. At the back of my mind is some ideal—and perhaps concocted—vision of Japan, in which one refrains from inflicting defeat on an opponent because there is something shameful in defeat and therefore something shameful in imposing defeat.

All the best,

John

The Better Player by Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee

Klavierkonzert No.5

Glenn Gould's brilliant rendition of Beethoven's Klavierkonzert No.5 (my personal favorite is the second movement; watch from 19:20)

On this day 26 years ago

Найруулагч Ж.Солонгын "Найм хагас" баримтат кино. Өдгөөгөөс яг 26 жилийн өмнөх тэр өдөр яалт ч үгүй Монгол түмний заяа түшиж саруул ухаанаар асуудлаа шийдэцгээсэн юм аа.

Delivering Steadily on Our Promise for a Long Time

We must remember that our international reputation is of a country with great promise, which has under-delivered in the past. This is why we are still the poorest country on a per capita basis among the BRICS. We need to change perceptions by delivering steadily on our promise for a long time – by implementing, implementing, and implementing. We cannot get carried away by our current superiority in growth, for as soon as we believe in our own superiority and start distributing future wealth as if we already have it, we stop doing all that is required to continue growing. This movie has played too many times in India’s past for us to not know how it ends.

"Words Matter but so Does Intent" address by Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor of Reserve Bank of India on April 20, 2016 at the 12th NIBM Convocation, Pune

Something to be Said for Proximity

Historians have been overconfident about the wisdom to be gained by distance, believing it somehow confers objectivity, one of those unattainable values in which they have placed so much faith. Perhaps there is something to be said for proximity. Lord Acton, who delivered the first, famous lectures on the French Revolution at Cambridge in the 1870s, was still able to hear firsthand, from a member of the Orleans dynasty, the man's recollection of "Dumouriez gibbering on the streets of London when hearing the news of Waterloo."

Suspicion that blind partisanship fatally damaged the great Romantic narratives of the first half of the nineteenth century dominated scholarly reaction during the second half. As historians institutionalized themselves into an academic profession, they came to believe conscientious research in the archives could confer dispassion: the prerequisite for winkling out the mysterious truths of cause and effect. The desired effect was to be scientific rather than poetic, impersonal rather than impassioned. And while, for some time, historical narratives remained preoccupied by the life cycle of the European nation-states—wars, treaties and dethronements—the magnetic pull of social science was such that "structures," both social and political, seemed to become the principal objects of inquiry.

[...] the Revolution seem any longer to conform to a grand historical design, preordained by inexorable forces of social change. Instead it seems a thing of contingencies and unforeseen consequences (not least the summoning of the Estates-General itself). An abundance of fine provincial studies has shown that instead of a single Revolution imposed by Paris on the rest of a homogeneous France, it was as often determined by local passions and interests. Along with the revival of place as a conditioner have come people. For as the imperatives of "structure" have weakened, those of individual agency, and especially of revolutionary utterance, have become correspondingly more important

from Simon Schama's Citizens

Cf. this statement + an attempt to counter this "overconfidence" about the wisdom to be gained by distance

Даaнкэ шөн! Зээр гут!

С.Баярын редакторлосон "Ууган" номонд Б.Бадрууган агсан "Улаанбаатарын үдэш" дууг Германд дуулсан хувилбарыг хамгийн сайн нь гэж дурдсан байсантай яах аргагүй санал нийлнэ. Хэдэн онд дуулсан, тэрхүү орчуулга хийж чадалгүй будилсан нөхөр хэн байсан гээд ухвал зөндөө сонирхолтой зүйл гарч ирэх нь дамжиггүй.

On Structural Reforms

I think one has to be very clear that structural reforms are not a miracle cure. They are hard to get through; the effects are very often uncertain. But given the future that I have described, it is very important to try. Some structural reforms can clearly make a difference, maybe not to the growth rate permanently but at least to the level of output, which means that for some time there will be higher growth. I think given the short-term political costs associated with structural reforms, which is the main reason why you do not see them happening very quickly, I think the challenge is to choose them very carefully rather than have a long list and deliver on none of them.

Olivier Blanchard in April 2015

This is ultimately the problem raised by the idea of structural reform. Because it is a novel idea, and also a novel political practice, we should not be too surprised that our political institutions still seem unprepared to explore all the possibilities it offers. For the present, it is still unclear in what direction we should be moving, even if the need to follow the idea of fundamental economic reform with new mechanisms and structures of political decision-making is now being felt more than ever.

Bruno Macaes - "What are structural reforms?"

Walking Fast and Thinking Slow

It is normally easy and actually quite pleasant to walk and think at the same time, but at the extremes these activities appear to compete for the limited resources of System 2. You can confirm this claim by a simple experiment. While walking comfortably with a friend, ask him to compute 23 x 78 in his head, and to do so immediately. He will almost certainly stop in his tracks. My experience is that I can think while strolling but cannot engage in mental work that imposes a heavy load on short-term memory. If I must construct an intricate argument under time pressure, I would rather be still, and I would prefer sitting to standing

Accelerating beyond my strolling speed completely changes the experience of walking, because the transition to a faster walk brings about a sharp deterioration in my ability to think coherently. As I speed up, my attention is drawn with increasing frequency to the experience of walking and to the deliberate maintenance of the faster pace. My ability to bring a train of thought to a conclusion is impaired accordingly. At the highest speed I can sustain on the hills, about 14 minutes for a mile, I do not try to even think of anything else. In addition to the physical effort of moving my body rapidly along the path, a mental effort of self-control is needed to resist the urge to slow down. Self-control and deliberate thought apparently draw on the same limited budget of effort.

Daniel Kahnemann - "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

Wednesday Night Music: Julien Baker

Addendum: Krugman's Friday Night Music

Сэхээтэн хэмээх нэгэн зvйлийн хөхтөн амьтан

Хоёроос гурван гадаад хэл мэддэг, гурваас дөрвөн сургууль төгсөж дамжаа дүүргэснээрээ сэхээтэн болдоггүй бололтой. Уул нь их сургуулийн боловсрол сэхээтэнг тодорхойлох зайлшгүй нөхцөл мөн боловч хангалттай биш юм. [...] Хүн бүгдийг мэдэх албагүй ч улам бүр нарийн төвөгтэй болж буй ертөнц, нийгэм, улс төрийн амьдралын юмс үзэгдлийн мөн чанарыг таних, эдгээрийн уялдаа холбоог хөгжил хөдөлгөөнд нь олж харах үүрэг сэхээтнүүдэд ногдож байна. Нийгмийн хувьсал хөгжлийг бүхэлд нь хуучин дасал болоогүй өөр өнцгөөс харах, учир начрыг нь бусдад тайлбарлаж таниулах, оюуны эрх чөлөөгөө ашиглаж чадахгүй, бас хүсэхгүй байгаа “сэхээтнүүд” дэндүү олон болжээ. Сэхээтнүүд улс нийгмийн оюун санааны хөтөч, хүн чанарын бэлгэдэл байх үндсэн үүргээ гүйцэтгэж чадахгүй болохоор нийгэм хөгжлийн чиг баримжаагаа алдаж, тэр хэмжээгээр нийгмийн үнэт зүйл хомсдож, нийгмийн эрүүл хөрс болсон ёс суртахууны шалгуурууд үгүйсгэгдэх хандлагатай болдог юм байна.

Р.Амаржаргал - "Сэхээтэн"

+ Д.С. Лихачев, «Письма о добром и прекрасном»

Delayed Gratification as a Modus Operandi

I eat only once a day. It is always dinner and it is always whatever I fancy. Until then, I consume nothing but water, Diet Coke or tea. As a weight-management strategy, it is some use, maybe. “Intermittent fasting” has its advocates but others insist the total number of calories you consume matters more than their distribution across the day.

Either way, losing weight is not the end I have in mind. The gains are all mental. I feel meerkat-alert throughout the day. Mid-afternoon pangs of hunger are no trouble to get through, and preferable to the languor I used to feel after lunch. On a full stomach, crafting a sentence or even testing an argument in my mind is like trying to do abdominal crunches five seconds after waking up. A kind of haze stops you.

"Eat, drink and be merry but only after work" - Am I the only Janan Ganesh fan out there?

You have to marvel at how Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former Special Operations commander and the newly appointed leader of American forces in Afghanistan, does it. Mastermind the hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq and plot stealth raids on Taliban strongholds in the Hindu Kush while getting just a few hours of sleep a night, exercising enough to exhaust a gym rat and eating one meal a day to avoid sluggishness. One meal.

"No Food for Thought: The Way of the Warrior" + Tim Ferris Interview with McChrystal

Orwell's Ideal Bar

In the Moon Under Water it is always quiet enough to talk. The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano [...]

Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch—for example, a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll—for about three shillings [...]

