Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, has been confirmed as the 72nd secretary of state in a 99-0 vote. After casting a vote for himself, Rubio gave the Senate clerks a thumbs-up while a small bipartisan group of senators around him applauded.
By Aishwarya KUMAR
JD Vance once compared Trump to Hitler. Now, he's his vice president-elect.
I assumed that he would have to drop out in 2016 after the “Access Hollywood” tape. I thought he would be driven into exile after he egged on the Jan. 6 insurrectionists hunting down Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. I thought his cynical move stacking the Supreme Court with religious fanatics who yanked away women’s reproductive rights would doom his comeback attempt. I thought his deranged, nasty, out-of-control final weeks of campaigning would surely sink him.
But Trump never disappeared in a puff of orange smoke. Every time, he bobbed back up, defying convention and luring voters I thought he had lost, given how he, JD Vance and his rally carny barkers delighted in disparaging so many voting blocs with utter abandon.我以為他會在 2016 年《走進好萊塢》錄影帶之後退出。我以為他會在 1 月 6 日慫恿叛亂分子追捕南希·佩洛西和邁克·彭斯後被迫流亡。我認為他憤世嫉俗的舉動將最高法院與剝奪婦女生育權的宗教狂熱分子混為一談，這將使他的東山再起嘗試失敗。我認為他在競選活動最後幾週的瘋狂、骯髒、失控肯定會讓他垮台。
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Aghion and Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”
The laureates showed how new technology can drive sustained growth.
Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth. This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year’s laureates in economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress.
Technology advances rapidly and affects us all, with new products and production methods replacing old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth, which results in a better standard of living, health and quality of life for people around the globe.
However, this was not always the case. Quite the opposite – stagnation was the norm throughout most of human history. Despite important discoveries now and again, which sometimes led to improved living conditions and higher incomes, growth always eventually levelled off.
Joel Mokyr used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal. He demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why. The latter was often lacking prior to the industrial revolution, which made it difficult to build upon new discoveries and inventions. He also emphasised the importance of society being open to new ideas and allowing change.
Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt also studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth. In an article from 1992, they constructed a mathematical model for what is called creative destruction: when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out. The innovation represents something new and is thus creative. However, it is also destructive, as the company whose technology becomes passé is outcompeted.
In different ways, the laureates show how creative destruction creates conflicts that must be managed in a constructive manner. Otherwise, innovation will be blocked by established companies and interest groups that risk being put at a disadvantage.
“I had a whole list of people that I thought were going to win, and I wasn't on it.”
For Joel Mokyr, the news that he was a 2025 economic sciences laureate was an unexpected surprise. Shortly after the announcement Mokyr shared his happiness with us, and recalled visiting the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm ten years ago – a time where he didn’t for a moment imagine one day he would be on the stage. “Are you kidding me? I'm an economic historian. We don't win Nobel Prizes.”
A 2012 stroke has largely kept him from acting, but not from writing — and recording — a new memoir. “It was very peculiar not to be able to speak,” he says.
“It felt like somebody had paddled around in my brain,” Tim Curry says of the medical treatment he received after his stroke.Credit...
Curry is a lion in winter now, getting around in a wheelchair and with his stamina not what it was since the stroke brought his life to a frightening interregnum. Yet he is still drawn to creative risk, unready to pack it in as an artist.
“I can’t quite imagine retiring and not ever working again,” he said.
He has thought about it, of course he has, but “trying to stretch” creatively is the stronger impulse. On that score, he is “cautiously pleased” with “Vagabond,” albeit with a couple of regrets.
Image“Playing somebody like that wakes you up to new dimensions of human nature,” Curry writes of his unforgettable role in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”Credit...Getty Images
****「數人」又弱一個：劉半農《趙元任全集‧第15卷‧下》的圖版，有《劉半農先生輓辭》，收入九人的：錢玄同、黎錦熙、趙元任、陳懋治、魏建功、白滌洲、胡適、馬裕藻、周作人。趙先生的英文說明值得一抄：From the title of the “Society for a Few Men”, Yuen Ren wrote the memorial couplet to liu Pan-Nung some years later, 1934 (see p.566)(趙的十載湊雙簧，無詞今日難成曲。「數人」弱一個，教我如何不想他。胡適的守常慘死，獨秀幽囚，如今又弱一個。拼命精神，打油風趣，後起還有誰呢？)
Braque depicted violins more than any other instrument. The violin was associated with both classical and folk music, the refined and the sentimental, a bridging of tastes that appealed to the Cubists’ own spirited dialogue with high art and popular culture
The wheel of life is depicted in this 19th-century Tibetan Buddhist thangka. A thangka is used for teaching or as a devotional object and this one shows the world in the arms of the demon Mara, who is associated with temptation, death and impermanence. The three segments at the top of the wheel show the higher realms of existence, and the bottom three show the sufferings of animals, ghosts and hell.
See this colourful painted textile in our #LivingWithTheGods exhibition, exploring beliefs from around the world and through time – find out more and book tickets: http://ow.ly/Wp5O30hfRX4
不只是單篇文章，您讀蔣彝的《倫敦畫記》（首版封面題簽為《倫敦集萃》）The Silent Traveller in London (London: Country Life, 1938)，就可以知道，蔣先生的倫敦 和其眾生相，還是與朱自清的，大異其趣。不過，《倫敦畫記》還有圖，譬如說，女王加冕日的地鐵等，很有意思。
Steen Eiler Rasmussen著名的 London, the Unique City (1937，後來日文譯本：ロンドン物語 : その都市と建築；近代ロンドン物語 : 都市と建築)中的照片，應該是許多80年前的倫敦建築和名勝，可是，它們不見得是朱自清先生注意過的。同樣的，許多畫家的泰姆士河的夕照等等，類似。
我尚待查證的工作是：朱自清先生當年從倫敦寄回中國的信，包括明信片：參考
The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London | Postcards from London
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“Playing somebody like that wakes you up to new dimensions of human nature,” Curry writes of his unforgettable role in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”Credit...Getty Images
