“The I-95 bridges were built in the early 1960s and are now more than 50 years old. The same vintage as the I-35 bridge that collapsed in Minnesota back in 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145. The antiquated Skagit River Bridge in Washington state that collapsed last May after a truck hit one of the trusses was even older. And it's not just bridges. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, 32 percent of the major roads in America are now in poor condition and in need of major repairs.” PeopleNeedsYearsMayStatesLastsAmericaPoorConditionsMajorsPercentBuiltRiversKillingBridgesEngineersTruck1960sVintageAmerican SocietyMinnesotaCivil EngineerWashington State Author:Ed Rendell
“Only yesterday mankind lived in fear of the scourges of smallpox, cholera and plague that once swept nations before them. Now our major concern is no longer with the disease organisms that once were omnipresent; sanitation, better living conditions, and new drugs have given us a high degree of control over infectious disease. Today we are concerned with a different kind of hazard that lurks in our environment-a hazard we ourselves have introduced into our world as our modern way of life has evolved.” WorldWayKindDifferentTodayGivenNationsEnvironmentModernConditionsMankindDrugDiseaseDegreesMajorsConcernConcernedYesterdayOur WorldDifferent KindsOrganismsPlagueOur EnvironmentHazardsScourgeCholeraSanitationSmallpoxInfectious DiseasesLiving Conditions Book:Silent Spring Source: Silent Spring
“Daily life is a comprimised blend of posturing for the sake of role-playing and of varying degrees of self-revelation. Under stressful conditions even the "true" self cannot be precisely defined, as Erving Goffman observes. ...Little wonder that the identity crisis is a major source of modern neuroticism, and that the urban middle class aches for a return to a simpler existence.” LittlesSelfLife IsExistenceWonderClassRolesModernMiddleConditionsIdentitySourceReturnDegreesMajorsCrisisSakeDefinedRevelationsMiddle ClassDaily LifeUrbanTrue SelfAcheStressfulIdentity CrisisRole PlayingSelf Revelation Author:E. O. Wilson
“Britain, with the most completely socialized health system in the West, now spends the lowest fraction of GNP on health care of any major nation. There are frequent complaints of excessive waits for elective surgery and other inconveniences, but British citizens live slightly longer than Americans, on average, and our overall health conditions are comparable.” CareNationsWaitingConditionsCitizensMajorsWestAverageBritishHealth CareBritainSurgeryComplaintsLowestFractionsInconvenienceHealth SystemOverall Health Book:The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice Source: The Economic Illusion: False Choices Between Prosperity and Social Justice
“Major League Baseball's labor negotiations involve two paradoxes. The players' union's primary objective is to protect the revenues of a very few very rich owners - principally, the Yankees'. The owners' primary objective is a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The union believes that unconstrained spending by the richest three teams pulls up all payrolls. Most owners believe that baseball's problems--competitive imbalance, the parlous financial conditions of many clubs--result from large and growing disparities of what are mistakenly treated as 'local' revenues.” BelieveTwoProblemThreeWealthResultsRichGrowingPlayerTeamConditionsProtectMajorsLaborBaseballUnionsFinancialClubsSpendingLocalsObjectivesTreatedPrimariesLeagueOwnersParadoxNegotiationDistributionRevenueYankeesImbalanceDisparityMajor LeaguePayrollPull UpsDistribution Of WealthMajor League Baseball Author:George Will
“If anxiety is the major force of our contemporary condition, a lot of poetry - including my own, mostly - sort of tries to escape that, fly off into magical thinking or bewilderment or whatever.” IfsThinkingTryingForceMy OwnConditionsAnxietyMajorsIncludingContemporaryBewildermentMagical Thinking Author:Mike Young
“For memetics to be a reasonable research programme, it should be the case that copying, and differential success in causing the multiplication of copies, overwhelmingly plays the major role in shaping all or at least most of the contents of culture. Evolved domain-specific psychological dispositions, if there are any, should be at most a relatively minor factor that could be considered part of background conditions.” IfsShouldPlayCultureRolesCasesConditionsMajorsResearchBackgroundsPsychologicalFactorsReasonableCopiesMinorsDispositionDomainProgrammesCopyingMultiplication Author:Dan Sperber
“If you ask the CEO of some major corporation what he does, he will say, in all honesty, that he is slaving 20 hours a day to provide his customers with the best goods or services he can and creating the best possible working conditions for his employees.” IfsDoeAsksHoursConditionsHonestyCreatingMajorsCustomersCorporationsEmployeeGoodsCeoWorking Conditions Author:Noam Chomsky
“I have had my genome fully sequenced and have learned a great deal about which medications I would respond to and which might or would induce major side effects, along with knowing many medical conditions for which I'm particularly susceptible.” MightSidesDealsKnowingConditionsEffectsMajorsMedicalMedicationSusceptibleSide EffectsGenomeMedical Conditions Author:Eric Topol