Showing posts with label Tom Paine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom Paine. Show all posts

January 20, 2025

"Trump to call for a 'revolution' in common sense."

Says the crawl at CNN, which I'm watching with the sound off. Lots of reporters in heavy jackets and scarves standing in front of various inauguration scenes — the Episcopal church, the line for humble citizens to get into the outdoor space for witnessing the indoor swearing in, etc. 

That "'revolution' in common sense" language refers to the inaugural address, and it sounds like an interesting mix of order and disorder... and also like a reference to the Revolutionary War pamphlet titled "Common Sense." 

May 16, 2021

"The father has to worry about the pitfalls in a way the teacher doesn’t. He has to worry about his son’s conduct..."

"... he has to worry about socializing his little Tom Paine. But once little Tom Paine has been let into the company of men and the father is still educating him as a boy, the father is finished. Sure, he’s worrying about the pitfalls—if he wasn’t, it would be wrong. But he’s finished anyway. Little Tom Paine has no choice but to write him off, to betray the father and go boldly forth to step straight into life’s very first pit. And then, all on his own—providing real unity to his existence—to step from pit to pit for the rest of his days, until the grave, which, if it has nothing else to recommend it, is at least the last pit into which one can fall."

From "I Married a Communist" by Philip Roth.

The character in the novel became entranced with Tom Paine by reading "Citizen Tom Paine" by Howard Fast, which came out in 1943.