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[The press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is, they are so morally blind, and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that.
I am putting all this odious state of things upon the newspaper, and I believe it belongs there — chiefly, at any rate. It is a free press — a press that is more than free — a press which is licensed to say any infamous thing it chooses about a private or a public man, or advocate any outrageous doctrine it pleases. It is tied in no way. The public opinion which should hold it in bounds it has itself degraded to its own level.
There are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.
via Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling Critique the Press | Brain Pickings.

He stresses the vital difference between “having an enviable career” and “being a happy person,” admonishing about the “hedonic treadmill” of achievement:
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.
To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.
He concludes by echoing Rilke:
Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions you’ve learned how to ask yourself.
via May 20, 1990: Advice on Life from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson | Brain Pickings.

From rumor to reality, in just less than a week! This weekend, Dan Harmon confirmed the word on the street: NBC wants him back on the meta-monster hed created, nurtured, and then been so unceremoniously tossed from.While hosting his “Found Crap” series with Rob Schrab in L.A., Harmon talked logistics. As THR reports, Harmon explained he was “going back to run Community — along with, as my co-showrunner, the hands-down best writer of all the seasons, Chris McKenna.”
via OK, Now Dan Harmon Is Definitely Coming Back to Community – Hollywood Prospectus Blog – Grantland.