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Einstein on Free Will and Imagination's Power
This week’s post highlights a very intriguing article by one Maria Popova who features an interview of Albert Einstein from the early 20th Century and gives us some background into his thinking and feelings of free will and its impact on our imagination. Since imagination and creativity go hand in hand, I felt it appropriate to include this blog post in my creativity series.
“Human being,…
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For Planet Earth, No Tourism is a Curse and a Blessing For the planet, the year without tourists was a curse and a blessing. With flights canceled, cruise ships mothballed and vacations largely scrapped, carbon emissions plummeted. Wildlife that usually kept a low profile amid a crush of tourists in vacation hot spots suddenly emerged. And a lack of cruise ships in places like Alaska meant that humpback whales could hear each other’s calls without the din of engines. That’s the good news. On the flip side, the disappearance of travelers wreaked its own strange havoc, not only on those who make their living in the tourism industry, but on wildlife itself, especially in developing countries. Many governments pay for conservation and enforcement through fees associated with tourism. As that revenue dried up, budgets were cut, resulting in increased poaching and illegal fishing in some areas. Illicit logging rose too, presenting a double-whammy for the environment. Because trees absorb and store carbon, cutting them down not only hurt wildlife habitats, but contributed to climate change. “We have seen many financial hits to the protection of nature,” said Joe Walston, executive vice president of global conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “But even where that hasn’t happened, in a lot of places people haven’t been able to get into the field to do their jobs because of Covid.” From the rise in rhino poaching in Botswana to the waning of noise pollution in Alaska, the lack of tourism has had a profound effect around the world. The question moving forward is which impacts will remain, and which will vanish, in the recovery. A change in the air While the pandemic’s impact on wildlife has varied widely from continent to continent, and country to country, its effect on air quality was felt more broadly. In the United States, greenhouse gas emissions last year fell more than 10 percent, as state and local governments imposed lockdowns and people stayed home, according to a report in January by the Rhodium Group, a research and consulting firm. The most dramatic results came from the transportation sector, which posted a 14.7 percent decrease. It’s impossible to tease out how much of that drop is from lost tourism versus business travel. And there is every expectation that as the pandemic loosens its grip, tourism will resume — likely with a vengeance. Still, the pandemic helped push American emissions below 1990 levels for the first time. Globally, carbon dioxide emissions fell 7 percent, or 2.6 billion metric tons, according to new data from international climate researchers. In terms of output, that is about double the annual emissions of Japan. “It’s a lot and it’s a little,” said Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Historically, it’s a lot. It’s the largest single reduction percent-wise over the last 100 years. But when you think about the 7 percent in the context of what we need to do to mitigate climate change, it’s a little.” In late 2019, the United Nations Environment Program cautioned that global greenhouse gases would need to drop 7.6 percent every year between 2020 and 2030. That would keep the world on its trajectory of meeting the temperature goals set under the Paris Agreement, the 2016 accord signed by nearly 200 nations. “The 7 percent drop last year is on par with what we would need to do year after year,” Dr. Smerdon said. “Of course we wouldn’t want to do it the same way. A global pandemic and locking ourselves in our apartments is not the way to go about this.” Interestingly, the drop in other types of air pollution during the pandemic muddied the climate picture. Industrial aerosols, made up of soot, sulfates, nitrates and mineral dust, reflect sunlight back into space, thus cooling the planet. While their reduction was good for respiratory health, it had the effect of offsetting some of the climate benefits of cascading carbon emissions. For the climate activist Bill McKibben, one of the first to sound the alarm about global warming in his 1989 book, “The End of Nature,” the pandemic underscored that the climate crisis won’t be averted one plane ride or gallon of gas at a time. “We’ve come through this pandemic year when our lives changed more than any of us imagined they ever would,” Mr. McKibben said during a Zoom webinar hosted in February by the nonprofit Green Mountain Club of Vermont. “Everybody stopped flying; everybody stopped commuting,” he added. “Everybody just stayed at home. And emissions did go down, but they didn’t go down that much, maybe 10 percent with that incredible shift in our