The Art of Tetman Callis

True egalitarians

Tetman Callis — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:08:48 +0000

“Pneumococci are great levelers of vanity and ambition.” — Joseph Stanley Pennell, The History of Rome Hanks and Kindred Matters

Yee-haw! Git along, little dogies

Tetman Callis — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:19:05 +0000

“The best way to do good to the poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.” — Benjamin Franklin (quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVIII, Ch. XXIV, Sec. 3)

What’s the role for unpopular information?

Tetman Callis — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:00:53 +0000

“A popular government, without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.” — James Madison (quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XXIII, Sec. 18)

This does nothing but it does it well

Tetman Callis — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:27:08 +0000

Indirectly can be any direction

Tetman Callis — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:57:35 +0000

“The knowledge of what tends neither directly nor indirectly to make better men and better citizens is but a knowledge of trifles. It is not learning but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness.” — The Rev. Dr. William Smith (Provost, University of Pennsylvania, 1755-1779), quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XXIII, Sec. 15

Ignorance and silence in the name of God

Tetman Callis — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:15:48 +0000

“Learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world and printing has divulged them and libels against the best of governments. God keep us from both.” — Sir William Berkeley (Governor of Virginia, 1641-1677), quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XXIII, Sec. 3

I’ll have a slice of happiness, thank you, and a cup of joy on the side

Tetman Callis — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:51:40 +0000

“To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable. How much can you wish for a favorite warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father inside of it? How long can you see in your mind arms and legs hanging from telephone wires and starving dogs running down the streets with half-chewed hands dangling from their jaws? What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?” — Amy Tan, “The Joy Luck Club”

Would you like fries with that?

Tetman Callis — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:24:35 +0000

“The man who serves is the one who comes to understand other men.” — Nathaniel Wright Stephenson, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XXII, Sec. 9

Minding everyone’s business

Tetman Callis — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:21:43 +0000

“Gradually public opinion concerning the scope and purpose of government in its relation to the general welfare underwent a transformation. The view which had long been dominant was that national prosperity depended upon the prosperity of the manufacturing and commercial classes of the country; when they flourished the labourer would enjoy a ‘full dinner pail,’ the shopkeeper a good trade, the farmers high markets, and the professional classes would collect their fees; consequently it was only right that such important matters as the tariff and monetary standards should be determined according to the ideals of the great business interests of the country. The new view was that the object of legislation should be to aid all citizens with no special privilege or regard to any one class. Its birth was in the Granger movement. It was more widely disseminated by Populism, but its ablest presentation was by William Jennings Bryan, notably in his speech before the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1896: ‘You have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. A man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer. The attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the crossroads store is as much a business man as a merchant of New York. The farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day—who begins in the spring and toils all summer—and who, by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country, creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain. The miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their hiding place the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade, are as much business men as the few financial magnates, who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak for this broader class of business men.’” — The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XXI, Sec. 36

Making the magic

Tetman Callis — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:10:27 +0000

“It’s in words that the magic is—Abracadabra, Open Sesame, and the rest—but the magic words in one story aren’t magical in the next. The real magic is to understand which words work, and when, and for what; the trick is to learn the trick.” — John Barth, “Dunyazadiad”