One of the things I learned from Ayn Rand–yes, yes; you can learn things from Ayn  Rand–and later had pounded into me in a number of college courses is that the first step in making any argument is to define your terms. I bring this up because I’m just now finishing Johnson’s Intellectuals, and I’ve…

A couple of nights ago I watched this movie, called How to Lose Friends and Alienate  People.  I’d been dancing around it for a couple of weeks, because I recognized the title, and yet I couldn’t imagine a movie made from the book I’d read.  For one thing, the book was a memoir, and a…

So, okay, I was going somewhere with all that stuff I was saying yesterday but between then and now, I’ve received yet another e-mail caused by a complete inability to understand what’s happening in third person multiple viewpoint. And I’ve got to admit that the Internet is not my friend in some ways.  When I…

To answer John’s question first, the book I’m reading is called Intellectuals:  From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky, and since I got it years ago–in a Barnes and Noble brick and mortar store, if I remember corectly, I’ve got no idea how it’s being present online. That said, I’d like to take up a…

It’s been a long time since I read Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals, and I find, in rereading it, that I’d forgotten a lot of it.  I’d also mischaracterized it in my mind.  There are certainly lots of details about the private lives of people like Ibsen, Shaw and Tolstoy, but there’s a lot else that’s here,…

Well, okay, maybe not need.  It’s tax day,  I got up very early this morning, and I’ve been working ever since.  Sometimes I get to the point where little things just stick in my head. For one thing, why is it that tax day in the US is  April 15?  I know the idea was…

Well, I could go on with stuff, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure that this is the official publication date of Living Witness.  I say that because it’s the date that those of you on my mailing list are supposed to get an e-postcard, and it makes sense that that date was set for pub…

Robert says that the “”best” people–the intellectual cutting edge–had abandoned freedom and democracy well before manhood sufferage and commercial freedom were widely accepted.” I’ve thought about this for a minute or two, and I think it’s largely wrong, and for two reasons. One is the simple fact that in any society in which he and…

Okay, you know, what the heck.  It’s Easter. But I was thinking about the responses to the last post, and once again it feels to me as if I didn’t get myself across. What I was going for was a matter of cultural climate, I think, although that might be the wrong term. To me,…

So, okay, I warned you.  The new book is actually doing well and I’ve got a lot of other stuff going on, so the blog is going to be sporadic. But it’s not only the blog that’s sporadic these days.  I’m also taking forever to read anything, and that includes my desperation book, The Concord …