lifestyles. It means that most of the damage is located in the guts of our systems and we need to reach in and rip out the coal and gas and oil and stick in the efficiency, conservation and sun and wind.” Wildlife regroups Just as the impact of the pandemic on air quality is peppered with caveats, so too is its influence on wildlife. Animals slithered, crawled and stomped out of hiding across the globe, sometimes in farcical fashion. Last spring, a herd of Great Orme Kashmiri goats was spotted ambling through empty streets in Llandudno, a coastal town in northern Wales. And hundreds of monkeys — normally fed by tourists — were involved in a disturbing brawl outside of Bangkok, apparently fighting over food scraps. In meaningful ways, however, the pandemic revealed that wildlife will regroup if given the chance. In Thailand, where tourism plummeted after authorities banned international flights, leatherback turtles laid their eggs on the usually mobbed Phuket Beach. It was the first time nests were seen there in years, as the endangered sea turtles, the largest in the world, prefer to nest in seclusion. Similarly, in Koh Samui, Thailand’s second largest island, hawksbill turtles took over beaches that in 2018 hosted nearly three million tourists. The hatchlings were documented emerging from their nests and furiously moving their flippers toward the sea. For Petch Manopawitr, a marine conservation manager of the Wildlife Conservation Society Thailand, the sightings were proof that natural landscapes can recover quickly. “Both Ko Samui and Phuket have been overrun with tourists for so many years,” he said in a phone interview. “Many people had written off the turtles and thought they would not return. After Covid, there is talk about sustainability and how it needs to be embedded in tourism, and not just a niche market but all kinds of tourism.” Updated March 6, 2021, 6:57 p.m. ET In addition to the sea turtles, elephants, leaf monkeys and dugongs (related to manatees) all made cameos in unlikely places in Thailand. “Dugongs are more visible because there is less boat traffic,” Mr. Manopawitr said. “The area that we were surprised to see dugongs was the eastern province of Bangkok. We didn’t know dugongs still existed there.” He and other conservationists believe that countries in the cross hairs of international tourism need to mitigate the myriad effects on the natural world, from plastic pollution to trampled parks. That message apparently reached the top levels of the Thai government. In September, the nation’s natural resources and environment minister, Varawut Silpa-archa, said he planned to shutter national parks in stages each year, from two to four months. The idea, he told Bloomberg News, is to set the stage so that “nature can rehabilitate itself.” An increase in poaching In other parts of Asia and across Africa, the disappearance of tourists has had nearly the opposite result. With safari tours scuttled and enforcement budgets decimated, poachers have plied their nefarious trade with impunity. At the same time, hungry villagers have streamed into protected areas to hunt and fish. There were reports of increased poaching of leopards and tigers in India, an uptick in the smuggling of falcons in Pakistan, and a surge in trafficking of rhino horns in South Africa and Botswana. Jim Sano, the World Wildlife Fund’s vice president for travel, tourism and conservation, said that in sub-Saharan Africa, the presence of tourists was a powerful deterrent. “It’s not only the game guards,” he said. “It’s the travelers wandering around with the guides that are omnipresent in these game areas. If the guides see poachers with automatic weapons, they report it.” In the Republic of Congo, the Wildlife Conservation Society has noticed an increase in trapping and hunting in and around protected areas. Emma J. Stokes, regional director of the Central Africa program for the organization, said that in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, monkeys and forest antelopes were being targeted for bushmeat. “It’s more expensive and difficult to get food during the pandemic and there is a lot of wildlife up there,” she said by phone. “We obviously want to deter people from hunting in the park, but we also have to understand what’s driving that because it’s more complex.” The Society and the Congolese government jointly manage the park, which spans 1,544 square miles of lowland rainforest — larger than Rhode Island. Because of the virus, the government imposed a national lockdown, halting public transportation. But the organization was able to arrange rides to markets since the park is considered an essential service. “We have also kept all 300 of our park staff employed,” she added. Largely absent: the whir of propellers, the hum of engines While animals around the world were subject to rifles and snares during the pandemic, one thing was missing: noise. The whir of helicopters diminished as some air tours were suspended. And cruise ships from the Adriatic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico were largely absent. That meant marine mammals and fish had a break from the rumble