November 17, 2017 – 6:05 pm
Off to see King Crimson at the Beacon Theater tonight. They are a remarkable ensemble, including, among others, two of my favorite drummers, Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harrison, the great bassist Tony Levin and — sui generis — the Gurdjeffian guitarist and musical innovator Robert Fripp. I’ve never seen them perform, and I’m happy to […]
November 16, 2017 – 11:21 pm
Well! No sooner do I write about how Bill Clinton seems to be gliding smoothly across the surface of our latest moral panic, than prominent Democrats seem suddenly to notice that the man is in fact, as so many of his victims had been trying to tell everyone for decades, a loathsome sexual predator. I […]
November 14, 2017 – 4:13 pm
Over at American Greatness, Roger Kimball explains why he’s given up on Trumpism.
November 13, 2017 – 11:39 pm
Yesterday a the New York Times published an opinion piece by a black academic, one Ekow Yankah. The essay is called Can My Children Be Friends with White People? Professor Yankah’s answer is no, for the reason that black people must assume that every white person is, unless proven otherwise, such a virulent racist as […]
November 13, 2017 – 2:29 pm
It seems that hardly a day goes by lately without the ruination of another prominent man by allegations of sexual misconduct. Somehow, though, Bill Clinton sails along. Can there be any doubt that this blackguard is a sexual predator of the first order? Of course not; the allegations are legion, including a highly plausible accusation […]
November 12, 2017 – 12:32 pm
Once again, here’s the indispensable Andrew McCarthy, former Federal prosecutor, on the Mueller investigation. In his latest essay, he compares it to the way the Obama DOJ handled its investigation of Hillary Clinton. The contrast is instructive, and sorely vexing.
November 11, 2017 – 10:50 pm
Our e-pal Bill Keezer sent along a link today to an essay on climate change by the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson. As it happened I offered a post about this very essay ten years ago, and it’s at least as relevant now as it was then. Have a look. My post is here, and the […]
November 11, 2017 – 3:05 pm
The view out my front window just now (click for larger version): These guys should really pay more attention to the calendar.
November 8, 2017 – 2:56 pm
Back in May we had a problem with server-side caching at Bluehost. The symptom was that commenters would see the comment-box pre-populated with the name and email of whoever had commented last. Please let me know if you see this happening again now. (I will be sorely vexed with Bluehost if so.) To clear the […]
November 8, 2017 – 11:49 am
Worried that our culture is in decline? Relax. In fact, the more you can relax, the less this will hurt.
November 6, 2017 – 9:09 pm
Here’s the future of the automobile, from former GM, Ford, and BMW executive Bob Lutz. I love driving. Glad I got the chance, I guess.
November 5, 2017 – 10:32 pm
The key weakness of liberalism — which, to be fair, has at times done much to improve society — is that it must assume as “given” the existence, and the continuing existence, of the society it hopes to improve. But liberalism, by its very nature — its pacifism, its sentimentalism, its opposition to hierarchy, its […]
November 2, 2017 – 10:44 pm
I enjoyed this very much: Mark Knopfler playing his guitars, and talking about playing guitar. (The clip is hosted at Laughing Squid, where it’s described as Mr. Knopfler giving a “wonderful guided tour of his guitar collection” — but that isn’t what it is at all, as older and wiser readers will understand.) Here.
November 1, 2017 – 4:41 pm
The transgendered have become holy objects because, unlike those of us who are frozen in a conventional relation between our sex and our gender, and are trapped in the matrix of objective and pre-existing natural categories, the transgendered demonstrate the supremacy, and so the apotheosis, of the subjective. In a secular religion that denies the […]
October 31, 2017 – 7:15 pm
A Muslim terrorist in a rented truck mowed down pedestrians in New York today, killing eight people. At a news conference, Governor Cuomo assured us that the killer was a “lone wolf”, and that there was no evidence of a “wider plot”. Rubbish. The “wider plot” has been in effect for fourteen centuries. It continues […]
October 30, 2017 – 11:00 pm
I’ve been reading James Burnham’s Suicide of the West. Published in 1964, it is an anti-liberal jeremiad, and a corking good one. It also anticipates a number of themes that have become central tenets of both traditional-conservative and neoreactionary criticism. I’m still only about three-quarters of the way through, but I’ll offer some excerpts. Burnham […]
October 27, 2017 – 3:17 pm
A few days ago I mentioned a manifesto called the Paris Declaration — signed by, among others, Roger Scruton — and gave it two-and-a-half cheers. I did allow that I had a “quibble or two”, but in general I thought — and I still do think — that it was an important step in the […]
October 24, 2017 – 3:47 pm
From Campus Reform: Prof: Algebra, geometry perpetuate white privilege The story is about one Rochelle Gutierrez, a professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois. We read: “On many levels, mathematics itself operates as Whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of […]
October 24, 2017 – 12:02 pm
Here is David Bowie, in a 1999 interview, predicting in considerable detail the transformative, revolutionary effect of the Internet on media and culture.
