“What made the United States frontier experience different from, say, the Russian or the South American was precisely the role of government in surveying the land ahead of time and providing pioneers clear titles to it — the basis of their freedom and security.” – Michael Harris reviewing The Fabric of America in the LA Times.
“I knew that sometimes swimmers kept an exact count of every stroke in a meditative exercise much like the Zen Buddhist practice of kinhin, a moving contemplation in which you walk clockwise around a room, timing each step with each breath. While such discipline has always seemed extreme to me, I understood then that there was something universal about the desire to calculate experience by attending to its smallest increments.” – From Akiko Busch’s meditation on swimming in a river in the NYT Magazine
“Did I say keep your friends? Keep your friends, hold on to your friends. Don’t lose your friends.” – Advice from a fictional Ernest Hemingway in Tobias Wolff’s Old School
@”…precisely the role of government in surveying the land ahead of time and providing pioneers clear titles to it — the basis of their freedom and security.”
Of course, the freedom and security of the Native American peoples from whom these lands were stolen or obtained by deceit and treachery, don’t enter into Andro Linklater’s consideration, even though he just barely mentions the no-account Injuns.
social darwinism buddy
If ‘anonymous’ applies social darwinism consistently, then he should be able to accept an eventual invasion and seizure of this country by a more ‘advanced’ civilization.
I must admit, there’s more than one reason to count strokes in swimming! If you’re swimming backstroke in a pool, not counting will result in a pretty hard bump to the head.
There’s also a major benefit to counting strokes during 4am early morning swim practices–mostly that it allows you to doze off a little during each length!
The meditative part of swimming is very true though. It’s easy to get lost in it.
There are an awful lot of injuns who have jobs, run businesses, own land, worship how or what they please, vote, and even hold political office in the USA. It’s only an indictment of those individuals who don’t for not choosing to enjoy the freedom and prosperity with the rest of us. Sure we’d all like to have millions of acres of land to roam with only our close relatives and be able to kill anyone we wanted whenever we feel like it, but without Spanish horses and English guns, we’d be starving an unable to overpopulate.
To ‘The New Anonymous’:
Surely you ‘jest’.
I can’t quite follow your thought process here.