Many as are the virtues of the Moon Under Water, I think that the garden is its best feature, because it allows whole families to go there instead of Mum having to stay at home and mind the baby while Dad goes out alone.

from The Moon Under Water by George Orwell

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Economics is a science of thinking in terms of models joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant to the contemporary world. It is compelled to be this, because, unlike the typical natural science, the material to which it is applied is, in too many respects, not homogeneous through time…Good economists are scarce because the gift for using "vigilant observation" to choose good models, although it does not require a highly specialised intellectual technique, appears to be a very rare one

from J. M. Keynes' letter to Harrod, 4 July 1938

More Commendments

Szilárd Leó's Ten Commandments

Advice to people at the beginning of their careers: do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. Grab every opportunity to take responsibility and do things for which you are unqualified.

Freeman Dyson on being 60 years in the same job

Арслантайхан уу эрээн авдраа хө

Арслантайхан уу эрээн авдраа болбол доо
Алхан чиг алтан чиг хээгээр хашсан чиг юмаа хө
Ай шинэхэн чиг ханилсан чи бидэн хоёроо
Дөлтэйхэн халуухан голомтныхоо хоймортоо
Дөрвөн их хүчтэнээ байлгаюу гэсэн юмаа хө

Сосорбарам - Арслантай авдар

Зургийг Ц.Ядамжавын "Монгол ардын хээ угалзын эх дүрсүүд" цомгоос авав

Failure to anticipate effectively

from Thomas Schelling's foreword to "Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision" by Roberta Wohlstetter

"digging beneath the surface differences"

“There is no doubt that what I retained in my politics is a sense that the only way I could have a sturdy sense of identity of who I was depended on digging beneath the surface differences of people,” Obama said during an interview. “The only way my life makes sense is if, regardless of culture, race, religion, tribe, there is this commonality, these essential human truths and passions and hopes and moral precepts that are universal. And that we can reach out beyond our differences. If that is not the case, then it is pretty hard for me to make sense of my life. So that is at the core of who I am.”

from "Barack Obama: The Story" by David Maraniss

Тvvхийн Шижим

"U.S. Recognition Urged For Outer Mongolia" by Justice Douglas (written on September 29, 1961 - a month later on October 27, 1961 Mongolia became a member of UN)

+ "Монголчуудын сэтгэлгээ нээлттэй хэвээр ажээ"

+ "Mongolia and the United Nations - 6 decades and counting"

Addendum:

“I have to say at the risk of blasphemy that I found the Supreme Court an unimpressive institution,” [Richard Posner] wrote. “I was stunned to discover that Supreme Court Justices didn’t write all their own judicial opinions ([Justice William O.] Douglas did—and his were the weakest, though not because he was dumb—rather because he was bored)

"Rhetoric and Law: The double life of Richard Posner, America’s most contentious legal reformer"

О добром русском мире

Я люблю русский мир, только я, правда, до сих пор не могу понять, что они имеют в виду. Если иметь в виду русский мир, который за пределами русского мира, да, или вообще все вместе. Я люблю русский мир, скажем так, добрый русский мир, гуманитарный русский мир, мир, перед которым до сих пор поклоняется весь мир, перед той литературой, перед тем балетом, перед той музыкой великой, да, я вот этот мир люблю. Но я не люблю мир Берии, Сталина, Путина, Шойгу, это не мой мир.

Светлана Алексиевич

For life is short

According to Herodotus, Xerxes wept at the sight of his army, which was too extensive for him to scan, at the thought that a hundred years hence not one of all these would be alive. Who would not weep at the thought in looking over a big catalogue that of all these books not one will be in existence in ten years’ time?

It is the same in literature as in life. Wherever one goes one immediately comes upon the incorrigible mob of humanity. It exists everywhere in legions; crowding, soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the numberless bad books, those rank weeds of literature which extract nourishment from the corn and choke it.

They monopolise the time, money, and attention which really belong to good books and their noble aims; they are written merely with a view to making money or procuring places. They are not only useless, but they do positive harm. Nine-tenths of the whole of our present literature aims solely at taking a few shillings out of the public’s pocket, and to accomplish this, author, publisher, and reviewer have joined forces.

There is a more cunning and worse trick, albeit a profitable one. Littérateurs, hack-writers, and productive authors have succeeded, contrary to good taste and the true culture of the age, in bringing the world elegante into leading-strings, so that they have been taught to read a tempo and all the same thing — namely, the newest books order that they may have material for conversation in their social circles. Bad novels and similar productions from the pen of writers who were once famous, such as Spindler, Bulwer, Eugène Sue, and so on, serve this purpose. But what can be more miserable than the fate of a reading public of this kind, that feels always impelled to read the latest writings of extremely commonplace authors who write for money only, and therefore exist in numbers? And for the sake of this they merely know by name the works of the rare and superior writers, of all ages and countries.

Literary newspapers, since they print the daily smatterings of commonplace people, are especially a cunning means for robbing from the aesthetic public the time which should be devoted to the genuine productions of art for the furtherance of culture.

Hence, in regard to our subject, the art of not reading is highly important. This consists in not taking a book into one’s hand merely because it is interesting the great public at the time — such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise and reach perhaps several editions in their first and last years of existence. Remember rather that the man who writes for fools always finds a large public: and only read for a limited and definite time exclusively the works of great minds, those who surpass other men of all times and countries, and whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct.

One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.

Arthur Schopenhauer - "On Reading and Books"

Bookmarks

Буцаж оюутан болоод зав зай бага болсон тул өөрийн сонсч уншдаг зүйлсээ цөөлөх шаардлага гарав. Тэгээд ойрын үед чөлөө олдвол доорх хэдэн линк дотор л эргэлдэхээр шийдвэй:

Conversations with Tyler

Conversations with Bill Kristol- яг нарийндаа бол Америкт хамгийн философилог, асуудлын угыг олж харж чаддаг хүмүүс нь консерватив интеллигенция нь байдаг

Conversations with History

Tanner Lectures

The Reith Lectures

Desert Island Disks

Open Yale Course + ялангуяа Robert Schiller-ийн 2008 онд заасан Financial Markets хичээл нь

Ben Casnocha's bookmarks on Delicious + "10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned" is a must read

Dank sei Dir

Denn das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen, und wir bewundern es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht, uns zu zerstören

Rilke - "Die erste Elegie



And let's also not forget Aafje Heynis' hauntingly beautiful version

«Мы вас любим. А вы зачем разжигаете?»

Жена Ганболда на идеальном русском вспоминает, как её учили варить борщ в московском общежитии, и переходит от прошлого к настоящему: «Вы, русские, не понимаете, как мы вас любим. Да вы вообще ничего не понимаете. Я смотрю ваше телевидение и схожу с ума: что вы с Украиной сделали? Зачем разжигаете?»

Дети барона Унгерна: Как Монголия проиграла битву с ресурсным проклятием

"It's that kind of tune..."

Why New York is World City?

If [New York] is a world city, it is not thanks to the Ukrainian restaurants on 2nd Avenue, nor even the Ukrainians who have colonized Brighton Beach: they can be found in many other places from Cleveland to Chicago. It is that cultivated Ukrainians in Kiev read New York’s best-known periodical the [New York Review of Books].

Tony Judt - from his essay "New York, New York" in Memory Chalet

Good Rules of Thumb

If we can often do much less than we pretend, we can do much more than we fear.

Rory Stewart

A good rule of thumb for many things in life holds that things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.

Larry Summers

Quotes of the Weekend

Нэг сонин тохиодол одоо ч сэтгэлээс гардаггүй юм. Улс төрийн товчоонд н.Моломжамц гээд өвгөн настай хүн байх. Аливаад их голч байр суурьтай ханддаг байлаа. Зөвлөлтөд 1948 онд сургууль төгссөн сэхээтэн хүн. Залуучууд бид яахав дээ түүнийг нөгөө л марксистүүдийн нэг гэж боддог байж. Заримдаа хүмүүс “Төв хорооны Санхүүгийн хэлтсийн н.Санжаацамц, Улс төрийн товчооны н.Моломжамц хоёр Их тэнгэрийн аманд хурал хураад байх юм” гэхэд бид тоглоом байлгүй гээд шоолдог байлаа. Би 1988 онд Удирдлагын институтын захирал байхдаа Төв номын санд Нагаржунайн 73 бадагтыг үзэх санаатай хоёр гурав хоног суусан юм. Тэгсэн Моломжамц гуай дууддаг юм байна. “Би хоёр гурав хоног чамайг эрээд олсонгүй чи хаачив” гэхэд нь “Ном үзэх санаатай Төв номын санд суулаа...” гээд учраа хэлсэн. Тэгтэл урдаас “Нагаржунайн 150 бадагт гэж байдаг юм шүү дээ ” гээд цээжээр дүнгэнэтэл унших нь тэр [...] Моломжамц гуайн уншиж судалж цээжилсэн нь бол Нагаржунайн филосифийн их хөлгөн судар. Миний үзэж байсан 73 бадагт бол бага хөлгөн нь юм.

Д.Бямбасүрэн баавайн 2014 оны ярилцлагаас

That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness.