of engines and propellers. So did research scientists. Michelle Fournet is a marine ecologist who uses hydrophones (essentially aquatic microphones) to listen in on whales. Although the total number of cruise ships (a few hundred) pales in comparison to the total number of cargo ships (tens of thousands), Dr. Fournet says they have an outsize role in creating underwater racket. That is especially true in Alaska, a magnet for tourists in search of natural splendor. “Cargo ships are trying to make the most efficient run from point A to point B and they are going across open ocean where any animal they encounter, they encounter for a matter of hours,” she said. “But when you think about the concentration of cruise ships along coastal areas, especially in southeast Alaska, you basically have five months of near-constant vessel noise. We have a population of whales listening to them all the time.” Man-made noise during the pandemic dissipated in the waters near the capital of Juneau, as well as in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Dr. Fournet, a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, observed a threefold decrease in ambient noise in Glacier Bay between 2019 and 2020. “That’s a really big drop in noise,” she said, “and all of that is associated with the cessation of these cruise ships.” Covid-19 opened a window onto whale sounds in Juneau as well. Last July, Dr. Fournet, who also directs the Sound Science Research Collective, a marine conservation nonprofit, had her team lower a hydrophone in the North Pass, a popular whale-watching destination. “In previous years,” she said, “you wouldn’t have been able to hear anything — just boats. This year we heard whales producing feeding calls, whales producing contact calls. We heard sound types that I have never heard before.” Farther south in Puget Sound, near Seattle, whale-watching tours were down 75 percent last year. Tour operators like Jeff Friedman, owner of Maya’s Legacy Whale Watching, insist that their presence on the water benefits whales since the captains make recreational boaters aware of whale activity and radio them to slow down. Whale-watching companies also donate to conservation groups and report sightings to researchers. “During the pandemic, there was a huge increase in the number of recreational boats out there,” said Mr. Friedman, who is also president of the Pacific Whale Watch Association. “It was similar to R.V.s. People decided to buy an R.V. or a boat. The majority of the time, boaters are not aware that the whales are present unless we let them know.” Two years ago, in a move to protect Puget Sound’s tiny population of Southern Resident killer whales, which number just 75, Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee signed a law reducing boat speeds to 7 knots within a half nautical mile of the whales and increasing a buffer zone around them, among other things. Many cheered the protections. But environmental activists like Catherine W. Kilduff, a senior attorney in the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity, believe they did not go far enough. She wants the respite from noise that whales enjoyed during the pandemic to continue. “The best tourism is whale-watching from shore,” she said. Looking Ahead Debates like this are likely to continue as the world emerges from the pandemic and leisure travel resumes. Already, conservationists and business leaders are sharing their visions for a more sustainable future. Ed Bastian, Delta Air Lines’ chief executive, last year laid out a plan to become carbon neutral by spending $1 billion over 10 years on an assortment of strategies. Only 2.5 percent of global carbon emissions are traced to aviation, but a 2019 study suggested that could triple by midcentury. In the meantime, climate change activists are calling on the flying public to use their carbon budgets judiciously. Tom L. Green, a senior climate policy adviser with the David Suzuki Foundation, an environmental organization in Canada, said tourists might consider booking a flight only once every few years, saving their carbon footprint (and money) for a special journey. “Instead of taking many short trips, we could occasionally go away for a month or more and really get to know a place,” he said. For Mr. Walston of the Wildlife Conservation Society, tourists would be wise to put more effort into booking their next resort or cruise, looking at the operator’s commitment to sustainability. “My hope is not that we stop traveling to some of these wonderful places, because they will continue to inspire us to conserve nature globally,” he said. “But I would encourage anyone to do their homework. Spend as much time choosing a tour group or guide as a restaurant. The important thing is to build back the kind of tourism that supports nature.” Lisa W. Foderaro is a former reporter for The New York Times whose work has also appeared in National Geographic and Audubon Magazine. Source link Orbem News #Blessing #Curse #Earth #planet #Tourism
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Sometimes Finding The Right Watch Means Finding The Right Strap
Could This Be The One?
