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. . . LEISURE see "ENTERTAINMENT, HOBBIES, & LEISURE ACTIVITIES" for related links It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy. When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful. --W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (1907-1973) English-born poet and man of letters. _A Certain World_ [1970] "Work, Labor, and Play" The three things most difficult are--to keep a secret, to forget an injury, and to make good use of leisure. --Chilon (6th cent. B.C.) One of the Seven Sages of Greece. ^^ Another symptom of the leisure society was the decline and fall of Sunday blue laws. At one time, statutes and ordinances outlawed most kinds of work on Sunday, plus most sports and games. Well into the twentieth century, there were statutes on the books which seemed to make official what one might call the Puritan Sunday: a day of prayer and quiet, devoted solely to virtue and to God. Thus in Vermont, in the second decade of the century, it was against the law to do "any business or employment" on Sunday, "except works of necessity or charity"; or to hold a "ball or dance," or engage in any "game, sport, or play," or "resort" to a "house of entertainment for amusement or recreation"; hunting was also prohibited. In Mississippi, under its 1927 Code, "farces," plays, games, "tricks, ball-playing of any kind, juggling, sleight of hand, or feats of dexterity" were prohibited on Sunday. The Ohio statute against "desecration" of the Sabbath as late as the 1950s added a ban on any "rope dancing or sparring exhibition, variety show, negro minstrelsy, living statuary, [or] ballooning" in the "forenoon," and "ten pins or other games of similar kind" all day; also "hunting, fishing or shooting." The political power of these laws was not just a matter of religion; unions also wanted a guaranteed day off. Nobody yet dreamed of the modern Sunday - a day for church, to be sure, for millions; but also for sleeping late, for family shopping, and (above all) for fun. Even in the early part of the century, some courts either interpreted their Sunday laws to allow baseball and movies, or struck down laws which were too harsh on these innocent pursuits. Oregon, in fact, repealed its Sunday laws by referendum in 1916. By 1947 Vermont had exempted "winter sports, tennis or golf" from its statute; and other sports were allowed, so long as they did not charge admission. Voters of Vermont towns could also vote to permit "baseball, moving pictures, lectures or concerts" on Sunday, but not until two in the afternoon (six o'clock in the case of the movies). The morning, apparently, was still reserved for church. But the laws continued to crumble. True, the United States was and is a deeply religious country. Many of its churches are jammed to the rafters on Sunday - in the morning. But what happens later is another story. The Puritan Sunday is dead. To begin with, the country is a religious melting pot; Sunday is no longer the only sacred day. More significantly, families in which everybody works do most of their shopping on Sunday. The stores are eager to sell on Sunday, and people are eager to buy. And after they pray, and shop, they want to enjoy. Even the descendants of Puritans no longer want the Puritan Sunday. The Puritan Sunday is no fun. --Lawrence M. Friedman (1930- ) _American Law in the 20th Century_ [2002] Ch. 8 "Crime and Criminal Justice in the Postwar World" pp. 229-230 ^^ A Life of Leisure and a Life of Laziness are two things. --Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer and physician. Comp., _Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs_, 240 [1732] ----- otiose (adjective) ['o-tee-os or 'o-dee-os (US)] Serving no useful purpose; being at leisure or ease, idle, inactive, unemployed.   LENDING . . see "MONEY" for related links - INTERVIEWER: There was a famous rally in which President Nixon appeared with Billy Graham, in a huge amphitheatre, full of people, with some anti-war protestors, but they ended up with everyone saying, "God bless America". Do you remember that? JOHN EHRLICHMAN: Oh very well - it cost me money. We were all sitting in a row, in the front row - the Nixon family, and a couple of us on the staff - and the time came for them to take an offering, and Nixon didn't have any money. So out of the side of his mouth he sort of passed the word down - I need twenty dollars. So I came up with twenty dollars, and I passed it around behind the row to him; and on coast-to-coast television the President of the United States made a great show of dropping his twenty dollars in the, in the collection plate. I never got repaid. --interview w/ John D. Ehrlichman (1925-1999) American presidential assistant for domestic affairs during the Nixon administration - Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those that other people have lent me. --Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844-1924) French novelist and man of letters, _La vie littιraire_ [1888] If you lend a person any money, it becomes lost for any purpose as one's own. When you ask for it back again, you may find a friend made an enemy by your kindness. If you begin to press still further, either you must part with that which you have intrusted, or else you must lose that friend. ----Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184 BC) Roman comic dramatist - Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. --William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, _Hamlet_ [1601] Beggars mounted run their horse to death. --William Shakespeare (15641616) English