David Foster Wallace

Хууль тогтоогчийн зорилго энэ буюу

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of [legislative body] is to enable this country, by your legislative activity, to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.

Transcript: Pope Francis’s speech to Congress

Cчастье в сирени живет...

Сирень

По утру, на заре,
По росистой траве
Я пойду свежим утром дышать;
И в душистую тень,
Где теснится сирень,
Я пойду свое счастье искать…
В жизни счастье одно
Мне найти суждено,
И то счастье в сирени живет;
На зеленых ветвях,
На душистых кистях
Мое бедное счастье цветет.

1878

An Old Communist's Digression on Mongolia

So, in Moscow, in 1942, I was in prison with a commissioner from the Ministry of Health in Mongolia. He described Mongolia to me. Today Le Monde or even the American papers still express surprise and joy that Mongolia is on Russia's side, that it hasn't let itself be talked around by the Chinese, that it was admitted to the UN in return for Mauritania. That was some deal. Independent Mongolia and independent Mauritania. The next day Mauritania voted against the West and America, and Mongolia became a go-between for the Afro-Asian camp. What kind of place is Mongolia? (I'll make it fast because we might not come back to this later, and it's interesting.)

He was a commissioner in the Ministry of Health. What does that mean? It turns out that collective farms were not introduced in Mongolia, they didn't touch the majority of the monasteries, and they left the old Mongolian customs alone, they were so old. There were ministries, and the ministers were Mongolians. And in every ministry there was a security commissioner with his own secret office. The Mongolian minister had a limousine, a villa, servants, and girls, and, besides that, as a doctor, my friend the commissioner would supply him with hashish or opium--I don't remember which. He could do anything if it was connected with health. He'd been in power, my cell mate, but there was also the NKVD where all the strings came together, in a little building, not interfering, the NKVD outpost for Russians sent from Moscow. They had orgies there every night in the NKVD building, he and those NKVD people. Well, but then he tripped himself up. At that time no one was permitted to travel to Mongolia, but a group of French communists or progressives arrived there. They took a picture of a cemetery where dogs were ripping apart the corpses that hadn't been buried deeply enough out of sheer slovenliness. The ground was stony. The delegation of progressives returned to Moscow with that photograph, and there was a scandal. He probably had other things on his conscience as well. For example, he was also accused of stealing a beautiful and very ancient ivory sculpture from a monastery. He described that sculpture to me: it was of a monastery with a great many monks. He said, "All right, but we all did that, all of us: I went to that monastery with my friends from the NKVD." Of course he said that he had sent the sculpture to his wife in Moscow, and his wife was supposed to donate it to a museum but hadn't gotten around to it yet. They all stole. And that was a People's Democracy. Without collective farms, where the customs and the religion had been preserved.

And so I thought Poland would be a sort of Western European Mongolia.

from "My Century" by Aleksander Wat, p. 114-115

The most resilient skill in the modern world

The most resilient skill in the modern world is argument. We are all sophists now, or should be [...] What unites the elite professions in any international city is their command of sophistry. Barristers and management consultants, political advisers and advertising executives, public-relations strategists and even certain types of investment banker: all trade on the same skill. It is the ability to frame any given problem on your own terms so that your conclusion is irresistible to the client (or jury, or investor, or politician, or reader). To be clear, this is not the same thing as being right. What matters is being persuasive [...] Learn to code, runs the received career advice of today. It is shrewder to learn how to argue.

"We are all sophists now — or should be" by Janan Ganesh

How Cities Vanish

Another man, dressed in a white t-shirt and shorts, waving a fan to cool himself, added heatedly, “Look over there. Those tall buildings? That’s what the city wants to build here.”

I looked into everyone’s eyes. “But there’s nothing beautiful or great about those boxes,” I said. “Moreover, those types of buildings have nothing whatsoever to do with Chinese traditions. Or Peking traditions.”

One of the residents was a tall goofy-looking guy who wore horn-rimed glasses, a button-down shirt, shorts, black socks and black plastic “penny leather” shoes. He patted me on the shoulder and gave me a lop-sided grin. “Exactly right! To make money, the government wants us to give up our homes so they can make Western type skyscrapers. Peking will have nothing distinctively Chinese about it anymore.”

The residents could not even look forward to preserving their community. Each family was assigned to different apartment blocks far away in north Peking. Instead of spending summer evenings gossiping with old friends on the street corners, they will be locked away in tiny cubicles of Western invention, not knowing their neighbors and having to ride elevators simply to go out to fetch a bottle of beer or yogurt.

from Michael A. Aldrich The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China's Capital Through the Ages p.166

May their Eternal Blue Sky give them strength!

Still relevant after 25 years...

It is but natural that now, after so many years of silence and taboos on the one hand, and of loud distortion of the truth on the other, it is not easy to keep up with the growing freedom: to find the right ways of how to treat the heavy burden of the past and solve the problems of a ruined economy. It is easier to refuse the near past and turn to the earlier traditions, the glory of the ancestors, than to answer the questions of today's distress.

Yesterday's men of power claimed anything old was wrong, now there is another danger to believe anything old is right. And yesterday's uneven friend ships and lame internationalism fed an ill and clandestine nationalism or even chauvinism. This is now a sad commonplace in most societies that have just taken off the totalitarian uniform, and not only in them. Nevertheless it is sure that a healthy national identity, based on realities and accompanied with mutual international understanding, is badly needed for the Mongols to emerge from the present crisis.

May their Eternal Blue Sky give them strength and time for doing so!

from "Baabar's 'Don't Forget!': Analysis of a Mongolian Social Democrat's Treatise, 1990" by György Kara. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. Vol. 46, No. 2/3 (1992/93), pp. 283-287

Накабали буюу Заан тэтгэгч оршвой

Цавчаал боомтын (Juyong Pass) хаалган дээрх бичиг дотор ийм дөрвөн мөрт байдаг аж. Кирилл дээрх эхийг нь Ц.Дамдинсүрэн гуай Монголын уран зохиолын тойм бүтээлдээ оруулсан байдаг гэнэ.

Jalqamji c'aqa.an ja.anu juljiqanu [.. ?. ?.. ]ju:
jaya.an t'ut'um alt'an jawan k'olgeni olu ad:
c'aqun hecusdur Nakabali neret'u bolu.ad k'iirt'ebeyi:
c'aqlasi iugee amuqula3i t'ere k'iirt'ejuue:

Харин үүнийг Нууц товчоо орчуулагч алдарт Кливез ингэж Англи хэл дээр буулгажээ (түүний "The Boy and His Elephant" нийтлэлээс нь авав):

[In] succession, [(?)the master] of the white elephant calf, having been [(?)born]
And [in] every reincarnation having acquired a gold elephant mount,
Having become one named Nakabali (Nagapala), has attained unto the end of the time.
Immeasurable happiness has that one attained.

Addendum: Элдэв үлгэрийн далай хэмээгдэх судар оршив: Заан тэтгэгчийн дөчин гуравдугаар зүйлээс:

Ер аль бээр хүн тус тусдаа гурван эрдэнэсийн буяны тариалан газарт буяны өчүүхэн хөрөнгө цацваас цаггүй үрийг олох болъюу.

Operating Rules

Эрх чөлөөт, ардчилсан нийгэмд хүний хийж болох хамгийн хэцүү зуйл бол leadership (манлайлал гэхээр Монгол хэлээр жаахан cliche буугаад байх юм). Хүссэн үедээ хаалга саваад гараад алга болох эрх чөлөөтэй хүмүүсийг тодорхой нэг зорилгын төлөө хөдөлмөрлүүлж, нэг баг болгож (өөрсдийнхөөрөө бүрэн дүүрэн байж чадахгүй, сөрөг байр сууринд тодорхой хэмжээгээр буулт хийнэ гэсэн уг) удирдана гэдэг тийм ч амар зүйл биш. Ялангуяа цалин багатай, ажил ихтэй төрийн албанд (авлига гэдэг зуйл огт байхгүй гэж тооцвол) ард иргэдийн амар амгалан байдал, хөгжил дэвшлийн төлөө хоёргүй сэтгэлээр зутгэх гол хучин зуйл нь шийдвэр гаргалтийн шат бүр дэх leadership.

Leadership-ийг харин хүн хоёр янзын аргаар олж авдаг байх. Нэг нь өөрөө удирдах ажил хийж алдаж онон байж сурах. Цол дагаж бяр нэмнэ гэдэг шиг. Ингэж сурах нь хэдийгээр хамгийн шилдэг арга боловч цаг хугацаа их авдгийн дээр алдаа гаргасан тохиолдолд төлөөсийг нь ганц тэр хүнээс гадна байгууллага, хамт олон нь үүрдэг тул хамгийн хүсүүштэй нь бас биш юм. (Чухал шийдвэр гаргах албан тушаалд туршлагатай, өмнө амжилттай байсан хүн тавихыг олон нийт шаарддаг шалтгаан нь энэ буюу). Leadership-ийг сурах нөгөө нэг арга нь сайн leader-үүдээс суралцах. Залуу хүмүүст ажилд ороод юу хийх нь чухал бус харин хэний доор ажиллах нь чухал гэдгийн учир энэ. Гэхдээ бас leader-ээс (номоор нь аль эсвэл биеэр) суралцсанаа амьдрал дээр туршиж, өөриймшүүлж авахгүй бол хэдий мундаг хүний доор ажиллаж байсан боловч олигтой юм суралгүй өөрийгөө ч, нөгөө хүнээ ч хөөддөг нөхөдтэй адил нэгэн болж хувирах эрсдэлтэй.

