Asahi Shimbun on benjo-meshi:

… (for some students) it is better to eat in a toilet than to be perceived as friendless and spotted dining alone in the school cafeteria.

Slate:

Why, if God wants to reward the faithful with material possessions, are so many believers in foreclosure?

t.w. chews enthusiastically recorded michael’s memorial on her newly-acquired Hubstation and was looking forward to a cathartic viewing, only to come home to find her wall-mounted flat screen television off the wall.

laid low, smashed and flat-lined.

she tried to revive it, to no avail.

try talking to it, i said.

tv are you ok, so tv are you ok, are you ok tv?

(over a yakitori bento lunch at Cuppage Plaza)

me: michael’s music is really timeless.

exec director: yes, very much like the eagles.

long, long pause.

me: perhaps you shouldn’t say things like that aloud.

Korn-uma Pongnoi:

The government told us to see the big picture. It is junk talk. Fact is, we ordinary villagers are firm in our conscience to protect our dignity and livelihoods. We cannot afford the helicopter to see the big picture from the sky. We only have one weapon: human rights and community rights. For us, community rights translates as ‘our home’, and human rights is simply equal to ‘you’re a human being, I’m a human being’ (mueng kor khon, ku kor khon)

Bangkok Post:

Tens of thousands of Buddhist temples have been built, many practically next to each other, because the solution for disagreement among members of the congregation is to build another one.

Liam Julian via aldaily.com:

It is worth remembering that facts can be dangerous, for when they are unmoored, untethered to past experience and a larger worldview, they can bolster the very theories and systems that violate decency.

Salon:

In “The First Word,” her book about the origins of language, Christine Kenneally describes the scene when two apes trained in sign language first encountered each other: “What resulted was a sign-shouting match; neither ape was willing to listen.”

Amazon.com Review

51 – … and we are free to go about our daily lives, buying cheap and selling dear.

62 – I dig busty women: I often need a soft place to rest my tired head. So often so tired.

114 – The world is a might hymn.

160 – I make lists now of the things I once could do that I can no longer. Inventories of the shrinkage.

161 – I search for the joy that I know lies buried in the awareness of decline.

190 – The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: “Create silence.” (Søren Kierkegaard)

273 – But listen. Listen. I loved you, lady, in my clumsy way. I love you now. And you are lost to me forever.

289 – On some ultimate level I just don’t give a damm at all. That is what I am, I tell myself. This is what I now shall be. If you don’t like it, tough crap. Try to accept me. If you can’t do that, just ignore me.

289 – “As the truest society approaches always nearer to solitude, so the most excellent speech finally falls into silence. Silence is audible to all men, at all times, and in all places.” So said Thoreau, in 1849, in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

302 – Silence will become my mother tongue. There will be discoveries and revelations, but no upheavals. Perhaps some color will come back into the world for me, later on. Perhaps.

in the Preface to the 2009 edition of Dying Inside, Robert Silverberg lists these books on telepaths:

The Hampdenshire Wonder by JD Beresford

Odd John and Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon

Slan by A.E. van Vogt

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

And these short stories:

The Mindworm by C.M. Kornbluth

Journey’s End by Poul Anderson

Poor Superman by Fritz Leiber