October 23, 2017 – 2:27 pm
Here is former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy’s detailed summary of the reeking DOJ/Clinton/Rosatom affair. (The Hill has also been covering the story, for example here.) Corruption and obfuscation at this level should be front-page news, every day. If it had happened under a Republican administration, it would be.
October 22, 2017 – 11:10 pm
Here’s Twitter’s most interesting and unusual feed, @ThomasWictor, on Niger and Benghazi.
October 21, 2017 – 11:45 pm
A group of concerned thinkers, including Roger Scruton, have written a rousing manifesto calling for the defense of Europe against its accelerating cultural suicide. The document is called The Paris Statement, and it is good strong stuff. (I learned about it from this article at Reaction, where you can find additional commentary.) You can read […]
October 17, 2017 – 11:51 pm
Ah, Diversity. How its worship enriches us! It doesn’t, of course. But it does, at least, make for some last-minute entertainment, here on the deck of the Titanic. There are some areas of human activity that lie forever beyond the reach of heartfelt wishes and fond imaginings: places where reality is still there even after […]
October 15, 2017 – 10:23 pm
From Albion’s Seed, page 896: There is a cultural equivalent of the iron law of oligarchy: small groups dominate every cultural system. They tend to do so by controlling institutions and processes, so that they tend to become the “governors” of a culture in both a political and a mechanical sense. The “iron law of […]
October 12, 2017 – 9:29 pm
Everywhere you look, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea is out, and Indigenous Peoples are in. (Well, the indigenous peoples of Europe, not so much…) Those of us who don’t get all our history from Howard Zinn, however, know that the Noble Savage was a good deal more savage than noble. Some details here.
October 11, 2017 – 7:00 pm
Here’s an interesting Twitter thread, from Thomas Wictor: the world’s leading authority on WWI flamethrowers, and a most unusual fellow.
October 10, 2017 – 4:02 pm
The volcanic island of La Palma (one of the Canary Islands) is in the news after an earthquake swarm. Why “yikes”? See here.
October 10, 2017 – 3:12 pm
I’ve finally been reading David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. (I’ve known for years that this book was essential reading for anyone interested in the cultural history of the United States, but late is better than never.) The book is delightfully engaging. I just came across this, in a chapter on […]
October 8, 2017 – 11:54 pm
After the Las Vegas shooting, I noted that when I was a boy guns were a common and unremarkable part of normal American life: I grew up in a rural area of west-central New Jersey. When I was a boy, all the households around me had a gun or two. We boys used to stack […]
October 8, 2017 – 1:04 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, here’s a long and detailed assessment of the claim that Donald Trump’s voter-base — middle- and working-class Americans — made an irrational choice that was contrary to their own interests. The author demonstrates that this view is unsupportable, and that those who make it are usually applying a standard […]
October 7, 2017 – 11:26 pm
Sorry for the lack of substantial content around here lately. From time to time I become so weary of the passing scene that I hardly know what to say about it. I’ll be back to normal soon, I expect. Meanwhile: Diplomad is kissing California goodbye. Can’t say I blame him.
October 4, 2017 – 7:24 pm
As the gun-ban furor continues, here are two more items you should read: I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise. Mass Shootings Are A Bad Way To Understand Gun Violence
October 4, 2017 – 1:21 pm
Just after the slaughter in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton (remember her?) took to Twitter to offer this tendentious and ignorant comment: The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get. In Ms. Clinton’s moated and wholly self-referential mind, […]
October 3, 2017 – 8:56 pm
In the wake of the LV massacre we hear the usual outcry from gun-rights opponents. It’s just another instance of the great and widening chasm separating the two Americas, and as always the hue and cry will simply push the two sides farther apart. In confronting this act of evil, the “progressive” mind leaps reflexively, […]
October 2, 2017 – 4:20 pm
Sorrow is everywhere today: following on the sickening atrocity in Las Vegas is the news that Tom Petty — one of the greatest rockers and songwriters of my generation — has died.