Хэрвээ удирдах албан тушаалд шууд очих аль эсвэл сайн удирдагчийн доор ажиллах боломжгүй бол сайн leader-үүдийн бичсэн зөвлөгөөнүүдийг олж үзэж тэндээс ихийг суралцах боломж бас бий. Ялангуяа гадны төрийн албанд олон жил зүтгэсэн хүмүүсийн зөвлөгөөнүүд ямар ч context-д хөрвөх чадвартай мөртөө өдөр тутмын нүсэр их ажлыг цэгцтэйгээр харах, эрхлэх, зохицуулахад маш их хэрэг болдог. Манайд иймэрхүү зөвлөгөөнүүд тэр бүр байдаггүй нь удирдах албан тушаалын хүмүүс доороо ажиллаж байгаа хүмүүстээ leadership-ийг тэр бүр зааж сургаж чаддаггүй, бур цаашлаад өөрсдөө удаан хугацаагаар ажиллаж statesman болж чаддаггүйтэй холбоотой байх. Юутай ч мартахаасаа өмнө бусад хүмүүст сонирхолтой байх болов уу гээд нийгмийн бодлогын тал дээр өөрийн үргэлж санаж явахыг хичээдэг зөвлөгөөнүүдийг доор орууллаа:

Tim Geithner's "special code for how to think about economic policy"

"Focus on what’s right, not just what is possible or easy.

"Never forget what a privilege it is to serve your country.

"Know that the world, not just America, depends on the quality of the judgments we make in this building.

"Make sure you steep yourself in what you do not know and what you cannot understand about the world.

"Don’t overdo it with excessive deference to the Secretary of the Treasury, or to the President. Tell them what you think.

"Understand we do serious work, but don’t take yourself too seriously.

"Cast your net broadly for advice, subject your initial judgments to relentless debate, but don’t let yourself be paralyzed by the difficulty of the choices, the fog, the shades of grey.

"Remember we have to be for stuff—I’m descending into self-caricature. Remember we have to be for stuff, not just against stuff—the brakes on initiative, but also the accelerator.

"No peacocks, jerks or whiners.

Rumsfeld's Rules - болвол номыг нь заавал олж уншаарай

In one conversation, seemingly out of nowhere, Moynihan said, “Don, only buy black socks.” I gave him a quizzical look. “You can wear them with anything,” he said. I took this to mean that in a busy world, it is best to make things easier by simplifying certain habits and decisions. Then again, he may have just been giving me wardrobe advice.

Obama’s Way by Michael Lewis

This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. “You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” The self-discipline he believes is required to do the job well comes at a high price.

Jake Sullivan's commencement address to students at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs on May 20, 2013

Public policy is a study in imperfection. It involves imperfect people, with imperfect information, facing deeply imperfect choices—so it’s not surprising that they’re getting imperfect results.

Policymakers are people. There will be meetings where one participant has a grudge against another. Where someone is fighting the urge to doze off because their kid kept them up all night.

Leadership: Essential Writings by Our Greatest Thinkers, editor Elizabeth D. Samet

The Best Sentences I Read Today

The following are some observations based on my 5+ years experience in corporate America.

1. Corporations exist to make money. Bottom line. Therefore, never take it personally. It’s all about business, really.
2. Think.
3. Know your stuff. Stay up-to-date, stay relevant. No one will listen to you if you don’t know what you are talking about. Know you numbers. Inside and out, and be ready to interpret them within and outside contexts.
4. Innovate, be creative. Everywhere and always.
5. Be precise, matter-of-fact kind of precise. Keep your communication short and neutral. No one has time to read emails longer than 5 sentences. No one has time to deal with your attitude.
6. Change is the only constant. Priorities, goals, tasks, people, science, research, structures, teams, knowledge, processes, rules – all change all the time. Find your balance and move forward.
7. Keep your boss informed at all times.
8. Be fair and nice to people next/above/under you. It matters in both short and long runs.
9. Listen to gossips. Listen to what people say.
10. Be neutral. Provide your expert opinion but don’t join ‘camps’. The truth/solution is usually somewhere in the middle.
11. Consensus is nice but sometimes you just have to make decisions without. Period.
12. Be ready to work long hours. And I mean – looong, like 60+ hours/week. It will be worse if you are not productive. But then you won't last long anyway.
13. If possible, avoid human resources. They exist to support the structure, not you.
14. Don’t fight. Especially with your boss. Too bad if your boss is stupid. Or psychopath (most of them are). Determine your tolerance threshold and leave when it’s crossed.

random pages - From Academia to Corporate

Philosophical Republic

Among followers of Strauss, one issue is the importance of politics in the relationship of politics and philosophy. Politics thinks it is the most important human activity because it decides who rules in the world. Every human activity, including the most private matters such as the philosopher’s reflection, takes place under the rule of some authority that protects or permits it. It is philosophy’s business to question this authority and its self-proclaimed importance, and to bring its assertions to the bar of reason and its assurances to the test of eternity. The issue then is whether philosophy’s claim to importance is sovereign over politics so as to eclipse politics, or does philosophy have something to learn from politics in a way that rescues the importance of politics?

Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa both took the latter view, and they studied American politics as a serious subject and America as a kind of philosophical republic.

"Scholars of American Politics: The contributions of Walter Berns and Harry Jaffa" by Harvey Mansfield

Conversations with Bill Kristol: "Harvey Mansfield on Party Government and Modern Political Philosophy"

Зах зээлийн замд vдсэн тvvх оршвой

Хөдөлмөр сонин, 1991 оны нэгдүгээр сарын 3, №1 (10536)

Вот дело в чем

У Цеденбала я довольно часто бывал, когда был послом в Монголии. Особенно Полина Семеновна. Они только по‑русски, по‑монгольски не говорят, вот дело в чем. Жена у него рязанская. Бесцеремонная баба такая. Только по‑русски – некрасиво, потому что монголам не нравится.

В. М. Молотов о Монгольских лидерах (из Ф. И. Чуев - "Сто сорок бесед с Молотовым")

Nostalgie

Аж богдын харуул нь ээ хө
Амгалан болоод тайван даа

The King o' Drinks

The king o' drinks, as I conceive it,
Talisker, Isla, or Glenlivet!

Robert Louis Stevenson - The Scotsman's Return From Abroad

On Traveling

If I’d learnt one thing from traveling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don’t talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.

from Alex Garland's The Beach

Poem of the Day

"Stufen" von Hermann Hesse

Wie jede Blüte welkt und jede Jugend
Dem Alter weicht, blüht jede Lebensstufe,
Blüht jede Weisheit auch und jede Tugend
Zu ihrer Zeit und darf nicht ewig dauern.
Es muß das Herz bei jedem Lebensrufe
Bereit zum Abschied sein und Neubeginne,
Um sich in Tapferkeit und ohne Trauern
In andre, neue Bindungen zu geben.
Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne,
Der uns beschützt und der uns hilft, zu leben.

Wir sollen heiter Raum um Raum durchschreiten,
An keinem wie an einer Heimat hängen,
Der Welgeist will nicht fesseln uns und engen,
Er will uns Stuf’ um Stufe heben, weiten.
Kaum sind wir heimisch einem Lebenskreise
Und traulich eingewohnt, so droht Erschlaffen,
Nur wer bereit zu Aufbruch ist und Reise,
Mag lähmender Gewöhnung sich entraffen.

Es wird vielleicht auch noch die Todesstunde
Uns neuen Räumen jung entgegen senden,
Des Lebens Ruf an uns wird niemals enden…
Wohlan denn, Herz, nimm Abschied und gesunde!

Plaster Cast of a Living Human Being

So suppose someone has, in the strict sense, learned a system of philosophy—for example, that of Wolff. They would have in their head all the axioms, explanations, and proofs, together with the structure of the whole system, and they would be able to count everything off on their fingers. However, all they would have would be a complete historical knowledge of Wolff's philosophy. They know and judge only as much as has been given to them. If you criticise one of his definitions, they won't know how to come up with an alternative one. They have taught themselves on the basis of someone else's reason—but the capacity to imitate is not the capacity to be creative. In other words, the knowledge did not arise in them from reason. Although, objectively, the knowledge is certainly an instance of rational knowledge, in the learner as subject it is merely historical. They have understood and remembered, that is, they have learned well; but they are no more than a plaster cast of a living human being. Knowledge that is objectively rational can only originally have sprung from the reason peculiar to humans. So knowledge in the subject can also be called rational only if it is drawn from the universal sources of reason. And the same sources, namely principles, give rise to criticism and even rejection of what has been learned.

Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B865

Positive Difference through Public Service

I have plenty of regrets about my time in public service, starting with all the pain I caused my family, through my absences as well as my public notoriety.

[...]I loved my work in government, and I’m proud of what I did in public life, but I couldn’t do it forever.

[...]I also hope this crisis encourages Americans to reconsider the value of strong public institutions and capable public servants. When we were successful in limiting the damage, it was with the force available only to governments and central banks. And there is no viable strategy for reducing the damage of future crises that does not depend on strong government rules and oversight, and the ability to attract talented people to oversee the system. The success of our financial rescue did not solve the many problems we still face as a nation, from high levels of poverty to global warming to appalling inequality in access to quality education and health care. These challenges will require better government—not necessarily more government, but smarter policies, designed on the merits, less distorted by politics and money. It would be good for the country if we could bring a similar level of creativity and ambition and force to these challenges, along with the quintessentially American pragmatism that helped keep us out of the financial abyss.

There are lessons for the world in our mistakes as well as our successes. My hope is that they won’t have to be rediscovered in the fires of the next crisis.

[...]Public service is filled with opportunities to make a positive difference, but it comes with challenges. I did it for twenty-five years because I believed in the cause and loved the craft of economic policy. But that would not have been true without the people around me who chose to devote some or all of their careers to serving their country.

from Timothy F. Geithner, Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

Addendum: Geithner’s private farewell to Obama and Treasury staff

The Sentence of the Day

"Амьдралын урт харгуй урдамнай гэрэлтэнэ..."

- С. Эрдэнэ, "Халхын заяат харгуй минь," Улаанбаатар 2002, 32-р тал

Горовиц в Москве, 1986 год

One piece of music that I keep revisiting:

During the latter part of the concert, watching this 82-year-old genius play, I found mist forming in my eyes for some mysterious reason I could not explain. I was not sad. I was exultant. It had something to do with my pride, at that very moment, in being part of the same civilisation that this great and endearing man playing the piano was part of.

Almost at the same time instant I felt the suggestion of tears in my eyes, the television camera left Horowitz’s fingers on the keyboard and dissolved to the face of a Soviet citizen in the audience. His eyes were closed, his head tilted slightly backward so that his face was up… and one lone teardrop ran down his cheek...

It was the same teardrop running down mine.

"Finding a new flavor that was ours"

“We had the idea: let’s use local products here,” [Rene Redzepi] told me the next morning. We were at a diner, making a caffeine stop on the way to a beach at Dragør—a town on the Øresund Sea, about twenty minutes from the outskirts of Copenhagen—where he likes to forage. “But I was very unhappy at first. Why? Because we were taking recipes from other cultures, serving essentially the same ‘Scandinavian French’ food, and just because you’re using local produce to make that food doesn’t mean you’re making a food of your own culture. I started asking myself, What is a region? What is the sum of the people we are, the culture we are? What does it taste like? What does it look like on a plate? It was a very complex thing for us—the idea of finding a new flavor that was ‘ours.’”

"The Food at Our Feet: Why is foraging all the rage?"

+ Anthony Bourdain: 'Let's have a bite of flowers...'

Ethics vs. Morality

Саяхан гарсан "100 чухал сэдэв: Ёс зүй" нэвтрүүлгийг тойрсон яриандаа манайхан ethics, morality хоёрын ялгааны талаар баахан элийрэв. Яг Монголоор энэ хоёр ухагдахууныг сүүлийн үед юу гэж тогтохоор болсон юм бол мэдэх юм алга (justice-ийг жишээ нь "зүй ёс" гэж орчуулдаг болсон байна лээ). Юутай ч Steven Lukes-ийн ойрмогхоны нэг номонд ethics, morality хоёрыг яаж ялгасныг нь энд ишлэе:

"The moral" can also be distinguished from "the ethical." This latter way (which descends from Hegel's distinction between Moralität and Sittlichkeit) involves postulating a different and narrower sense of "moral" that derives from Kant. In this view, morality denotes something that is both more severe and more abstract; and it is seen as applying anywhere and everywhere. It directs attention to the duties or obligations I have to other human beings viewed, from the standpoint of justice, as possessors of rights. The ethical, by contrast, refers to the values and ideals that inhere in one or another specific way of life--and these will, of course, be multiple and sometimes mutually incompatible. Ronald Dworkin, the legal theorist, captured the core of this distinction when he wrote that "ethics includes convictions about which kinds of lives are good or bad for a person to lead, and morality includes principles about how a person should treat other people."

Moral Relativism by Steven Lukes, p. 135

Эрлийз Цариг Оршвой

By 1860, seven different gauges were in use in America. Just over half of the total mileage was of the 4’8½” standard. The next most popular was the 5-foot gauge concentrated in the South. As things turned out, having different gauges was advantageous to the South, since the North could not easily use railroad to move its troops to battle in southern territory during the Civil War. Noting this example, the Finns were careful to ensure that their railroads used a gauge different from the Russian railroads! The rest of Europe adopted a standard gauge, which made things easy for Hitler during World War II: a significant fraction of German troop movements in Europe were accomplished by rail.

"History in Motion - Railroad Gauges: A Standards Battle" by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian (excerpt from Information Rules)

"The core of it—the expression"

I was looking for the core of it—the expression. You would have no jazz without blues out of slavery—that most recent and particular version of slavery, not us poor Celts for example, under the Roman boot. They put those people through misery, not just in America. But there’s something produced by its survivors that is very elemental. It’s not something you take in in the head, it’s something you take in in the guts. It's beyond the matter of the musicality of it, which is very variable and flexible.

from Keith Richards, Life, p.84

Realpolitik at Play

Secretary Kissinger: Incidentally, I joked with the Mongolian Foreign Minister that I would visit his country. He took me seriously and extended me an invitation. Should I pay his country a visit? (Laughter) Seriously, there are no U.S. interests in Outer Mongolia, other than creating a sense of insecurity in other capitals. I don’t have to pursue this. I want your frank opinion.

Vice Foreign Minister Ch’iao: Considering this question, our position has been the same since the Yalta Conference. I’ve always told this to the Doctor. Maybe I am wrong, but you talked with Premier Chou about this.

Secretary Kissinger: Yes, but I don’t know how you would view American efforts to establish relations with Outer Mongolia. I know your historical view and what it represents.

Well, I can defer a decision until a later occasion. The only reason to go is to show activity in this area. But if you object—to a visit by me—I won’t go. Diplomatic relations, that we’ll do. (To Ambassador Habib:) Where do we stand on this?

Ambassador Habib: We have had no response.

Mr. Solomon: I believe their northern neighbor objects to Mongolia establishing relations with us.

Vice Foreign Minister Ch’iao: There are two aspects to the situation there. We maintain diplomatic relations [with the Mongolian People’s Republic], so there is no question of law. But this is really just a puppet state. It is in a situation of being occupied. So in such circumstances you will have to decide [whether or not to visit].

Secretary Kissinger: No, I can tell you now that it won’t be done.

FRUS, 1969-76, China. Kissinger's comments to Qiao Guanhua on Oct. 2, 1974.

Hat tip to Sergey Radchenko.

Interview on Running

Эртээд саваагүйтэж яваад Гэрэг сэтгүүлд гүйлтийн талаар нэг ярилцлага маягийн юм өгөөдөхсөн чинь өнөө Harold Bloom-ийн "ном зохиолчоосоо илүү ухаантай байдаг" гэдэг шиг сая харсан чинь надаасаа хэтийдсэн жаахан ичмээр эд болчихож.

1. Анх гүйж эхлэх болсон тань юунаас үүдэлтэй вэ?
Би коллежид байхдаа сургуулийнхаа урт сэлүүрт завины (rowing) багт хичээллэдэг байлаа. Энэ бол хүний тэвчээр, сэтгэлийн тэнхээг эцэст нь хүртэл шавхдаг хамгийн хүнд хэцүү спортуудын нэг. Харамсалтай нь төгсөөд буцаж ирэхэд Монголдоо энэ спортоор цааш үргэлжлүүлээд хичээллэх боломж байгаагүй юм. Ингээд гүйдэг боллоо. Нэг талаараа гүйлт тэсвэр хатуужил, сэтгэлийн тэнхээг шалгадгаараа өмнө хичээллэж байсан урт сэлүүрт завины спорттой төстэй байсан бол нөгөө талаараа өөрийгөө, орчин тойрноо огт өөрөөр олж харж, мэдрэхэд тусалсан юм. Өөрөөр хэлбэл өнөө зохиолч Муракамигийн хэлсэнчлэн нэг ёсондоо урт амьдрах гэж биш харин амьдралыг бүрэн дүүрэн мэдрэх гэж гүйдэг болсон хэрэг.

