Excellent article of the day

From the online edition of The New York Times, a fine meditation on why politicians should not eschew the life of the mind.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/intellectuals-and-politics/

Discovery of the day

There is an amazing story in the New York Times about a gentleman discovering a treasure of lost photographs taken by Captain Scott, of his doomed Antarctic expedition. I have seen a few pictures of that trip before, and they are always unbearably poignant, because one knows the end of the story.

These new ones carry all that poignancy, but also a great deal of beauty too. And mystery as well: some of them look as abstract and foreign as pictures of the moon. You can read the whole story here, and see all the photographs in their full glory.

This is one of my favourites:

Can never resist a hardy old pony.