I am looking to invest in a watch that I can have for the rest of my life. Something that I can dress up and wear to work everyday. I work in the financial services industry. It doesn’t have to be overly sporty, I’ll use my Garmin or sport watch for running, biking, swimming, hiking, and other sporting events. I am not a watch collector, investor, or expert. I actually only have two watches. One is a Garmin for marathon running and triathlon activities, and one is Swiss watch I got in Switzerland that is a replica of the clocks they have at the train stations. At any rate, I’ve always wanted to invest in a watch but never did because I didn’t have the money. Now, I am a bit older and getting married and as a wedding gift am thinking it’s that time to invest. I would like something with an automatic movement. Anything above 7K would make me uncomfortable, but less than 1K and I think I realize from brief research that I would limit myself by going that low, so I think around the 2-5k area is the comfort range. I recognize that’s a large swing. I am a minimalist and as a result am not an overly flashy person, and generally appreciate functionality, quality, and simplicity over other areas. However, I do want something that will last me forever and be nice to look at. My point is, I’d rather have one amazing watch, than 15 decent ones. Any advice or guidance is greatly appreciated.
You know, the Mondaine watch is actually a quite interesting looking one I think; not a triumph horologically perhaps, but a good-looking timepiece with a very distinctive aesthetic that looks good on the wrist, which can be dressed up or down as needed, and which is none-the-worse for being something a regular Joe can actually afford.
RELATED: The Trick To Finding The Best Watch Straps
There are several quite obvious choices in your price range, of course – one thinks immediately of the Holy Quaternity, as it were, of high quality timepieces in that price range which are from NOMOS, Rolex, Omega, and of course Grand Seiko. In particular from Omega I feel obliged to mention that they have some exceedingly advanced mechanical technology in their watches at present; I must also say that Rolex probably represents right now, the very best you can get in traditionally oriented automatic Swiss watches .
NOMOS Glashutte offers a real alternative to the chap looking for something with excellent innards – albeit not quite with the robustness of Rolex nor the technical achievements of Omega but still, their character as a watch made in Germany from a respected independent maker, and the dignified aesthetics, continue to make them a valid alternative to similarly priced Swiss watches. And of course, in choosing a Grand Seiko you are choosing a unique emotional experience – the amount of hand-work that goes into them is astonishing and the obvious perfection in fit and finish is extremely seductive.
Finally, I ought to mention the Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch, which is as wonderful a connection to a unique moment in human history, as anyone could want. Still at work in space to this very day, I might add.
What one wants from a watch that is going to be one’s one watch, is in addition to the obvious traits of high quality, a certain intangible steadying quality. The best such watches are a little island of certainty in an uncertain world, and the best makers understand this. You’ll know it when you see it.
Strap That Baby On
My question is about bespoke straps. Are there any strap makers who you like, who take bespoke requests? I generally wear leather strap made by the manufacturer. But I recently saw the new Hublot collection which included canvas style straps made from the fabric from the House of Rubinacci. These fabric straps were quite light, comfortable, and really elevated the look of the watch. I was inspired to knock on the Watch Snob's door and ask for help!
The strap can really make or break the experience of wearing a watch, which I think is something makers these days are really beginning to understand – I don’t care for everything IWC does but I think the Santoni straps they’ve been using are the best they’ve had in years.
If you want a high grade custom leather strap there are a few interesting options – I would especially recommend Camille Fournet in Paris, which has a well-deserved reputation for making extremely high quality straps to the customer’s specifications. You might also want to look into Di Stefano, in Florence, and I have never tried them myself but Atelier du Bracelet Parisien, also in Paris, is a company about which I have heard very good things.
It has been my experience that the right strap can under some circumstances make or break a watch; a timepiece that seems but a tepid thing on the OEM strap can spring into sudden beauty when paired with the right strap so I encourage you to experiment. And of course, the experience of breaking in and wearing a really fine leather strap is one of the small but definite ancillary pleasures a wristwatch can bring.
Go Big Or Go Home
I have been looking for a single watch to see me through the rest of my life, something simple and extremely robust.
My search has given me some limited criteria. I know with time my eye site will fade, so a very clear simple dial, I know someone who bought a gold Breitling and couldn’t read it 6 months later . Things will get bashed, I’m an engineer during the week and a mountaineer at the weekend and I’m not easy on anything I own, robustness is key. Wear should be worn with pride, a have no fear of scratches and bashes, that just history, as such I want a nice matt finish, I don’t like glossy look at me things. Something with that will be known to those who known, while Rolexes are well made and have become the standard I have to deal with far too many people’s response to something nice is ‘that must be expensive’, and it is the defaults expectation, you get a Rolex, a Porsche and a big house to be successful.
I’m looking for clarity and durability and bit of simple brutality. If budgets were unlimited I would have something between a AP Offshore, a Rolex Explorer II with the black face or Bremont Tera Nova. However, budgets are not unlimited, and mine is around £4k. I have been looking at the Tudor Pelagos LHD which I quite like, it fits my criteria well, I did like the Bremont S500 but it lost something in the flesh. I have seen an Omega Speedmaster for sale with the NASA space flight certification on the back which is from the year I was born but I worry this will need endless servicing to keep it working,. At current I wear my Sunnto Ambit 3 Vertical in black every day and it's got chips and scratches and I love it, but I tire of its digital display.
My search so far has come up with the simple dive/tool watch as the solution. The Dr Martin boot, the Land Rover Defender, Concorde, and the Forth Rail Bridge are design as its best. But is the Toudor Pelagos design the best for a tough long lasting watch that will take a beating and continue on. I get the feeling my search for brutal utility is a limited aspiration these days?
The Speedmaster should absolutely not require endless servicing to keep on working – the caliber 861 is a somewhat simplified version of the original and rather august caliber 321 but it is actually more robust in my opinion, and taken care of properly ought to last essentially indefinitely. I don’t know the provenance of the particular watch you have in hand, and there can be watches that come to be lemons and money pits but the Speedmaster shouldn’t be one of them.
Now that said, a new wristwatch also carries with it the possibility of being a source of frustration but it is certainly less likely to be so than an older one with an uncertain history and perhaps unknown and as yet undiagnosed problems. If you don’t know the service history of a vintage or pre-owned watch, and it is one you plan on wearing, not occasionally, but on a regular basis you must expect to pay the cost of a service, and you owe it to yourself and the watch to make sure you find a good watchmaker, which can be an adventure in itself. Based on your criteria I think you have chosen well in the Pelagos. It is rather my favourite Tudor, these days – I have liked many of their watches in the past and still do, but I think they could do more of what the Pelagos represents, which is a new design that is not overtly an homage to the past, and yet which stands on its own two feet as a modern classic. And if you are looking for a fault-tolerant mechanical watch, it is hard to improve on a Tudor at that price.
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Send the Watch Snob your questions at [email protected] or ask a question on Instagram with the #watchsnob hashtag.
from Style channel http://www.askmen.com/style/watch_snob/sometimes-finding-the-right-watch-means-finding-the-right-strap.html
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Rod Serling on Writing
During my journey this past week I came across a letter that Rod Serling wrote to a young person aspiring to become a writer. Here is Rod’s take:
As a writer, I try to follow Rod’s advice to this young lad. Patience is indeed a virtue and expressing what you really believe in words can be dangerous because of inevitable backlash at times. This has happened to me on a few occasions. Yet, I felt…
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TZ Time?
It’s a Tuesday after a Monday except in this case Tuesday follows a national holiday. But it feels like a Monday. Middle of Summer. Hotter than blazes.