2. Эхний үеийн хүндрэл, шантрах мэдрэмжийг давсан түүхээсээ хуваалцана уу?

Өмнө нь өөр спортоор эрчимтэй хичээллэдэг байсан тул эхэлж гүйхэд ямар нэг хүндрэл байгаагүй. Харин шантрах мэдрэмж бол одоо ч гүйх тоолонд төрдөг. Хүмүүс энэ мэдрэмжийг чухам хэрхэн хүлээж авдаг юм бол бүү мэд. Харин миний хувьд энэ бол гүйх үеийн хамгийн чухал хэсэг. Чухам энэ үед л би өөрийнхөө хэмжээ хязгаарыг мэдэрч цаашаагаа явах сэтгэлийн тэнхээ, биеэ бодлоороо захирах чадалтай эсэхээ мэдэж авдаг.

Хэрвээ шантарч, өөрийн бие чадлын хязгаарт хүрч чадаж байвал би өөрийгөө бүрэн дүүрэн мэдэрч чадаж байнаа гэсэн үг. Нөгөөтэйгүүр гүйсээр ямар ч тэнхээгүй болохын цагт цааш дахин нэг алхам явж чадаж байвал өөрийн хэмжээ хязгаарыг тэр хэрээр тэлж байгаа хэрэг. Хүн өөрийн хүрч чадахгүй гэж бодсон газраа хүрч, хийж чадахгүй гэж санагдсан зүйлээ хийж чадахаас өөр сайхан мэдрэмж өөр юу байх билээ...

3. Гүйхийн эрүүл мэндэд ашигтай талын тухай хүн бүхэн мэддэг. Харин таны хувьд гүйх нь юуг илэрхийлдэг вэ. Ямар онцгой тал нь тэгтлээ татдаг хэрэг вэ?

Миний хувьд доорх гурван шалтгаанаар гүйх дуртай. Энэ бол хүн болгонд адил байх шаардлагагүй бөгөөд хүн бүр гүйх тусам өөрийгөө хурцалдаг, урам зориг өгдөг шалтгаануудыг илүүтэйгээр таньж мэддэг байх.

Нэгд, гүйлт намайг илүү сайн хүн болгодог гэдэгт би итгэдэг. Хэдий утгагүй, заавал шаардлагагүй ч өглөө бүр өөрийгөө хүнд хэцүү гүйлтээр сорих нь өдрийн туршид тохиолдох ямар ч бэрхшээлийг түгдрэлгүйгээр даван туулахад тусалдаг. Гүйх тоолондоо өөрийн шантрах мэдрэмжтэй тулж, ямаршуухан хэмжээ хязгаартайгаа мэдэж авсан хүн илүү даруу төлөв байж, амьдралд жижиг ч гэлтгүй бүх зүйлсийг илүүтэйгээр нандигнан хайрладаг.

Хоёрт, гүйлт надад амжилтад хүрэхэд уйгагүй хөдөлмөр ямар чухлыг үргэлж сануулдаг. Шууд л орноосоо босоод марафон гүйчихдэг хүн гэж хаа ч байхгүй. Дөнгөж эхэлж гүйж байгаа хэн ч 1-ээс илүү км гүйж чаддаггүй. Хамгийн гол нь шантралгүй өдөр бүр тэрхүү 1 км-ээ алхам алхмаар ахиулж чадсан хүн л хүссэн амжилтдаа хүрнэ. Амьдрал ч яг ийм. Ямар ч зүйлийг бага гэж гололгүй, алхам бүрийн төлөө уйгагүй, тэвчээртэйгээр хөдөлмөрлөвөл хэн ч хүссэн зорилгодоо хүрч чаддаг. Үүнийг гүйлт лав миний яс маханд шингэтэл ойлгуулж өгсөн юмдаг.

Гуравт, би бусдын өмнөөс гүйдэг. Нэг удаа хамт гүйдэг байсан залуухан Америкийн Ирланд профессороосоо яагаад гүйдэг талаар нь асуутал “бидний эргэн тойронд байдаг гүйх хүсэлтэй мөртөө боломжгүй хүмүүсийн өмнөөс гүйдэг” гэсэн юм. Хэдийгээр энэ өнөөх Католикуудын алдарт гэмшдэг зан нь байж болох ч би өдгөө хүртэл үүнийг дотроо санаж явдаг юм. Өнөөдөр гэрээсээ гараад гүйх хүсэлтэй мөртөө боломжгүй, бололцоогүй өч төчнөөн мянган хүмүүс Монголд бий. Харин би хэдий боломжтой мөртөө гүйхгүй байна гэдэг тэдгээр хүмүүсийн урмыг хугалж буй хэрэг. Би гүйх бүртээ тэдгээр хүмүүсийн өмнөөс гүйж, тэдгээр хүмүүсийг мартаагүй шүү гэдгээ өөртөө сануулахыг хичээдэг.

4. Өдрийн ямар цагт, хотын аль хэсгээр гүйдэг вэ/гүйх дуртай вэ. Яагаад?

Дулааны улиралд Улаанбаатарт гүйхэд хамгийн тохиромжтой цаг өглөө 5-7 цагийн хооронд байдаг. Нар мандсаны дараа, гэхдээ замын хөдөлгөөн эхлэхээс өмнө. Яг л энэ цагуудын хооронд амжиж гүйхгүй бол аюулгүй байдал төдийгүй эрүүл мэнд талаасаа асар их эрсдэлтэй. Машины утаанд хоолойгоо хорсгож, хойноосоо заналтайгаар сигналдуулж үзсэн Улаанбаатарын гүйгч бүр надтай санал нийлнэ байх аа.

Харин дуртай маршрут гэвэл хотын төвөөс Сөүлийн гудамжаар дамжин Энхтайвны гүүр дээгүүр даван цаашаагаа Хурд хорооллын хойд талын замаар явсаар Их тэнгэр орж тэндээсээ Богд уулын бэл дагуу гүйсээр Зайсан хүрч, тэгээд чанх хойд тийш эргэн буцаад Энхтайвны гүүрээр хотын төвд орж ирэх. Ингэж гүйхэд ойролцоогоор 10км болдог бөгөөд хэрвээ хүсвэл замаараа Зайсан толгой дээр гарч өглөөний нарнаар Улаанбаатарыг тольдох их гоё.

5. Гүйх үедээ ямар төрлийн хөгжим сонсдог вэ. Тусгай жагсаалтаасаа танилцуулна уу?

Ямар ч холын зайд гүйгчийн хамгийн сайн хань нь бодол, хөгжим хоёр байдаг. Гэхдээ дан ганц бодолдоо автаад гүйгээд байвал их уйтгартай. Нөгөө талаараа айхтар хашгирсан хөгжим сонсоод өөрийн бодлоо тэр чигт нь хаах бас учир дутагдалтай. Тэгэхээр минийхээр бол гүйхэд хамгийн тохиромжтой хөгжим гэдэг гүйх эрч хүчийг өгөх мөртөө бодож сэтгэхэд саад болохгүй байх ёстой. Энэ бол миний гүйх үедээ сонсдог сүүлийн хоёр жил орчим бараг өөрчлөгдөөгүй шахуу дууны жагсаалт:

Signpost Sound – Who Needs a Road
Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed
Strokes – Under Cover of Darkness
Haik Naltchayan – Daredevil Descent
Matisyahu – Jerusalem
Stone Roses – Sally Cinnamon
RAC – If You Forget Me
Kings of Leon – Use Somebody (RAC Remix)
College & Electric Youth – A Real Hero
The Proclaimers – Sunshine on Leith
Beth Orton – Concrete Sky
Haik Naltchayan – Champs Elysees

6. Гүйгчийн хувьд ямар мөрөөдөлтэй вэ? (Томоохон марафонд оролцох, хувийн амжилт тогтоох гэх мэт)

Мэдээж ямар ч гүйгчийн хувьд Нью-Йоркийн, цаашлаад Бостоны марафоныг амжилттай дуусгах хамгийн том мөрөөдөл нь байдаг. Миний хувьд ч ялгаагүй. Хэзээ нэгэн цагт энэхүү хоёр марафоныг дуусгачихвал лав л үхэхдээ хийж амжсангүй гэж харамсах зүйлс маань нэгээр багасна.

Гэхдээ яг чин үнэнийг хэлэхэд гүйх дуртай хүн бүрийн хувьд битүүхэндээ дээрх хоёр марафоноос ч илүү нэгэн мөрөөдөл байдаг. Тэр нь хамгийн хурднаараа гүйх мөртөө ямар ч хүч гаргаагүй мэт дүүлэн нисэх мэдрэмжийг мэдрэх. Үүнийг үгээр илэрхийлэх хэцүү ч Хайлэ Гэбрэсиласси 2000 оны Сиднейн олимпийн 10,000 метрийн түрүүг авахыг, Бадар-Ууган 2008 оны Бээжингийн алтан медалийг илүү гартай мэт итгэлтэйгээр хүртэхийг харсан хэн ч лавтайяа ойлгоно байх аа.

