Links for 2011-04-19

"I'm very much with my colleagues in their call for a renewal of practical wisdom. But in their view-and mine-one of the consequences of such a turn would be that we'd stop trying to make systems, rules and structures do to us, for us, with us, what we ought to do for ourselves. That's my concern with the call that Price makes, that a reminder to be a more decent human being easily curdles into an institutional imperative to do so, and from there into a set of rules, strictures and requirements that are tasked with taking away our discretion, remediating our failures, serving as a guarantee against our fallibility."

"Twenty-thousand sounds like a big number when you're counting plastic Easter eggs. It sounds even bigger when a church decides to dramatically drop them from an airborne helicopter, outdoing every community egg hunt in town.

But when thousands of eager kids show up with baskets and bags, screaming, "We want eggs!" 20,000 plastic eggs falling from a helicopter is a bit like one M&M being tossed to a starving man. It's just not enough."