"In the beginning was the word, for with it man became man. Without those strange noises called common nouns, thought was limited to individual objects or experiences sensorily—for the most part visually—remembered or conceived; presumably it could not think of classes as distinct from individual things, nor of qualities as distinct from objects, nor of objects as distinct from their qualities. 

    "Without words as class names one might think of this man, or that man, or that [wo]man; one could not think of Man, for the eye sees not Man buy only men, not classes but particular things. 

    "The beginning of humanity came when some freak or crank, half animal and half man, squatted in a cave or in a tree, cracking his brain to invent the first common noun, the first sound-sign that would signify a group of objects: house that would mean all houses, man that would mean all men, light that would mean every light that ever shone on land or sea. From that moment the mental development of the race opened upon a new and endless road. For words are to thought what tools are to work; the product depends largely on the growth of the tools.
[...]
"The languages of nature peoples are not necessarily primitive in any sense of simplicity; many of them are simple in vocabulary and structure, but some of them are as complex and wordy as our own, and more highly organised than Chinese. Nearly all primitive tongues, however, limit themselves to the sensual and particular, and are uniformly poor in general or abstract terms. So the Australian natives had a name for a dog's tail, and another name for a cow's tail; but they had no name for tail in general. The Tasmanians had separate names for specific trees, but no general name for tree; the Choctaw Indians had names for black oak, the white oak and the red oak, but no name for oak, much less for tree. Doubtless many generations passed before the proper noun ended in the common noun. In many tribes there are no separate words for the colour as distinct from the coloured object; no words for such abstractions as tone, sex, species, space, spirit, instinct, reason, quantity, hope, fear, matter, consciousness, etc. Such abstract terms seem to grow in a reciprocal relation of cause and effect with the development of thought; they become the tools of subtlety and the symbols of civilisation."

~ Will Durant, from his classic book The Story of Civilisation: Our Oriental Heritage [hat tip Matthew Moore]

"It's time for Ayn Rand's Power Question: What facts of reality give rise to the need for such a concept as X?

"Here, X is 'citizenship.' Why do we need this concept? Mainly, to determine who can vote. You can probably think of a few perquisites that attend to attaining the status of 'citizen.' But that status has nothing to do with the rights of man.

"The territory within the boundaries of a given country is the area in which its law has jurisdiction, the area in which a specific government, by its apparatus of compulsion, maintains a de jure and de facto monopoly on the use of physical force.

"We used to discuss whether the police, in a voluntarily financed laissez-faire nation, would protect the rights of non-contributors against criminals. The answer was: yes, mainly because the thug who would assault anyone is a threat to everyone, including the contributors. The 'yes' answer follows from practical, moral, and symbolic considerations. Defending the rights and freedom of everyone currently in the country is symbolic of a government devoted to justice.

"The same considerations that require the government protect the rights of non-contributors apply to protecting the rights of non-citizens. ...

"But due process and all the safeguards are there to rein in and make safer everybody who faces the possibility of government interference. The safeguards are there to eliminate arbitrary power.

"Government is potentially a far bigger threat than criminals.

"To introduce a preserve within which government agents can exercise unsupervised power is a threat that dwarfs that of any gang of hoodlums (citizens or non-citizens).

"And this is what we are seeing with Trump's every action—the quest for arbitrary power, unconstrained by checks and balances or anything other than the will of Donald Trump.

"If Trump doesn't have to follow due process in regard to non-citizens, does he have to follow it in regard to determining whether or not the person is a citizen? That's not theoretical. That's today's headlines.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to crime is not "screening" or "roundups" of anyone; it's repeal of the drug laws.

"It can't be repeated too often: the solution to lawless behavior by immigrants is not lawless behavior by the police.

"You can avoid a criminal gang; you can even move to a different locale. You can't avoid a SWAT team, the FBI, or any part of the state's apparatus of compulsion and incarceration."

~ Harry Binswanger from his post 'A sense of proportion'

Making life easier ... 

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Physical media appears headed toward 8-track tape oblivion.

Hollywood feased on profits from first the DVD and, later the Blu-ray revolutions. Sharper than VHS tapes. Brimming with video extras to sweeten the purchase.

No, “Be kind, rewind” mantras. And you can display them like your favorite books.

Now, both physical media formats have taken a back seat to digital downloads and streaming. It’s a sign of the times.

Except owning a digital download copy of your favorite films isn’t perfect. Some digital licenses come with strings attached. You might not get the uncensored version of the film in question, either.

Now, a prominent pundit is warning Prime Video buyers have something new to worry about.

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Benjamin Domenech, formerly of The Federalist and now the editor of The Transom Substack newsletter, warned X users this weekend of a troubling trend on Prime Video.

The Amazon service allows customers to “buy” videos for their collection, much like that overstuffed DVD shelf of yore. Domenech discovered something odd when he tried to watch a purchased title, though.

He had to sit through ads along the way.

This is ridiculous. Checked this morning and multiple movies I paid full price for ages ago now have ads and @amazon is requiring additional money to get rid of them. Don’t buy movies on Prime, folks. https://t.co/9pcHjq9xMv

— Benjamin Domenech (@bdomenech) May 18, 2025

Now, Prime Video recently changed its service to make subscribers pay an addition fee to remove ads from the streaming process. That’s not uncommon in video platforms today.

This is different. And Domenech wasn’t alone in his experience.

Yes. They’ll remove them for $3 more per month. It was the final straw for us. We canceled our Amazon Prime after 15 years.

— Smug the Goat (@TN_Death_Ride) May 18, 2025

Inserting ads into a title you bought is both new and troubling. 

Is this a glitch? A new policy? HIT is reaching out to Amazon Prime for comment.

The post This Greedy Prime Video Move Must Go appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.