dramatist. _King Henry VI_ [1590-1591] pt. III,I, iv -  LETTERS . . see "COMMUNICATION" for related links ^^ A letter to George Burns: Dear George: I'm very nearsighted, and I have learned that men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses. Yesterday I was walking along the beach in my bikini and took off my glasses. I couldn't tell if anybody made a pass at me or not, I couldn't see anything. What am I to do? Out of Focus Dear Focus: Put on your glasses and take off your bikini. Or better yet, take off your glasses and your bikini. But you might catch cold, so you better wear a hat. --George Burns [Nathan Birnbaum] (1896-1996) American comedian, _Dear George_ ^^ Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company. --Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788-1824) English Romantic poet and satirist - To make this trivial world sublime, Take half a Gramme of phanerothyme. --Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}, letter to Humphrey Osmond [30 March 1956] To fathom Hell or soar angelic, Just take a pinch of psychedelic. --Humphrey Osmond (1917-2004) British psychiatrist, reply to Aldous Huxley [1956] http://info.interactivist.net/article.pl?sid=04/03/06/2114237&mode=nested&tid=11 - If you find yourself unwilling to accept me, will you please pass this letter on to your sister Caroline. --Lord Ralph Lovelace (1839-1906) English writer, alpinist and linguist (proposal letter to Mary Stuart Wortley) I hope you are well and adore me as much as ever. If you want to come out [to California] I'll pay your fare as far west as Schenectady. --Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895-1977) American film comedian, letter to Betty Forsling Last night the thermometer dropped from 95 to 59. I dreamed that you and I were cruising the Mediterranean on my 30,000-ton yacht, the Kaiser Wilhelm II, with an orchestra of 118 pieces to entertain us, and 1,000 kegs of beer in the hold. Today I mixed and laid concrete for four hours. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist and literary critic, letter to Sara Haardt I have made this [letter] longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. --Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist, _Lettres Provinciales_ [1657], no. 16 Please bring my flute. --Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) to his wife, informing her he had eloped with Mary Goodwin and asking her to join them. Correspondences are like small-clothes before the invention of suspenders: it is impossible to keep them up. --Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman and essayist, to Mrs. Crowe [31 Jan 1841] I long to put the experience of fifty years at once into your young lives, to give you at once the key to that treasure chamber every gem of which has cost me tears and struggles and prayers, but you must work for these inward treasures yourselves. --Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American writer and philanthropist, letter to her twin daughters - My dear Mr. K.: I responded to your first letter out of courtesy. I ignored the second as a hint that I did not intend to become your permanent pen pal. The arrival of still a third obliges me to be a little more explicit. I have always been interested in the morbid aberrations which drive persons like yourself so pompously to seek correspondence with strangers. In this respect your letters have been illuminating. But they also reveal you as a witless and meddlesome old ass, self-deluded and full of vapors. I must, therefore, urge you in the future to address yourself to your own affairs rather than to mine. As an incentive toward this healthy goal, I promise that your future correspondence will be returned to you unopened. --Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976) American screenwriter and novelist, _Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo_ [1970] (In a letter to W.F.K, [12 January 1948]) - Hartford June 14/76. I am a long time answering your letter, my dear Miss Harriet, but then you must remember that it is an equally long time since I received it--so that makes us even, & nobody to blame on either side. Truly Yrs S.L.Clemens. Mark Twain {Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot} - Darling Laura, sweet whiskers, do try to write me better letters. Your last, dated 19 December received today, so eagerly expected, was a bitter disappointment. Do realize that a letter need not be a bald chronicle of events; I know you lead a dull life now, my heart bleeds for it, though I believe you could make it more interesting if you had the will. But that is no reason to make your letters as dull as your life. I simply am not interested in Bridget's children. Do grasp that. --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) Engish novelist, letter to his wife Beware of writing to me. I always answer. . . My father spent the last 20 years of his life writing letters. If someone thanked him for a present, he thanked them for thanking him and there was no end to the exchange but death. --Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) Engish novelist, letter to Lady Mosley [30 March 1966) - - The mailman passes by, And I just wonder why He never stops to ring my front doorbell. There's not a single line from that dear old love of mine, No, not a word since I last heard "Farewell. " I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter And make believe it came from you. I'm gonna write words, oh, so sweet, They're gonna knock me off my feet. A lot of kisses on the bottom, I'll be glad I got' em. I'm gonna