So, it’s the 13th of July, and that means it’s my birthday.  I’m not in general very fond of my birthday.  It has tended to be a day on which Bad Things happen, and if they don’t  happen on the day, they happen near the day. This year has been no exception, but there’s no point…

I’ve had a lot to do the last few days,  so any progress I’ve made on anything has been slow, but the progress through Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell has not been bad. The experience has even improved in some ways.  Once Dennett gets going, he tends to forget to use the exclamation points (!!!)…

I’m going to start this post with a proposition: Once (most) people find out what rights actually are ,  they absolutely hate the idea.  I bring this up as a way to begin answering Lymaree’s question from yesterday;  why should we put up with people who use faith  healing or won’t vaccinate their children?  We already…

Over the last couple of days I’ve been reading a book by Daniel Dennett called Breaking the Spell, in which he proposes to give an evolutionary account of the rise and spread of religion. There’s a lot wrong with this book, in different and interconnected ways.  Not the least of it is the fact that…

Before I start this morning, I have a confession to make. I do not actually know if the title of this post is correctly spelled. I tried spell check this morning, and it steadfastly refused to admit that any such word had ever existed, anywhere. This opens up the possibility that I am mistaken about…

One of the more bemusing thing about living in a largely rural area is watching the vast disconnect between local and national news. Last week, two tornados touched down in Connecticut.  One of them hit in Greenwich-Stamford, but the other hit just outside Hartford.  The local CBS station, WFSB, is in Hartford.  The tornado became…

So, it’s the fourth of July.  I was up late last night, partially because the boys went out somewhere together and didn’t get back until ten thirty, and I find it kind of odd being in a silent house by myself. And yes, that does  mean I usually go to bed before ten thirty.  In…

So,  here it is, a couple of days late.  With notes, too, of a sort.   JUNE  33) Henry James. Washington Square.  34) The Rig Veda. Edited and translated Wendy Doniger. Penquin Classics.           k) Camille Paglia. “The Joy of Presbyterian Sex.”  35) Joan Hess. Strangled Prose.  36) C. Northcote Parkinson. East and West.  37)…

I finished the course of antibiotics for the tooth problem yesterday, and I woke up this morning expecting to be less tired and floaty than I’ve been since I hit the emergency room last week. Instead, I woke up just as washed out as I have been for days, and with more to do, and…

I knew almost as soon as I hit the “publish” button yesterday that I was going to be misunderstood, but I’m still on antibiotics, and I was tired. Okay, that’s no excuse. But let me untangle some things. First, when I used the word “aristocratic,” I was NOT talking about professional snobs like Edmund Wilson…