There's Beauty in the Bellow

History is the people's discipline—the only academic subject that demands no special professional training. Some of my favorite history books are by lawyers, journalists, scientists and nuns. To write well about history you do not need a Ph.D., just a few rare but accessible qualities: insatiable curiosity, critical intellect, disciplined imagination, indefatigability in the pursuit of truth and a slightly weird vocation for trying to get to know dead people by studying the sources they have left us. . . . . . . . . . I suspect, however, that the very virtues of my discipline are responsible for the vices of the writers who abuse it. Because history is the people's discipline, books about it are relatively salable—invitingly so, to indolent cupidity. History's accessibility to non-specialists makes it seem dangerously, delusively easy. From " Faulty Navigators ," a review and entertaining rant on four (inadequate) books on Columbus by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The eye, O priests, is on fire; impressions received by the eye are on fire; and whatever sensation, pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent, originates in dependence on impressions received by the eye, that also is on fire. ~Buddha Well, first off. This speech by the Buddha has great rhythm. The rhythm sets me on fire. Which he would disapprove of. Secondly, I like the picture that it creates: a world scorching with beauty, music, flavors and colors. Mr. Buddha implies that all this profligate glory is a very bad thing. He forbids getting fired up about anything Think of all the other pictures associated with fire: a face burning with any number of emotions: anger, joy, passion, love; burning eyes, blazing eyes. "Fiery" is often a complementary adjective . . . . except when applied to "pit," of course. Dorothy Sayers said: "If I had found a man to my measure, I would have set a torch to the world." Not to be confused with watching the world burn. You ca