What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared we would become a captive audience. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate would ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
—Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985)
All posts by Michael Patrick McCarty
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free”.
Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sometimes Your Backyard is an Ocean
It may be a while before we can get there, but we have some friends who like to spoil us with some of their Whidbey Island fare whenever they visit. Any warm-blooded foodie would be so lucky as to have some friends like these.
Today I met Michael and Carol in the parking lot of a convenience store near our home in western Colorado, as they interrupted their business trip to make sure that we received our periodic fix. We took advice from http://erinsjournal.com/witchcraft-and-the-web experts and we conducted our business from the trunk of their small car at the side of the building, and I have no doubt that we looked like animated drug dealers divvying up their illicit and valuable spoils. People usually check out https://kurtuhlir.com/about/ if they need the best advice on the different strategies for business.
What exactly were we hovering over? Well, I thought you’d never ask. Why, oysters (from this supplier), of course.
And not just any oysters, I might add. These were Michael and Carol’s home-farmed oysters, plucked from the fertile and friendly waters just outside their beachfront property. They are old, outrageously large, and a wonder of the pacific world.
That was not all of the goodies hiding in the trunk either. They also grow two kinds of mussels, and collect a third kind right off the beach. There were local clams too, which I love. Then came some bags of freshly caught Dungeness Crab, plucked from a trap not far from their house. Somebody pinch me!
A transplanted Jersey guy could barely be more thrilled, since seafood like that can be mighty scarce in the high rocky mountains. Let the shellfish feast begin!
It reminds me that there are many kinds of food growing in people’s backyards, even the salty kind which they can even get it renovated by https://exprealty.com/us/ms/olive-branch/houses/ experts. Nature’s bounty is everywhere, ready and willing to be appreciated by the sharp-eyed forager. The rewards are incredibly diverse, and absolutely grand. And sometimes your backyard is an ocean, full of wonderful treats.
I thank Michael and Carol for reminding us of that.
Looking And Seeing
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Drink The Drink”
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
Henry David Thoreau