Do you talk to yourself? Not aloud (although you may do that, too; I certainly do), but in your head? Psychologists who study the phenomenon say: …we don’t have to use full sentences to talk to ourselves, because we know … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Part I can be found here.] In that same interview I wrote about in Part I, someone named Richard Wolff had a few things to say as well. Wolff’s academic credentials are impressive, if you’re impressed by that sort … Continue reading →
Last night I was looking up something about Charles Krauthammer, and I chanced to come across something he’d written in 1985 that I’d never seen before. It expresses some of his thoughts on abortion, and it struck me that it … Continue reading →
Utopia for Realists. If that book title sounds like an oxymoron, it certainly doesn’t to its author Rutger Bregman: Imagining utopia, writes Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, “isn’t an attempt to predict the future. It’s an attempt to unlock the future. … Continue reading →
Theory, that is. The funny thing about the ubiquity of conspiracy theories is that some of them are true. The trouble is figuring out which ones they might be, because the majority are not. Now that the Epstein death conspiracy … Continue reading →
Li ZiQi is a phenomenally successful YouTube star from China who seems to me to be a cross between Martha Stewart and Vermeer, 21st Century style. I discovered her recently via Gerard Vanderleun’s American Digest blog, and I find her … Continue reading →
…then you’re in a heap of trouble. How can a problem be solved if it can’t even be named, or described, or discussed? This isn’t about Trump and Baltimore’s rats, although that’s one of many recent incidents that sparked the … Continue reading →
Commenter “Socratease” calls my calculus class “the stuff of nightmares.” That is quite literally true, because after experiencing the horror of that class, and the ensuing and resounding “F” I received (my first and only in a long student career), … Continue reading →
When I decided to title this post “the enemies of civilization”, I didn’t mean what’s often meant by the phrase: barbarians who plunder and murder and rape and pillage. I’m talking about the sort of thing Sarah Hoyt was referring … Continue reading →
It struck me today, for no reason at all, that the only two presidents we’ve ever had who’ve been divorced are two of the most conservative presidents politically. And then I started thinking about Ronald Reagan’s children. He had two … Continue reading →
Yesterday there was a lot of back-and-forth in the comments of this post about the relation between violent crime and religious belief. One of the comments was by Richard Saunders, and it went like this: If I don’t believe in … Continue reading →
People like the patrician British double agent Kim Philby fascinate me. Are they natural cons who are drawn to the game aspect of spying? Are they True Believers? Psychopaths? Idealists? Narcissists? Some of the above? All of the above? Kim … Continue reading →