Judson’s last ride
This is a beautiful essay by Sean Trende, about his autistic son’s growing up. Highly recommended.
Continue reading →Category Archives: Getting philosophical: life, love, the universe
Young versus old: the politics of generational envy
[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan.”] I’ve seen it for years and years and years online: the idea that the Boomer generation has screwed the younger ones. It’s often advanced by 40-somethings or younger, who feel insufficiently flush with cash and that … Continue reading →
How political hatred works
Commenter “phsicsguy” has a request: ,,, [I]n every other aspect of [the lives of the Democrats I know who want Trump dead], they act within the general morality of our culture. They don’t beat puppies and babies, they don’t steal, … Continue reading →
The rise of family estrangement
This news is both sobering and unsurprising: Adult children vs. parents, siblings vs. siblings — calling quits on one’s kin seems increasingly common. In a 2025 YouGov poll of 4,395 US adults, nearly 4 in 10 respondents said they “no … Continue reading →
More photos from Artemis
You can find them by clicking here. Once you get there, you can get information on each photo by clicking on the image. My favorite: The lunar surface fills the frame in sharp detail, as seen during the Artemis II … Continue reading →
Big blue marble
Here are photos of earth taken from Artemis, and an explanation for why they are somewhat darker than previous space photos of earth: The differences in color between the two photos stem from the settings used to take them, and … Continue reading →
Avalanches and risk
I have long been afraid of avalanches. I don’t ski at all and never have, so my danger from the phenomenon is basically nil. But it’s a primal fear nonetheless, perhaps from movies. That’s one of the reasons the news … Continue reading →
On trying to understand higher-level science
I’ve long tried to understand the upper reaches of scientific thought, often to no avail. Even as a very young child, I tried reading books about cosmology or higher-level physics, and although every now and then I managed to absorb … Continue reading →
What are the goals of George Soros?
I promised a while back to tackle this subject, and here’s my effort. I don’t claim to really know the answer – that’s the short version of this post. But I’ll give it a try. A great many people would … Continue reading →
Bye bye 2025
When I look back, I see a cycle of upswing that began in July of 2024 with Trump’s near-miraculous survival of an assassination attempt and then his election, which continued in January of 2025 with his inauguration and his subsequent … Continue reading →
The right: “live not by lies”
Solzhenitsyn famously said: “live not by lies.” How many politicians follow that maxim? Vanishingly few. And I wouldn’t expect them to; politics is a dirty, compromised business. And yet, not all lies are created equal. Some lies are minor: “I … Continue reading →
Reflections on the Reiner family tragedy
Probably all of us know a family or families where lives have been upended by drug addiction – probably not as dramatically as the Reiners’ lives were, where the endpoint was apparently matricide and patricide – but badly enough, and … Continue reading →