Putin Quote of the Day

Господин Президент абсолютно прав: даже в самые трудные для Советского Союза периоды Великой Отечественной войны Япония – тогдашний союзник нацистской Германии – так и не решилась напасть на СССР, что позволило перебросить в конце 1941 года с Дальнего Востока и Сибири на запад части и соединения, которые сыграли решающую роль в битве за Москву.

В этой связи хотел бы привести характерное высказывание одного из высших чиновников императорской армии. Он сказал: «Мы получили начальное военное образование на Хасане, среднее – на Халхин-Голе. Получать высшее не торопимся».

Выступление на торжественном приёме 75-летие победы на Халхин-Голе

Монголчуудын Vнэт Зvйлс

Ungursun havar bolj ungursun Mongoliin Ediin Zasgiin Forum-iin hureend bolson "21-р зууны монголчуудын үнэт/эрхэм зүйлс" gesen heleltsuulegt bi savaaguytej yavaad suusan yum. D. Enkhbat, N. Jantsannorov geh met manaidaa l hamgiin mundag seheetnuud gegdeh humuus Mongolchuudiin unet zuils gej yu boloh, yur ni herhen uurchlugduj baigaa talaar sanal bodloo huvaaltsah yostoy baisan yum uu daa. Haramsaltay ni edgeer humuusiin dund unet zuilsiin talaar system-teygeer bodoj baigaa hun neg ch alga bailaa (hervee baisan bol ter humuus ni lav chihend naaldahaar yum heleeguy). Neg heseg ni "hil, hel, mal gurav" gesen Zunduin Dorjiin ugiig budaa idej medemhiirsen bol nuguu heseg ni Mongolchuudad unet zuils baihguy, bugd moraliin elegdeld orson gesen aihtar gargalgaa gargav. Unendee hund heregtey yamar ch gargalgaa gargaaguy ug heleltsuulegt buhimdsan minii neg jirgee neleed hunii egduug bish yum aa sonirholiig turuulsen tul ene talaar gants hoyor zuil helye gej bodloo.

Niigmiin unet zuils gedgiig buduun baargaar bol yu zuv, yu chuhal boloh talaarh niiteeree huleen zuvshuurdug oilgoltuudiig helne. Uhaandaa Amerikt hunii yu helj boloh, yu helj bolohguyg zaasan tudii shiidver garahad Amerikchuud uursdiinh ni ug heleh erh chuluund ni haldaj baina gej uzen niiteeree shahuu bosotsgoodog. Harin Mongold website-iig neg erh medelten haasniig gants MongolTV l changaar shuumjleh shiv. Esregeeree etseg ehee enerch hairlah gedeg Mongol hunii huvid yalt ch uguy chuhal, yalt ch uguy baih yostoy gej uzdeg oilgolt ni. Ter ch hereeree ene ni bidnii unet zuil bolno. Harin Baruuniihan etseg ehee zaaval nasan undur boltol ni hajuud ni baij, enerch, toildoh yostoy gej boddogguy. Uuruur helbel bidnii huvid ug heleh erh chuluu gedeg Amerikchuudtay haritsuulahad tudii l chuhal unet zuild tootsogdohguy baigaa bol Amerikchuudiin huvid etseg ehiin achiig nasan turshdaa hariulj, asarch toildono gedeg bidniih shig mash chuhal zuil bish. Medeej hereg ene bol Mongolchuud ug heleh erh chuluund durguy, Amerikchuud etseg ehdee hairguy gesen ug bish. Zugeer l ard tumen bur iluuteygeer unelej, erhemlej, chuhalchildag uur uursdiin unet zuilsteyg haruulj bui hereg.

Yutay ch unet zuilsiin talaar yarihiin umnu hoyor zuiliig oilgoj avah ni chuhal: Negt, uneheer niigemd jinhene unet zuils gej baigaad tuuniig ni tuuhiin yamar neg uyed udur tutam yagshtal barimtalj amidarch baisan altan uye gej baihguy. Heleltsuulgiin uyer aihtar medemhiireed baisan Turiin soyorholt N. Natsagnyam geh zaluugiin bain bain jishee bolgoj avsan Britain-iig end avch uzye. 1983 ond tuhain uyed Yurunhii said Margaret Thatcher televizeer "Victorian values" buyu Victoria hatan haanii zahirch asan 19-r zuunii uyeiin unet zuilsiig niigemdee butsaan nutagshuulahiig urialj baiv. Enehuu Victoria hatan haanii uyeiin unet zuilsiig Britain-chuud goltsuu yos zuitey baih, burhan shashnaa deedleh, eh oronch baih, husel tachaalaa hyanah, ajilch hudulmurch hicheenguy baih zergeer oilgodog yum. Haramsaltay ni 19-r zuunii uyeiin Britain oron yamarshuuhan yaduu, zavaan, gemt hergeer duursen gazar baisniig Charles Dickens-iin zohioliig unshsan engiin 10 jiliin suragch ch helj chadna. Harin Mongolchuudiin unet zuilsiin altan uye baisan eseh tuhai margaval tarhia hagaluulaad duusah biz. Gants naad zahiin jisheeg ter deerh etseg ehee enereh deer avahad 16-r zuunaas umnu "өвөг эцэг нь үхэхгүй болохоор ач нь хонины сүүлээр шахаж шаант чөмгөөр гудруулж алдаг" baisan yum gene lee shuu.

Hoyort, niigem deh unet zuils bainga uurchlugduj, hudulguund baidag bolovch nuguuteyguur ter chigtee orvongooroo uurchlugduh ni bas hovor (Baruunii tuuhend jishee ni unet zuils yurduu 2-3 udaa l ter chigtee uurchlugduj bailaa). Iimd ehleed Mongolchuudiin unet zuils hil, hel, mal gurav yumaa geed suugaad baigaa huniig nudee neegeed ergen toirnoo neg sain haraadhaaray gej helye. Hun amiin talaas iluu huvi ni orshin suudag niislel hot udruus udurt ulam bur cosmopolitan bolj, duriin dund surguuliin suragch juulchdad helmerchilj, niisleld mal aj ahui erhlehiig horiglood lav l arav garui jil bolj baina. Iim nuhtsuld Mongoliin hun amiin tal orchim huvi ni (za baig gehed yadahnaa Angli, Mongol hel deer 1-r angiasaa ehelj suraltsaj bui bagachuul, usvur uyeiinhen) Mongol unet zuilsguy Mongol hun bish gej helj bolohguy biz dee?

Harin nuguuteyguur heden myangan jiliin turshid hadgalagdaj irsen Mongol ahuigaas urgaj garsan unet zuils hotod amidraad, galuu shuvuunii mah ideheer ter chigtee alga bolchihdog yum bish. Us murun shirgej, belcheer talhlagdaj baina geheer hot huduuguy, hugshin zaluuguy bugd l Mongol hunii baigalia hairladag zangaar zurh ni shimshirdeg. Mongolchuudiin ene ch unet zuiliig uls turchid uursudduu ashigtaygaar erguulseer udguu gadnii hurungu oruulaltiig shaldaa buuhad hurgesen gedgiig bugd medej baigaa baih. Tegeheer neg talaasaa Mongolchuudiin unet zuilsiig zuvhun hil, hel, mal gurav gedgeer tomyolood baih yum bol niigemd bolj bui asar ih uurchlult shinechleltiig uguysgesen hereg bolno. Nuguu talaasaa hotod turj usun, gadnii soyoliig uuriimshuulj bui shine uyeiinhen Mongolchuudiin ulamjlalt unet zuilsiig uguy hiij baina geheesee harin ch bayajuulj, orchin uyed ami buhtey bailgah arga zamiig ni haij erelhiilj baina gej oilgovol zohiltoy.

Gehdee end gants haramsmaar zuil ni ene bol jamaaraa yavaa uil yavts. Uneheer ter shinechlegdej bui unet zuils ni Mongolchuud bidnii hussen unet zuils mun uu? Tedgeer ni bidnii tsogtslooh gej zorij bui "humuunleg, irgenii ardchilsan niigem"-tey her zohitsoh ve gedeg asuultuudad harin hariulah tun hetsuu. Lav l minii medehiin ene talaar buh niitiin heleltsuuleg yavagdah ni bitgii hel system-teygeer ch bodoj baigaa tsuun bololtoy. Harin suuliin uyed ene talaar tsuun ch gesen chas hiisen ug helsen gants hun ni L. Sumati baih (haramsaltay ni tereer deerh heleltsuulegt ireeguy). Tuuniiheer bol:

I think the most important thing that Mongolians should develop in the next 20 years is their values. They should then project these values in their social and political lives. This is starting, actually, but rather chaotically. This is where Mongolian intellectuals should play an important role, but because of the transition to a market economy, we really lost a lot of people who could have contributed.