October 2, 2017 – 11:18 am
I’m still waiting for the Muse to return from vacation. Meanwhile, here’s a fine post on disagreement by our friend Bill Vallicella. Note the link in Bill’s post to the acerbic NRx blogger ‘Porter’. I’d earlier called Bill’s attention to Porter’s post on the NFL brouhaha, which you might enjoy also.
September 29, 2017 – 10:36 am
With a tip of the hat to our pal Bill Keezer, here’s a good item by Mark Steyn on the “progressive disease” I’ve called C.I.V. It’s all been said before, but it needs saying again and again. Best line: “When you demolish your own inheritance, the lot does not stay empty. Something arises in its […]
September 28, 2017 – 8:02 pm
Here’s an essay by William Voegeli on immigration, published at Claremont Review of Books back in August. It is outstandingly clear and comprehensive. I’ll offer a brief excerpt, in which Voegli makes what I think is the most important point of all about immigration policy (I have bolded the relevant passage): Given the stakes, the […]
September 26, 2017 – 10:51 am
Well, the lovely Nina and I are on our way back. We’re traveling a day later than we meant to: we’d flown from Boston to Vienna (and had left our car at Logan Airport), but while we were overseas the carrier, Air Berlin, having declared bankruptcy, canceled all flights to Boston forever. So now we […]
September 19, 2017 – 4:08 pm
Vienna, September 19th — As it was last time we were here, Vienna — unlike so many other European cities — still manages to maintain its European character, at least in its more affluent districts (I should note that we have not moved around the city much this trip, and have only been inside the […]
September 13, 2017 – 5:21 pm
File this under “Diversity and its Blessings”. I’m off to Vienna and Prague tomorrow; I’ll let you know how things seem there.
September 12, 2017 – 10:15 pm
Well, I’m back home in Wellfleet after a splendid three-day weekend on Star Island. (The high point of the weekend was a tribute performance we gave on Saturday night in honor of the late Walter Becker, consisting of a baker’s dozen of Steely Dan’s greatest hits. (It would have been impossible to get that together […]
September 7, 2017 – 9:24 pm
I’ll be away this weekend (as I was last year at this time) for our annual musical retreat on Star Island. Back early next week. The comment-box is open, if anyone would like to broach any topics for consideration.
September 6, 2017 – 1:15 pm
Mencius Moldbug on fascist-hunting: Unfortunately no central statistics are kept, but I wouldn’t be surprised if every day in America, more racists, fascists and sexists are detected, purged and destroyed, than all the screenwriters who had to prosper under pseudonyms in the ’50s. Indeed it’s not an exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of […]
September 5, 2017 – 8:49 pm
Here’s the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, quoted in New York Magazine (my emphasis): Q: …Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools? A: What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, […]
September 5, 2017 – 11:11 am
A happy item in the New York Times today: Power Station Studios, where I was a staff engineer from 1978 to 1987, has been bought by Berklee College of music and will be re-opening after a long-overdue renovation. Power Station, Studio A: my alma mater. This is the second time this magnificent facility, which in […]
September 3, 2017 – 1:28 pm
I didn’t see this coming: Walter Becker is dead at 67. If you’re a musician of my generation, or a fan, that’s a heavy blow.
September 1, 2017 – 2:05 pm
Many of you will have read Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer-decorated book Guns, Germs, and Steel. It makes what has seemed to many (even to me, when I first read it) an overwhelmingly persuasive case that the persistent inequalities in power, influence, and prosperity among the world’s population groups — why, for example, did Europeans colonize the […]
August 30, 2017 – 11:44 am
Here’s Hanson again, with some comparative analysis.
August 29, 2017 – 11:01 pm
Sorry it’s been so slow around here. It’s August, when I always take it easy a bit — but I’ll confess that I’m also getting a little spooked by the extent to which we are all (and I’m no exception) living more and more of our lives online. Our attention, which is more precious than […]