My First Dictionary:

Today's word is disillusioned.

Virginia Postrel on Obama:

The pleasure and inspiration may be real, but glamour always contains an illusion. The image is not entirely false, but it is misleading.

James Lileks:

The Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology. It's whatever you want it to be, until you actually get it.

The Economist on Obama, from November 2008:

He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.

George Packer, this week:

What if people around the world want more than a humble adjustment in America's tone and behavior?

What if American overtures to nasty regimes fail, because those regimes have a different view of their own survival?

Randall Munroe:

What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-fancier toys?

To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming?

Is there an app for that?

An exchange:

Ernie: Is there anything fluffier than a cloud?

Big Tom: If there is, I don't want to know about it.

Christopher Alexander:

A building or town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed by the timeless way.

The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person ... It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive.

Anne Frank:

As long as you can look fearlessly at the sky, you'll know that you're pure within and will find happiness once more.

Elizabeth Rubin:

A sudden wail pierced the night sky. It was Slasher, an AC-130 gunship, firing bullets the size of Coke bottles. Flaming shapes ricocheted all around the village. Flaming rockets flashed through the sky. Thunder rumbled and echoed through the valley. Then there was a pause. Slasher asked Caroon whether the insurgents were still talking. Kearney shouted over to Yarnell in his ditch, "You picking anything up?" Nothing. More spitting rockets.

"O.K., I've done my killing for the week. I'm ready to go home."