By way of Popehat, Arnold Kling on a root problem with contemporary political discourse, summarized in the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Kling’s three “languages” are ways of talking about politics and government, and they align roughly with the progressive, conservative… Continue Reading
This post is about what exists in reality and how I’ve seen it, not what I think that reality ought to be or my moral approval or disapproval of it. On balance, I’m not particularly happy with seeing the world… Continue Reading
I’m quite uncertain about the methodology reported upon here leading to the conclusions thus claimed. The results are interesting but I’m not entirely sure what they really prove — and I doubt very much that they prove what is claimed.… Continue Reading
When I saw an episode of 60 Minutes pointing out the arrow embedded into the Federal Express logo, the subtlety of the design blew me away. Now, I can’t stop seeing the arrow. I suspect that after reading this article,… Continue Reading
I know very well that if I were willing to, I could totally be this guy. It would involve a short-circuit of my ethics, of course. It wouldn’t be all that different than being a lawyer, really, right on down… Continue Reading
At the suggestion of Ordinary Gentleman Rufus F., I undertook to read Chris Hedges’ new book The Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. I found it a seductively-written polemic, lacking in scholarly research but… Continue Reading
What I love about blogging is finding people who comment on weird combinations of interesting things. Like the impact of facial hair on Presidential politics — it’s not a decisive advantage either way, but Republicans are always more hirsute than… Continue Reading
One of the most fascinating, if not the most fascinating, books I have ever read about the ancient world was a rehash of Edward N. Luttwak’s Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire. Most military historians find the ancient world of… Continue Reading
The cover story from this month’s Atlantic is deeply depressing. And, I can tell you from my (comparatively) brief experience with unemployment, based on a very real psychological phenomenon. Back after The Wife and I moved to Tennessee and discovered… Continue Reading
LeVar Burton may be most famous for playing Geordi LaForge on Star Trek, he may have made his mark playing Kunta Kinte in Roots, but he did his best work inspiring children to read books on Reading Rainbow, which after… Continue Reading