(“Purity Supreme” was the name of a grocery store I used to work at in Weymouth MA.)
On Supergirl, Purity is so much more fun to watch than Reign that I can’t help thinking they made a mistake in making Reign rather than Purity this season’s major antagonist.
Apparently this quotation from General Baron Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord is well-known, but I just came across it for the first time (in one of the latest Ender books):
I divide officers into four classes – the clever, the lazy, the stupid, and the industrious. The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest commands. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the high staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately.
Turns out there’s dispute both as to the authenticity and as to the precise wording of the quotation. But it’s a great line in any case.
I want to do the following in this paper: First to present the theses that constitute the hard core of the Marxist theory of history. I claim that all of them are essentially correct. …
Marx … gives a historical account of the emergence of capitalism that makes the point that much or even most of the initial capitalist property is the result of plunder, enclosure, and conquest. Similarly … the role of force and violence in exporting capitalism to the – as we would now say – Third World is heavily emphasized. Admittedly, all this is generally correct, and insofar as it is there can be no quarrel with labeling such capitalism exploitative.