Matthew Royal > Recent Status Updates

The fact that we sit around as we do, worrying seriously about how best to preserve the life of the earth, is itself the sharpest measure of our involvement. It is not human arrogance that has taken us in this direction, but the most natural of natural events. We developed this way, we grew this way, we are this kind of species.

We have become, in a painful way, unwished-for way, nature itself.

It seems to be in the nature of biologic information that it not only stores itself up as energy but also instigates a search for more. It is an insatiable mechanism.

"We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized kind of demonology, in which the bacteria are the most visible and centrally placed of our adversaries."

This book is less about biology than biologically inspired philosophical meditations. They're divided into chapters only 4 or so pages long, so they're perfect to fill small moments in the day.

Impressions of the first 2 chapters: the classic argument that the new medium is evil and the old medium is good. Postman tries to get around the cliche by quickly getting metaphysical, redefining terms like "metaphor" and "typography" in the process. Plus: he describes Colbert's "truthiness" back in 1984. Still debating whether the author is going to say something wise, or if he's just trying to sound clever.

"goddam word-squeezers": right, Mr. Salinger... as though you're not one yourself.

"Well," said Mrs Smiling, "it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does sound interesting and appalling, while the others just sound appalling.

"Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey properly."

"You must make it plain to your husband right at the start what you expect of him. That is what a wife is for -- to scold her husband into becoming a good man." / "What a petty man he turned out to be, giving up responsibility for a pretty face."

"The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods."