Orts #986
What fascinates and terrifies us about the Roman Empire is not that it finally went smash, [but rather that] it managed to last for four centuries without creativity, warmth, or hope.
-- W.H. Auden, quoted in this remarkable essay:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/sunday/western-society-decadence.html
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
-- Oscar Wilde, quoted in the same essay
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A factory in Iran which makes US and Israeli flags to be burned in protests
https://apnews.com/235580c14a77045fc7647562a2ac1d33
- the xoloitzcuintli, and other weirdnesses -
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/sports/westminster-dog-show.html