Why attack Syria?
Is Obama really going to attack Assad’s regime in Syria, or is he just talking? And if he does attack, how far will he go, and what is his ultimate goal? There’s no dearth of speculation on all those questions. … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Literature and writing
So Yeats, what were you bellyaching about?
The poet Yeats often wrote about how dreadful old age was, especially its physical manifestations. In the poem “Among School Children“, he describes himself as having looked pretty nifty in youth and terrible at sixty: And I though never of … Continue reading →
Snowden is starting…
…to remind me of the Flying Dutchman. Or Philip Nolan, The Man Without a Country:
Continue reading →History and immunity
America has been so fortunate, and in many ways so outside of history’s darker corridors, that we have forgotten what we should have known, and neglected to teach it to our children. It’s like a population (think Native Americans before … Continue reading →
Philip K. Dick and me
Oh, I was a strange, strange child. And not the least of my strangenesses was that I loved the stories of Philip K. Dick. That was odd in several ways. First of all, it was odd because I was a … Continue reading →
Helen Smith: on men saying “no thanks” to marriage
I confess I haven’t yet read Helen Smith’s book Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters, but it sounds fascinating. I’m quite familiar with Helen Smith’s work in general … Continue reading →
Zombie emails the NSA with a polite request
Funny stuff here: Dear NSA, …If you have any pull with the American Psychiatric Association, could you please recommend to them that the psychological state formerly known as “paranoia” should be no longer defined as a mental illness? Asylums all … Continue reading →
People are deciding…
…to read the classics: … George Orwell’s “1984” is enjoying a surge in popularity, landing at No. 4 on Amazon’s list of “Movers and Shakers.” Sales of Orwell’s classic have risen an astonishing 5,771% as of Tuesday morning, with a … Continue reading →
Happy birthday, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Today is the 64th anniversary of the publication of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and with all the news that’s been occurring in the last few weeks (up to and including today), somehow it seems apropos. We are not (yet) in the … Continue reading →
Liberty at the market
As a blogger, I tend to immerse myself in the news. Lately there’s been so very much of it, and so much to think about, that I find myself neglecting some of the other parts of my life. But yesterday … Continue reading →
Again with the not-so-Great Gatsby
Another day, another Gatsby movie, and I will go out on a limb to predict another mediocrity. They keep trying to make this story into a film, but the book is just too gossamer for that to be done successfully. … Continue reading →
Lenin, Dostoevsky, and me
[NOTE: The other day I happened across an old post from March of 2009. As I read it, I realized that I was probably describing one of the earliest manifestations of my change experience, even though I wouldn’t have called … Continue reading →