2nd hand quote

i found this provocative quote from The Theory of Moral Sentiments in a so-so book entitled Stumbling on Happiness:

The pleasures of wealth and greatness...strike the imagination as something grand and beautiful and noble, of which the attainment is well worth all the toil and anxiety which we are so apt to bestow upon it...It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth.

or to use jargon, wealth has declining marginal utility.

(slight return)

a long hiatus it's been to the blog. i'm now situated in a different geographical locale. i might discuss that in another post if requested. saw interesting set of short films today, generally on the topic of food. here's a list of topics covered; it won't mean much to anyone who wasn't at the showing tonight, i'm afraid. in not necessarily this order, it discussed West Oakland, CA, asparagus being outsourced to Peru & Chile, "profit cola" (a funny one), Sunny Delite, GMO tomatoes, water in michigan, confined livestock, Providence school gardens, Echo Park homeless recycler, and Nova Scotia hand-liner fishing. the feature film included Earl Butz, erstwhile Agriculture secretary, and an awful demonstration of the effects of grain feeding cattle.