Another shooting. More killing. More grief. Is this going to end anytime soon? Short answer, no!
Every day something else, troubling and insane, happens. Just when we think things can’t get any worse. It does. Thoughts of living in a civilized…
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Creativity in the Midst of Horror
Creativity in the Midst of Horror
A photo is worth a thousand words . . . so I’ll dispense with the thousand words.
Sand Sculpture in Ukraine. Courtesy of Flipboard, curated by the Photo Desk
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for a different kind of playground for creativity, innovation and inspiring stuff.
Live Long and Prosper, Ukraine!
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Transition: At What Stage Are You?
We all go through it at one time or another in our life. For some of us, more times than we may realize. I’ve been going through a major one now for the past three years; and one before that; and one before that, and, well, you get the idea.
I recently attended a webinar hosted by my friend Peleg Top dealing with transition and creativity. Borrowing some from what Peleg presented, “Transitions…
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Spring into Spring with These Quotes
Creativity can be found in some surprising places. From advertising and computer science to art and statistics. It’s what we do with it that matters. Below are various quotes from different people expressing a feeling or an observation about how creativity has impacted them in some way, directly and indirectly. Enjoy the quotes for March as we spring into Spring.
Play by the rules, but be…
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Kick Start Your Creativity
Some times we all need a kick in the pants to get our creative juices to start flowing. Perhaps the attachments in this post will help in that regard. I wrote these years ago in preparation for some speaking engagements. Given their nature, I’d bet they’re still valid today.
Hopefully making a ruckus, one blog post at a time!
Be sure to check out my other blog, Joe’s Journey, for personal…
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It's that time of the month again . . .
. . . when we see and read what others have said that made an impact. May these quotes bring about an impact for you as well. Enjoy!
All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. — William Bernbach, member, Advertising Hall of Fame
The voyage of discovery is not in…
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Creativity: Key Driver to Profitability in B2B Advertising
In my continuing effort to share pertinent information regarding the value that creativity plays in today’s marketplace, I share the following interview from LinkedIn as it relates to business-to-business advertising.
As part of a multi-year partnership between LinkedIn and Cannes Lions, LinkedIn along with its think tank, the B2B Institute, worked with the Cannes Lions as a strategic thought…
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Another Super Bowl Sunday in the Books
Well, another Super Sunday has come and gone and millions of dollars spent on items promoted to us in trying to have us believe that we need them. Most were well intended and some were pretty good. Others were a waste of money and/or talent.
The game itself even delivered a stomach-churner of an event in that the winner wasn’t known until the very last in a rare overtime. The money spent on this…
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Quotes - From Lee Clow's Beard to Virginia Woolf
Leading off 2024 is this list of various quotes from those luminaries in and out of the advertising field. The quotes were selected by me from a variety of sources for the purposes of motivation, incitefullness and humor, among other things. Hope you get something out of them!
If you have a dream, don’t let anybody take it away. And you always believe that the impossible is always possible…
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Special Quotes and a Christmas Gift, too
This being the week before Christmas I thought it appropriate to present some special quotes for this month and to end the list with a Christmas thought. Season’s Greetings and Happy Holidays!
Neither wisdom nor good will is now dominant. Hope lies in dreams, in imagination and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality. – Jonas Salk
Some questions don’t have answers, which is…
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At the Intersection of Curiosity and Creativity
Seems like I’ve run across a number of articles over the past month or so dealing with a variety of topics in the realm of creativity. This posting is no different, and, yet, it is, uh, different. While many may find it difficult to define what creativity is, many will no doubt have an easy time knowing about curiosity. While everyone is curious, not everyone sees themselves as creative. Well,…
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From Rod Serling to Frank Lloyd Wright
Here they are again, quotes for November this time. As usual they represent a variety of viewpoints from various folks, some better known than others. Enjoy!
The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience. He must have a position, a point of view. He must see the arts as a vehicle of social criticism and he must focus on the issues of his time. — Rod Serling
Nothing splendid has ever…
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