Jane Haddam

Well–the issue isn’t how many members of the working class/lower class/immigrant population become intellectuals, but how many intellectuals started out as members of those classes, and how many are “privileged.” John says that “most” children of immigrants take practical university training in things like computer science and engineering, but so do “most” university students of…

Every once in a while, somebody says something that so startles me that I don’t know what to do with it. Mique said: >>>Your sons and, I suspect, most other kids with the ability to achieve a life of the mind will either come from privileged backgrounds with sufficient family intellectualism and relative wealth, or…

Okay, here’s the thing. I promise–I ABSOLUTELY PROMISE– Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never To get sarcastic on this blog. When I said Ward Churchill didn’t have the credentials, I was being sarcastic.  And I’m beginning to think I’m really bad at this, because I never seem…

So, John Oliver says: >>>Mique has been talking about the history departments in Australian universities. I tend to agree with him. They have adopted a politically correct party line of historical interpretation. Am I expected to respect them as “intellectuals” who work with ideas or should I despise them as people who have destroyed the…

John tells me that “ordinary people” think “intellectual” means college professors who write books, and Robert tells me we have a perfectly good word for the class of people he’s thinking of (with certain kinds of jobs in certain kinds of institutions) and that that word is “intellectual.” My problem is twofold. First, Humpty Dumpty…

This is one of those days when doing this blog should be easy, since I’m on the good computers, but of course it isn’t, because there are half a dozen people in this room blasting music out of–well, what do they blast it out of?  If it’s coming out of their earphones, they’re going to…

So, let’s start here. Robert says: >>>>Leftist positions will always be supported by a majority of intellectuals. The underlying premises are more congenial to them, and in a world of more limited government and less deference, many of them would have to find other employment <<<<< This is, I think–and I think I can prove–entirely…

I’ve been thinking for a while about getting back to something I tried to express earlier, and got sort of blindsided for.  I never know when to qualify what, if you know what I mean.  I never know when something I say or something I write is going to result in a lot of running…

I know, I was off on some other subject the day before yesterday.  And part of me would like to rant and rave here about the Percy Jackson books, if only because I find them incoherent.  Of course, they sell like crazy, so it’s probably me. But Critical Thinking keeps coming up, and I’m fed…

It’s the morning after a big storm that went on late into the evening, which means that my walk and my driveway are not yet shoveled out.  This happens sometimes.  After a while, it just gets too dark to do anything sensible, and then it gets dangerous to handle a snowblower.  The problem, of course,…