It’s a teaching day, so I’m not really writing this. But–please note, there were TWO PARTS to my fundamental option statement. Every human being is infinitely valuable, AND THEREFORE no human being can be treated as a means and not as an end in himself. That second part will eliminate most of the things JD…

It has been quite a week around here–mostly because of my own stupidity, but there it is. The first thing that happened was that bruised and tore the hell out of my right index finger.  This was entirely unnecessary.  There is, on the second floor of my house, a door whose doorknob mechanism went to…

So, my regime is going along fine–I really can edit to music, and this morning I had Paganini’s Violin Concerto for Orchestra Number 1 and Number 2.  They’re together on a single CD, and I haven’t listened to it very often. But it’s very nice indeed. In the meantime, I’ ve been looking over something…

First, I’d like to apologize that the comments function was turned off for most of yesterday on yesterday’s post.  If that happens again and you want to comment, e mail me and I’ll fix it.  It’s very easy to fix. And if I ever don’t want to take comments, I’ll say so in my post. That…

In a way, this week-end is just like every other week-end for me.  I don’t teach on Mondays or Tuesdays, so I always have a four day week end.  I write every single day of the week, so I always have no week-end at all. Even so, it always feels sort of wrong to me…

So, I’m sitting here, having done my work for the day to the sound of Handel’s Water Music, and I’m looking at news sites.  I’m always looking at news sites.  I’m a complete news junkie.  It’s why my periodic declamations about giving up cable never go on for very long. Today is what is known…

Well, it got to be one of those nights when I was actually trying to join in the comment thread from my phone. This morning it was a Schubert string quintet and Handel’s harpsichord pieces.  The harpsichord will always be my favorite instrument, but I really needed that quintent. So, is Rome burning? Yeah, I…

I am embarked, at the moment, on a long series of revisions for a book, longer than the ones I’m usually asked to do.  We won’t go into that. But since I’m not usually asked for anything this extensive, I hadn’t (until today) checked out the possibility of listening to music while I worked. I…

There’s an essay link up on Arts and Letters Daily today that sort of ties in with this: http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Library-Without-Walls/Anti-Intellectualism-in-American-Life/ba-p/8967 But at the moment, I want to point out, again, that this is the beginning of the term, and the beginning of the term brings with it…something.  It’s too early for despair. A couple of days…

The problem with my schedule this term is that there isn’t any problem.  The actual schedule is great, and my students actually make me happy. What that means, though, is that when I’m finished on Friday, I have a lot of good intentions about doing things like writing blog posts, which I never do because…