So it’s Sunday, and things should be pretty calm around here, with Bach, or Mozart, or Charles Mingus.  But that’s not going to happen, so some notes on the comments on the last post. 1) Michael’s post was a perfect example of exactly what I was talking about. The shutdown was Christmas in October for…

I know I haven’t been around much, but the book has actually picked up speed and started action like a book. I figure I’d better take the good news while I can get it. In the meantime, though, I’ve been reading a book by Steven Pinker called The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence…

The first thing to say, of course, is that JD was right–I got the name of the Theodore Dalrymple wrong.  It’s Farewell Fear, not “Forever” Fear. But I want to go back around to something else.  Some time ago, I said on this blog, and meant, that only about ten percent of high school students could…

Okay! Things have been a little hectic, so here I am, finally posting the September list nearly two weeks after I usually do. A lot of these I’ve already talked about.  But here’s the list proper: 56) Erle Stanley Gardner. The Case of the Queenly Constestant.           q) Allen Tate. “The Man of Letters in the Modern…

Today, I opened my email to find this http://thefederalist.com/2013/10/04/taking-back-the-arts/ That’s a link to a conservative article on ending federal (and other government) money to the arts. Originally, I didn’t think very much of it, except that I was mildly annoyed.  The person who sent it to me implied that I, of course, would be in…

I signed in to my email yesterday and found a comment on the post before last, on the one called “Still Life,” that gave me pause. The comment was from Mike F, and what it said was this: >>> a Harvard economist, and Eldar Shafir, a psychologist at Princeton, propose a way to explain why…

I finished reading Wendy Kaminer’s Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity and the ACLU a couple of days ago, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about it ever since. Kaminer is one of my absolutely favorite writers, the kind of writers whose books I look out for and always read.  I am not…

Every once in a while, I discover something that is wonderful because it is wonderful–it’s not connected to politics or morality or any of the usual subjects.  It’s not “important” in the way we usually apply that word.  It’s something that just is, and I’m glad it exists in my universe. The something wonderful this…

I don’t know why I am always so surprised that what I write is taken in ways that would never have occurred to me.  It’s not as if it doesn’t happen often enough.  It happens continuously.  But every time it happens, there I am, anywhere from nonplussed to flabbergasted. Today I am mostly on the…

It is Saturday, and I’m a little washed out from the week.  So far, though, the day has gone well enough.  I got the real writing done.  I’ve answered a few student e mails of the “I’m panicking and it’s the week-end” variety. It is, I will admit, beyond my comprehension that they never panick…