smile and say, "I hope you're feeling better," And close "with love" the way you do. I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter, And make believe it came from you. --Joe Young (1889-1939) American songwriter, "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" [1935 song] sung by Fats Waller] {music by Fred E. Ahlert} - My husband asked me to write a recommend that he supports his family. He cannot read, so don't tell him. Just take him. He ain't no good to me. He ain't done nothing but raise hell and drink lemon essence since I married him eight years ago, and I got to feed seven kids of his. Maybe you can get him to carry a gun. He's good on squirrels and eating. Take him and welcome. I need his grub and the bed for the kids. Don't tell him this, but just take him. --anonymous hand-delivered letter in 1943 by an Arkansas man to his draft board. ----- missive MIS-iv, noun: A written message; a letter. . . see "HURTING (SOMEONE)" for related links The greater the truth, the greater the libel. --Lord Ellenborough (1750-1818) English lawyer Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls; Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed. --William Shakespeare (1564-1616) _Othello_ [1604-1605] . . see "POLITICS" for related links Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich. --William F. Buckley Jr. (19252008) American author and journalist. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals. --G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (18741936) English essayist, novelist, and poet. _Orthodoxy_[1908] If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart, and if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no head. --Winston Churchill (18741965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [19401945, 19511955]. The tone and tendency of liberalism . . . is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress. --Benjamin Disraeli (18041881) British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 18741880]. Speech in London [24 June 1872]. The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women of all classes detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined. --T.S. Eliot (18881965) Anglo-American poet, critic, and dramatist. A liberal is a man who is willing to spend somebody else's money. --Carter Glass (1858-1946) American newspaper publisher and politician. In an interview with the Associated Press [24 September 1938]. Liberals defend military spending and conservatives social spending in their own districts. --Robert A. Hall "Hall's Law of Politics" Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _The Notebooks of Lazarus Long_ [1978] If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual. --Frank Herbert (19201986) American science-fiction author. _Dune_ [serialized in "Analog" magazine 1963 & 1965; published 1965] The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy. --Paul Johnson (1928 ) British historian. The believing mind reaches its perihelion in the so-called Liberals. They believe in each and every quack who sets up his booth on the fair-grounds, including the Communists. The Communists have some talents, too, but they always fall short of believing in the Liberals. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _Prejudices: Third Series_ [1922] Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent--not to say toddlerlike--idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums. --P.J. O'Rourke (1947 ) American political satirist. Something the liberal will have to explain and stand trial for is his inability to see the Communist as he truly is and not some kind of Peck's Bad Boy of liberalism who is basically all right but just a bit overboard and rough-edged. This ideological myopia is even true of some who have met the Reds in philosophical combat and who should have learned something from crossing swords. --Ronald Reagan (19112004) American President [19811989] and former Hollywood actor. _Where's the Rest of Me?_ [1965] I can remember way back when a liberal was one who was generous with his own money. --Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (18791935) American humorist and actor. We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. --Lionel Trilling (19051975) American critic and author. No professional liberal is intellectually honest. That's a real indictment but true as the Ten Commandments. Professional liberals aren't familiar with the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. --Harry S. Truman (18841972) American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [19451953]. In Margaret Truman _Harry S. Truman_ [1973] p. 8. - One difference between a liberal and a pickpocket is that if you demand your money back from a pickpocket, he won't question your motives. --National Review TOPICAL - Yet the true nature of our loud divisiveness is rarely remarked upon. In the last three decades, there has been a steady evolution from liberal to moderately conservative politics among a majority of the voters, whether gauged by the recent spate of Republican presidents or Bill Clinton's calculated shift to the center. Now the House, Senate, presidency and the majority of state governorships and legislatures are in Republican hands. A Bush win will ensure a conservative Supreme Court for a generation. In contrast, the universities, the arts, the major influential media and Hollywood are predominately liberal and furious. They bring an enormous amount of capital, talent, education and cultural influence into the political fray but continue to lose real political power. The