Monthly Archives: April 2019

The Empirical Strikes Back

April 30, 2019 – 10:13 pm

One thing that you may have noticed is that where science conflicts with hegemonic ideology, science takes a beating. (You shouldn’t have much difficulty thinking of both historical and contemporary examples, from Galileo to E.O. Wilson, and I’m sure Judith Curry would agree.) Nowhere is this more apparent in our own time than in the […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, HBD | Comments (1)

Kissing The Ring

April 29, 2019 – 11:23 pm

In his Notes On Democracy, H. L. Mencken said of the American politician the following thing: He is a man who has lied and dissembled, and a man who has crawled. He knows the taste of boot-polish. He has suffered kicks in the tonneau of his pantaloons. He has taken orders from his superiors in […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

The Trump Doctrine

April 25, 2019 – 10:53 pm

Michael Anton, a senior fellow of the Claremont Institute who is currently a lecturer and researcher at Hillsdale College, wrote what became the most influential political essay of the 2016 presidential campaign: The Flight 93 Election. (If you haven’t read it, I’m surprised — but you can do so here. Readers may also recall our […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Foreign Affairs | Comments (4)

About Time!

April 25, 2019 – 10:49 pm

Here’s the story of the day: BOSTON ”“ A Massachusetts judge was indicted Thursday on charges that she helped a man who was living in the U.S. illegally sneak out a back door of the courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent. Newton District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph and former court officer […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (1)

Scalia: How Should A Christian Think About Socialism?

April 22, 2019 – 11:44 pm

Following on the spiritual dissatisfaction I expressed in my April 5th post, I’ve been reading On Faith, a newly released collection of the late Justice’s speeches and essays on his Catholic religion. In one of his speeches, Justice Scalia considered how a Christian should think about socialism: The allure of socialism for the Christian, I […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Religion | Comments (3)

Au Crepuscule

April 21, 2019 – 8:48 pm

Sunset tonight at Rock Harbor on Cape Cod:    

By Malcolm | Posted in Cape Cod | Comments (1)

Setting The Fox To Guard The Henhouse

April 18, 2019 – 3:38 pm

Over at the American Conservative, Rod Dreher comments on a blog-post by one Sofia Leung, who is “The Teaching And Learning Program Manager at MIT Libraries”. Ms. Jeung writes: If you look at any United States library’s collection, especially those in higher education institutions, most of the collections (books, journals, archival papers, other media, etc.) […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (4)

Paris, Burning

April 16, 2019 – 12:46 pm

We all saw the horrifying news of the fire at Notre Dame yesterday. It was unspeakably sad. It was also, as others have also noted, perhaps the most powerful metaphor imaginable for the death of Christian Europe. (Can you think of a more iconic symbol of high Western civilization anywhere on the Continent? I can’t.) […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (1)

The Smile Of Nature

April 12, 2019 – 5:43 pm

Thirteen years ago I wrote a post entitled Fall Guy, in which I noted that, whereas the summer and winter are seasons of stagnation, balanced upon the solstices and ending more or less as they begin, the spring and fall are times of movement and change: The seasons move in a cycle, and one might […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Ruminations | Comments (2)

Slavery, Abortion, Heresy

April 10, 2019 – 12:31 pm

Here. (See also this, from, of all places, Vox).

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

How To Start A Fire

April 9, 2019 – 11:41 pm

The House held a hearing on “white nationalism” today. One of the speakers was the conservative black woman Candace Owens, who gave a rousing opening statement. You can watch it here. The focus on “white nationalism” by the Left has been a clever and effective tactic, one that exploits the essence of the conservative disposition. […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Reaction, Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (9)

Wimps

April 6, 2019 – 11:47 pm

It occurred to me just now that July 20th of this year will be the 50th anniversary of the first time that men walked on the Moon. There should be Dunkin Donuts on the Moon by now. What the hell happened to us?

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Pilgrim’s Progress

April 5, 2019 – 2:30 pm
This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Pilgrim's Progress

As I get older (I will be sixty-three in a week or so) it becomes harder and harder for me to accept the Universe as a “brute fact”: a thing that just is, and that cannot, even in principle, be accounted for. It’s difficult for everyone, of course, not just me, and so people who […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy, Inner Work, Religion | Comments (51)

A Most Dangerous Game

April 4, 2019 – 12:13 am

Here’s the distinguished Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen on what he calls the “myth” behind Russiagate: the idea that Russia “attacked” the United States during the last presidential election.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics, Foreign Affairs | Comments (0)

Nobody’s Going To Answer For Anything

April 1, 2019 – 12:10 am

A friend of mine wrote me yesterday to send me an item linked by Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge. The original is a post by one James Howard Kunstler, and it begins as follows: The tides are shifting. Something’s in the wind. And it’s not just the fecund vapors of spring. The political soap […]

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)