Miley's Engaged

"Thank you for all the love today :) I'm happy to share this news with you all. I feel like all my dreams are coming true. Have a great day," the 19-year-old tweeted to her 5.8 million followers.

-- ONTD

Quite a surprise. I like this ONTDer comment: "I feel like even 24 or 23 sounds young, 19 is still a baybee! If you have to sneak booze into your reception then you are too young." I hate to be a pissy peggy, but if I were putting money down in a pool, I'd bet this marriage won't get past the three-year mark. I wouldn't think it a bad bet that the engagement breaks off, before we even get to the question of the marriage. She does look good, though.

Miley's Engaged

"Thank you for all the love today :) I'm happy to share this news with you all. I feel like all my dreams are coming true. Have a great day," the 19-year-old tweeted to her 5.8 million followers.

-- ONTD

Quite a surprise. I like this ONTDer comment: "I feel like even 24 or 23 sounds young, 19 is still a baybee! If you have to sneak booze into your reception then you are too young." I hate to be a pissy peggy, but if I were putting money down in a pool, I'd bet this marriage won't get past the three-year mark. I wouldn't think it a bad bet that the engagement breaks off, before we even get to the question of the marriage. She does look good, though.

1948 State Department Planning Document

“We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population … In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity … To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives … We should cease to talk about vague and … unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

-- George Kennan, post-World War II State Department policy planning document

In the original quote, you can see that Mr. Kennan is referring specifically to Asia and the Far East, but this edited version, making for a more generalized proposition, is not bad. Obviously, America no longer has that kind of power-position in the twenty-first century.

1948 State Department Planning Document

“We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population … In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity … To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives … We should cease to talk about vague and … unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

-- George Kennan, post-World War II State Department policy planning document

In the original quote, you can see that Mr. Kennan is referring specifically to Asia and the Far East, but this edited version, making for a more generalized proposition, is not bad. Obviously, America no longer has that kind of power-position in the twenty-first century.

Sylvia

Part three from that entry we are calling “First Snow”. She is still contemplating the fall of civilizations, and what it might be like when America is reduced to ruins and fragments of memory.

_ _ _

And so I will belong to a dark age, and historians will say “We have few documents to show how the common people lived at this time. Records lead us to believe that a majority were killed. But there were glorious men.” And school children will sigh and learn the names of Truman and Senator McCarthy. Oh, it is hard for me to reconcile myself to this . But maybe this is why I am a girl - so I can live more safely than the boys I have known and envied, so I can bear children, and instill in them the biting eating desire to learn and love life which I will never quite fulfill, because there isn’t time at all, but instead the quick desperate fear, the ticking clock, and the snow which comes too suddenly upon the summer.

-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950

_ _ _

In spite of being a budding artist, Sylvia can be a little traditional in her attitudes, no? Well, this was long before women started burning their bras. And, yeah, we are talking about Joe McCarthy, the commie-scare guy. I guess he was in the news a lot at the time, along with President Truman. 1950.

On a side note, I wonder what would have happened if Sylvia had Twitter and Facebook. Would it have killed her journal writing? Would she have been content posting cat macros and tweets?

Sylvia

Part three from that entry we are calling “First Snow”. She is still contemplating the fall of civilizations, and what it might be like when America is reduced to ruins and fragments of memory.

_ _ _

And so I will belong to a dark age, and historians will say “We have few documents to show how the common people lived at this time. Records lead us to believe that a majority were killed. But there were glorious men.” And school children will sigh and learn the names of Truman and Senator McCarthy. Oh, it is hard for me to reconcile myself to this . But maybe this is why I am a girl - so I can live more safely than the boys I have known and envied, so I can bear children, and instill in them the biting eating desire to learn and love life which I will never quite fulfill, because there isn’t time at all, but instead the quick desperate fear, the ticking clock, and the snow which comes too suddenly upon the summer.

-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950

_ _ _

In spite of being a budding artist, Sylvia can be a little traditional in her attitudes, no? Well, this was long before women started burning their bras. And, yeah, we are talking about Joe McCarthy, the commie-scare guy. I guess he was in the news a lot at the time, along with President Truman. 1950.

On a side note, I wonder what would have happened if Sylvia had Twitter and Facebook. Would it have killed her journal writing? Would she have been content posting cat macros and tweets?