Great Index Entry

I am pretty certain that deep in the bowels of this blog I've already noted this name, but here he is again:

Dear, John, 225

Plea to Authors

When writing a 230-page book with seven chapters, please don't make the first chapter 60 pages long. You're not going to make any friends among your readers . . . or please your indexer.

Not that the length of the chapter affects the index much, but I'd sure like to feel that I'm getting somewhere.

Thank you.

The management.

Today's Unattributed Quote: Theology

"If understood properly, suffering has teleological value; it is life’s warning system, causing us to reevaluate our life direction, moving us toward eventual fulfillment, deepening our sense of compassion, and requiring that we seek companionship and community along the way as we travel toward an uncertain yet promising future."

An Interesting Phrase

Came across the phrase, “The game is not worth the candle,” which I'd never heard.

Explanation:

“The returns from an activity or enterprise do not warrant the time, money or effort required. For example, ‘The office he is running for is so unimportant that the game's not worth the candle.’ This expression, which began as a translation of a term used by the French essayist Michel de Montaigne in 1580, alludes to gambling by candlelight, which involved the expense of illumination. If the winnings were not sufficient, they did not warrant the expense. Used figuratively, it was a proverb within a century.”

From Dictionary.com, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

Today's Unattributed Quote: International Relations

Bring it on:

"Finally, as a society transitions to the postmaterial stage, its citizens will increasingly favor the values of self-expression and prefer leisure to work, and they will give decreasing emphasis to survival concerns, that is, the need to attend to their basic material needs for physical existence."