Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation. -- Alasdair Gray.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt


Star Shock  The disproportionate way that meeting celebrities feels slightly like being told a piece of life-changing news. (From Douglas Coupland's dictionary of the near future.)


I've never been keen on aphorisms, but the two above are pretty good. The first comes from Ken McLeod's blog Early Days of a Better Nation, whose title is inspired by the Gray quote and by the following:

If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.

-- Graydon Saunders

I had some star shock moments this summer. At the beginning of the summer I saw a She & Him concert at the Jay Pritzker Pavillion. She & Him is Zooey Deschanel  and M. Ward. Then I saw an event at the University of Chicago with James Fallows, Tom Geoghagen and Rick Perlstein. Next at the Printers Row Book Fair I saw Barabara Ehrenreich who discussed what she encountered while undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Before her, I had witnessed Christopher Hitchens's last public appearance before he learned he had cancer of the esophagus. This past Monday I saw Pavement play at the Jay Pritzker Pavillion. Penny Pritzker was the head of the Obama campaign's finance committee.