In the last set of comments,  Robert said that we come to literature and its interpretation through academics–so let’s start there. When I said that I wasn’t talking about English departments, I meant it.  It’s not that I think we shouldn’t study literature at the university level.  I do.  It’s that I think almost all literature…

Yesterday, in response to the posts, I got a pair of e-mails that don’t look, on the surface, as if they have anything to do with each other, but which I think are very much connected.   The one from John was about a teacher friend of his and her battles with the parents of her…

Okay,  Okay.  Two posts in one day, and I do too much of it. But Robert just posted this, and I have to respond: >>>Indeed, ID is not testable, and therefor does not rate the respect given to that which can be and is tested>>> I did NOT say that, because ID is not testable, it…

So John posted a comment on Intelligent Design, after he’d sent it to me, and I promised to yell at it.  Except,  I’m not going to, exactly.  The issue is a lot more complicated than that.  For one thing, John isn’t actually talking about Intelligent Design, which he admits to knowing nothing about.   He’s talking…

We started out, back there somewhere, talking about decadance and decline, and whether Western Civilization in general, and American society in particular, were about to go the way of the Rome of Nero and the Greece of Alexander the Great. And, believe it or not, I’ve actually been thinking about that, although I’ve been coming at…

Okay, I can’t help myself. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute is running one of those surveys, this one on what American citizens and American officeholders know about American history and government.  It’s here http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx Have fun.

It’s the kind of thing you can’t believe you actually did, because nobody ever does it.   It’s a sitcom cliche. I was in the grocery store yesterday afternoon. Greg, my younger son, was with me, and he had the cart.  I was looking for The Turkey, and  I’d finally found my way to the bin…

Well, to start,  I’d have to say that I heartily approve of our Bill of  Rights, and that I would not want out government run on the basis described by John as pertaining in Canada. One reason is philosophical–in the  US Constitution, rights are assumed to be inherent in the person, prior to and superceding…

Hello.  The begin with, I’d like to thank all the people who sent me e-mails wondering if I was, you know, dead–although I would like to point out that, had I been dead, I wouldn’t have been able to answer them.  No, I was just tired, incredibly tired, so that I would do things like…