talented elite plays the same role to the rest of America as the Europeans do to the United States venting and seething because the supposedly less sophisticated, but far more powerful, average Joes don't embrace their visions of utopia. Elites from college professors and George Soros to Bruce Springsteen and Garrison Keillor believe that their underappreciated political insight is a natural byproduct of their own proven artistic genius, education, talent or capital. How then can a tongue-tied George W. Bush and his cronies so easily fool Americans, when novelists, actors, singers, comedians and venture capitalists have spent so much time and money warning them of their danger? For all Sean Penn's rants, Rather's sermons, Michael Moore's mythodramas and Jon Stewart's postmodern snickers, America, even in times of a controversial war and rocky economy, is still not impressed. National Public Radio, "Nightline" and the New York Times are working overtime to assert their views in this philosophical debate; Jimmy Carter and Al Gore not George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole are fuming. Most Americans snore or flip the channel. It is apparently a terrible thing to be sensitive, glib, smart, educated or chic and not be listened to, as we have seen from this noisy and often hysterical campaign among elites. That is the real divide in this country, and it is only going to get worse. --Victor Davis Hanson (1953 ) American military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. "Real divide is only in elitist minds," _SF Chronicle_ [27 October 2004] - Post-1960s liberalism has lost its communal sensibility and now talks almost exclusively of autonomy and rights, not obligation or moral accountability. ...it has aggressively labored to devalue society by trying to banish moral and religious discourse from the public arena. Even the famous liberal belief in openness, tolerance and free speech now looks like a discarded belief. Witness all the disinvited speakers, stolen newspapers and current not-very-liberal efforts to silence Dr. Laura Schlessinger and derecognize campus Christian groups. --John Leo [2000] - From the time of John Kennedy's assassination in 1963 to Jimmy Carter's election in 1976, the Democratic party was gradually taken over by a bizarre doctrine that might be called Punitive Liberalism. According to this doctrine, America had been responsible for numerous crimes and misdeeds through its history for which it deserved punishment and chastisement. White Americans had enslaved blacks and committed genocide against Native Americans. They had oppressed women and tyrannized minority groups, such as the Japanese who had been interned in camps during World War II. They had been harsh and unfeeling toward the poor. By our greed, we had despoiled the environment and were consuming a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and resources. We had coddled dictators abroad and violated human rights out of our irrational fear of communism. Given this bill of indictment, the Punitive Liberals held that Americans had no right at all to feel pride in their country's history or optimism about its future. Those who expressed such pride were written off as ignorant patriots who could not face up to the sins of the past; and those who looked ahead to a brighter future were dismissed as naive "Pollyannas" who did not understand that the brief American century was now over. The Punitive Liberals felt that the purpose of national policy was to punish the nation for its crimes rather than to build a stronger America and a brighter future for all. --James Pierson, http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/245kubju.asp & see Punitive liberals are often defensive about their patriotism understandably enough, since their relentless complaining about America often is hard to distinguish from out-and-out anti-Americanism. Their defense is that "true" patriotism consists in acknowledging your own country's faults and exhorting it to improve. Well, maybe. Certainly there's nothing unpatriotic about criticizing your government or its policies. And since love of country is a matter of the heart, it's presumptuous to question anyone's patriotism. But imagine a man who treats his wife the way the punitive liberals treat America: constantly belittling her, pointing out her faults and never showing her any kindness. He may love her, but most people would agree he has a twisted way of expressing it. --James Taranto, http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005246 - Something odd began to happen mainly to the country, and incidentally to people like me. As feminism and multiculturalism more and more sought to remake society, attacking much that had served humanity well as narrow or even antique, we concluded we could no longer in good conscience remain on that side. There was both too little respect for the accumulated wisdom of the ages and too much playing havoc with truth and common sense. --Harry Stein _How I Accidentally Joined the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (and Found Inner Peace)_ [2000] end page | KARMA - KENTUCKY | KINDNESS | KILL - KU KLUX KLAN | KNOWLEDGE | LABELS - LAS VEGAS | LANGUAGE | LATIN - LAUGHTER | LAW (THE) - LAWYERS | LAZINESS - LEGACIES | LEISURE - LIBERALS | LIBERTY - LIES | LIFE | LIFESTYLE - LIMITATIONS | LINCOLN (ABRAHAM) - LITTERING | LIVE - LONDON | LONELINESS - LOUISIANA | LOVE - PAGE 1 (A-L) | LOVE - PAGE 2 (M-Z) | LOVE & MARRIAGE - LYNCHING | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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