patrickbrianmooney

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[patrickbrianmooney]

A history professor at university had once told her, Violence is what people do when they run out of good ideas. It's attractive because it's simple, it's direct, it's almost always available as an option. When you can't think of a good rebuttal for your opponent's argument, you can always punch them in the face.

James S. A. Corey, Abbadon's Gate, ch. 44

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Much Republican opinion would soon hold that it was moderate liberalism that had failed, because it did not prevent the Dictatorship, and that therefore only a radical liberalism could succeed. The result was simply a new round of arbitrary government from the republican left starting in 1931, continuing the cycle of arbitrary rule begun by the Dictatorship, a process that continued for two more rounds until it erupted in a complete conflagration. From this perspective—which is a compelling one—the Dictatorship was the first step in the coming of the Civil War of 1936.

Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977

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If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected—an arrival, an explanation, an apology. There had never been one, a fact I could have accepted, were it not true that, just when I had got used to the limits and dimensions of one moment, I was expelled into the next and made to wonder again if any shapes hid in its shadows. That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be entirely different. And so the ordinary demanded unblinking attention. Any tedious hour might be the last of its kind.

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, ch. 8

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Everything's possible, isn't it? The world soon teaches one that.

Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun, ch. 7

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The Dictatorship featured close association with Catholicism, not merely breaking with liberal precedent but virtually reassuming the norms of the ancien régime. Religion, in fact, became the main single ideological force invoked to legitimize the new regime, with official support for Church activities and the formation of numerous local 'juntas ciudadanas' (citizen committees) to ensure the orthodoxy of social and cultural activities. The Catalan and Catholic statesman Cambó, who had no illusions about the long-term viability of the Dictatorship, observed with dismay how 'the Church, ignoring all its traditions, placed itself at the service of force, against law and justice.' This, he feared, might result in an anticlerical eruption when the Dictatorship was over, and such indeed proved to be the case in 1931.

Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977

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Abandoned homesteads like this one were rare, however, so perhaps all the tales of perished settlers were at root one tale, carried off in every direction the way one cry of alarm is carried among birds through the whole of the woods and even the sky. It might have been this house that peopled all these mountains. When it broke it might have cast them invisibly into the wind, like spores, thousands from one drab husk, or millions, for there was no reason to believe that anyone ever had heard all the tales of unsheltered folk that were in these mountains, or that anyone ever would. And that is perhaps why, when they saw me alone, they would practically tug at my sleeve. You may have noticed that people in bus stations, if they know you are also alone, will glance at you sidelong, with a look that is both piercing and intimate, and if you let them sit beside you, they will tell you long lies about numerous children who are all gone now, and mothers who were beautiful and cruel, and in every case they will tell you that they were abandoned, disappointed, or betrayed—that they should not be alone, that only remarkable events, of the kind one reads in books, could have made their condition so extreme. And that is why, even if the things they say are true, they have the quick eyes and active hands and the passion for meticulous elaboration of people who know they are lying. Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery. When one looks from inside at a lighted window, or looks from above at the lake, one sees the image of oneself in a lighted room, the image of oneself among trees and sky—the deception is obvious, but flattering all the same. When one looks from the darkness into the light, however, one sees all the difference between here and there, this and that. Perhaps all unsheltered people are angry in their hearts, and would like to break the roof, spine, and ribs, and smash the windows and flood the floor and spindle the curtains and bloat the couch.

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping, ch. 8

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You do not comprehend, Captain Marshall. There is no such thing as a plain fact of murder. Murder springs, nine times out of ten, out of the character and circumstances of the murdered person. Because the victim was the kind of person he or she was, therefore was he or she murdered! Until we can understand fully and completely exactly what kind of person Arlena Marshall was, we shall not be able to see clearly and exactly the kind of person who murdered her. From that springs the necessity of our questions.

Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun, chapter 5

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/24/23andme-dna-privacy-delete/

[patrickbrianmooney]

Both the Spanish dictator and the king viewed Mussolini's regime as the most friendly foreign power, if for now other reason than that it was the only other authoritarian west European state. [Dictator Miguel] Primo de Rivera was even more fulsome in an interview with the Fascist journal Impero, expressing his desire that 'Spain should follow in the footsteps of Italian Fascism,' and that 'Spanish fascism' (which he otherwise failed to identify or define) would help to 'liberate the country from harmful elements.' 'Fascism is a universal phenomenon that ought to conquer all nations ... Fascism is a living gospel.' In Rome he further extolled Mussolini as a 'world figure' and 'apostle of the campaign against revolution and anarchy' who had achieved 'order, work, and justice.'

Stanley G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977

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Mt. Zion Cemetery, St. Paul, 6 June 2023. Film Washi S (a low-speed, high-contrast film originally developed for sound recording) exposed at box speed and developed in Rodinal. File no. 1369-08.

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