Minii huvid end Sumatigiin helj bui hoyor chuhal sanaatay ni sanal niilj baina: (1) Mongolchuudiin unet zuils gedeg bidnii huvid tsaashid husch bui niigmee tsogtsloohiin tuld zaaval hariulah yostoy asuult yum. Neg talaaraa ene ni yag odoo bidnii unet zuils yu ve gedgiig yamar neg heneerhelguygeer system-teygeer oilgoj avah yostoy haruulj baina. Harin nuguu talaaraa odoogiin bureldej bii bolson unet zuilsee tsaashid ali zugt herhen chigluuleh ve gedeg deer sanal negdej, Sumatigiin helsenchlen chuhal unet zuilsee "hugjuulsneer" jinhene utgaaraa hariulagdana gedeg ni haragdaj baina. (2) Ene dialogue-iig avch yavahad Mongoliin terguunii seheetnuud hamgiin chuhal uureg guitsetgene. Haramsaltay ni odoogoor ene sedveer gants eruul saruul zuil helj baigaa ni Sumati l baih shig baina. Busad ni tuunii helsneer zah zeeliin shuurgand ter chigtee orood yavchihsan bololtoy.

The Best Sentences I Read Today

Centuries ago in the North African desert tribal dancers would perform into the late hours of the night. On a rare night a performer would seemingly transcend what was humanly possible and the crowd would chant “Ala Ala Ala” in response meaning “by God by God by God”, because they could see God in the performer’s dance. As the custom eventually took root in Spain the pronunciation changed from Ala to the more modernly known Ole; chanted in bull fighting and flamingo dancing to this day. I’m sure you all can think of times when someone performed outside themselves. Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, Michael Phelps at the 2008 Olympics, and the list goes on and on. I love to watch transcendent performances because like those in the North African desert; it gives me a glimpse of God. I’ve concluded that the only thing I love more about running than those moments when maybe I have given others, or hopefully will one day give others, a glimpse of God are those moments I feel God running in me. It’s hard to articulate, but when you experience it, you know it. Those moments that are typically effortful become effortless. The thoughts in your head melt away and all that’s left is joy, delight, and the satisfying sensation of performing outside of yourself.

from Olé by kourt + video of Ryan Hall training

Ian Bostridge's Rendition of Nacht und Träume

+ Simone Dinnerstein & Tift Merritt's version

Our Best Chance of Taking Their Place

Tyler Cowen, the author of “An Economist Gets Lunch,” argued recently that, out of the dozens of restaurants in Washington, D.C., that aspire to be first class, only five to ten really are at any given time. A restaurant can be great for its first three to six months—as the chefs and the owners strive to make the best possible impression on diners and reviewers. But, “once these places become popular, their obsession with quality slacks off,” Cowen writes. “They become socializing scenes. . . . Their audiences become automatic.” [...] Social and economic mobility, in any system, is essentially slack arbitrage: hard work is a successful strategy for those at the bottom because those at the top no longer work so hard. By custom, we disparage the idleness of the idle rich. We should encourage it. It is our best chance of taking their place.

"Slackers: Alberto Salazar and the art of exhaustion" by Malcolm Gladwell

An Escape from Fundamental Human Limitation

Ioanna Kohler: During a lecture you delivered at New York Law School, a student asked you what major you would recommend he select in order to become a lawyer. Your answer was quite surprising: you suggested that he choose “whatever major you want, as long as it has nothing to do with the law.” You, in fact, studied philosophy at Stanford and Oxford before studying the law at Harvard. How can the humanities or foreign languages be an asset for a jurist?

Stephen Breyer: It’s true, I’ve always thought that it was not particularly useful to study law as an undergrad. We are only allowed to live one life: it’s the human condition, there’s no escaping it. In my view, only by studying the humanities can we hope to escape this fundamental limitation and understand how other people live. Because literature, history, or philosophy all provide extraordinary windows on the world. Foreign languages, too, are fundamental.

"On Reading Proust" - Stephen Breyer, interviewed by Ioanna Kohler

A Cross Either of Thought or Action

After all, a man's life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play. When I am in the Socratic mood and planning my Republic, I make drastic changes in the education of the sons of well-to-do citizens. When they are sixteen or seventeen they begin to learn a craft and to do healthy manual labour, with plenty of poetry, songs, dancing, drill and gymnastics in their spare time. They can thus let off their steam on some thing useful. It is only when they are really thirsty for knowledge, longing to hear about things, that I would let them go to the university. It would be a favour, a coveted privilege, only to be given to those who had either proved their worth in factory or field or whose qualities and zeal were pre-eminent. However, this would upset a lot of things it would cause commotion and bring me perhaps in the end a hemlock draught.

from Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), "Chapter IX, Education at Bangalore"

Gobbets of the Day

One of the best dedicatory essays I read in a while (albeit almost half of the essay is a direct quote): "The Career of Leon Kass" by Harvey Flaumenhaft

[Leon Kass] is by rearing a moralist, by education a generalist, by training a physician and biochemist, by vocation a teacher-and student-of philosophical texts, and by choice a lover of serious conversation, who thinks best when sharing thoughts and speeches with another.

Also some of the passages in the essay are especially interesting in light of the two excellent films—Transcendence and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes—that came out recently:

In summer 1966, my closest friend had me read Rousseau's explosive Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, for which my Mississippi and Harvard experiences had prepared me. Rousseau argues that, pace the Enlightenment, progress in the arts and sciences necessarily produces luxury, corruption of morals, debasement of tastes, and eventually, loss of freedom. Soon after, I read Brave New World and C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man. I acquired a new set of questions, more challenging than how genes are regulated: What is the relation between scientific or technological progress and the moral health of a community? How can we reap the benefits of technology without eroding our freedom and our dignity? Does the scientific account of nature and human nature tell the whole, or even the best, story about us? These questions have never left me.

Addendum: A theory of the allocation of a Nobelist’s time

Person’s Very Being

There is, in London, a painting that moves me as much every time I go and see it. It is a self-portrait painted by the late Rembrandt. His later paintings are usually characterized by an extreme coarseness of stroke, rendering everything subordinate to the expression of the moment, at once shining and sacred, and still unsurpassed in art, with the possible exception of Hölderlin’s later poems, however dissimilar and incomparable they may be—for where Hölderlin’s light, evoked through language, is ethereal and celestial, Rembrandt’s light, evoked through color, is earthy, metallic, and material—but this one painting which hangs in the National Gallery was painted in a slightly more classically realistic, lifelike style, more in the manner of the younger Rembrandt. Old age. All the facial detail is visible; all the traces life has left there are to be seen. The face is furrowed, wrinkled, sagging, ravaged by time. But the eyes are bright and, if not young, then somehow transcend the time that otherwise marks the face. It is as though someone else is looking at us, from somewhere inside the face, where everything is different. One can hardly be closer to another human soul. For as far as Rembrandt’s person is concerned, his good habits and bad, his bodily sounds and smells, his voice and his language, his thoughts and his opinions, his behavior, his physical flaws and defects, all the things that constitute a person to others, are no longer there, the painting is more than four hundred years old, and Rembrandt died the same year it was painted, so what is depicted here, what Rembrandt painted, is this person’s very being, that which he woke to every morning, that which immersed itself in thought, but which itself was not thought, that which immediately immersed itself in feelings, but which itself was not feeling, and that which he went to sleep to, in the end for good. That which, in a human, time does not touch and whence the light in the eyes springs. The difference between this painting and the others the late Rembrandt painted is the difference between seeing and being seen. That is, in this picture he sees himself seeing whilst also being seen, and no doubt it was only the Baroque period with its penchant for mirrors within mirrors, the play within the play, staged scenes and a belief in the interdependence of all things, when moreover craftsmanship attained heights witnessed neither before nor since, that such a painting was possible. But it exists in our age, it sees for us.

From Karl Ove Knausgård's Min kamp. Første bok

Weekend Music

Rolling Stones of the rap game, not braggin
Lips bigger than Jagger, not saggin
Spell it backwards, Ima leave it at that
That aint got nothin to do with rap

"Ухааны тэнхээг шавхан улс Монголоо хөгжүүлэх түүхэн цаг үе"

Ene helsen yarisniig ni humuus sonsoj, unshdag l bailguy dee...

Өнийн түүхээ өнөөгийн ололтоор бататгаж, өрнөх ирээдүйд улам ихийг бүтээх золбоо, зорилго, зориг бидэнд бий. Эх орныхоо тусгаар тогтнол, эрх чөлөөг нандигнаж, эвийн хүч, Шударга ёсыг эрхэмлэж, үүрэг хариуцлагыг ухамсарлан ухааны тэнхээг шавхан улс Монголоо хөгжүүлэх түүхэн цаг үед амьдарч байгаагаа ямагт санаж дор бүрнээ хичээн зүтгэцгээе.

Монгол Улсын Ерөнхийлөгч Цахиагийн Элбэгдоржийн Үндэсний Их Баяр Наадмыг Хааж Хэлсэн Үг