I’m here to announce another vice. This is a new one, although it also involves an old one—YouTube video chain-watching. Chain-watching is when you go from one video on a topic to another, sort of like eating a bagful of … Continue reading →
In the electoral/political sense, that is? I think it’s very very rare. Or rather, they think they learn, but all too often they learn the wrong thing. In order to really learn from one’s mistakes and to correct them properly, … Continue reading →
In a recent thread on gymnastics, commenter “CV” recommended watching this astounding video. I can’t seem to figure out how to find the embed code, so you’ll have to go there in order to watch it. It’s well worth the … Continue reading →
There’s a trend I’ve noticed in the comments section here and also in some of the emails I’ve been getting: quite a few people admonishing me that I should shut up like a good apparatchik and take one for the … Continue reading →
In Shelby Steele’s Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country, he writes: …[A]ll these victim-focused identities are premised on a belief in the characterological evil of American and the entire Western world. This broad assumption is the idea … Continue reading →
Why are we still talking about Cruz’s speech last night and the reaction to it? It crystallizes some of the themes that have been building and building this entire campaign season, as well as the frustrations. Trump is a candidate … Continue reading →
The British poet (1795-1821) wrote: Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? By the way, I highly recommend the film “Bright Star,” about Keats’ romance … Continue reading →
People on the right who refuse to vote for Donald Trump are commonly met with the response that they must then bear some responsibility for electing Hillary Clinton, and that as they watch her presidency unfold they will have to … Continue reading →
The always-fascinating Richard Fernandez offers some quotes from anti-Nazi Dietrich Bonhoeffer that I want to call attention to: “Against stupidity we are defenseless,” [Bonhoeffer] wrote, because imbeciles never feel a qualm. Against the stupid “neither protests nor the use of … Continue reading →
Pathological and/or compulsive lying is not the same as ordinary lying. Ordinary lying is strategic and episodic, and the person doing it usually realizes he/she is lying. There is a reason for the lying, a reason an objective observer can … Continue reading →
I don’t usually write about my dreams, but last night I had one that was so vivid I feel the need to do so. And no, it wasn’t about politics. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve either dreamed less or remembered … Continue reading →
…the universe is full of black holes. Probably. Maybe. Supermassive black holes with masses of more than 10bn suns have previously been found at the heart of large galaxies located in dense clusters in the universe. But this is the … Continue reading →