We’ve made it home to New York, and are recovering. Things will get back to normal here again soon.
Having found a little free time and a stable Internet connection, I thought I’d give a little update: I’m sitting on the rooftop of an inn at the foot of the famous Moon Hill, a limestone arch just a few kilometers from the town of Yangshuo, in Guangxi province, China. Here’s the view from our […]
Phil Ramone, arguably the greatest record producer of all time, died on Saturday. He was a towering presence in the recording industry, and his death is an enormous loss to us all. His work, and his influence, touched every aspect of recording. (He’s even the man responsible for putting that long-familiar pair of Shure SM-57s […]
March 29, 2013 – 11:11 pm
Lawrence Auster has died. There are things I would like to say about him, his influence on my own thinking, and the grace with which he faced his final ordeal, but I must say them later. He was a brilliant and difficult man. For now, go and read Laura Wood’s entry at VFR. See also […]
March 27, 2013 – 11:46 am
Things will be quiet around here for the next two weeks or so: the lovely Nina and I are off to fabled Cathay, where our brilliant and beautiful daughter is teaching science at an international high school in Guangzhou. We’ll all be spending a few days in scenic Yangshuo, and the memsahib and I will […]
March 27, 2013 – 11:01 am
There’s grist for every ideological mill in this item, which came over the transom from a reader this morning. It lists the admissions this year, by race, to New York’s premier public high school, Stuyvesant. Admission to Stuy is a pure meritocracy; do well enough on the entrance exam, and you’re in. Here are the […]
March 26, 2013 – 11:14 pm
Today was gay-marriage day at the Supreme Court. Read the transcript here. Key points, I think, were two lines of questioning directed from the bench to Ted Olson, one from Antonin Scalia (“You ”” you’ve led me right into a question I was going to ask…”), and one from Sonia Sotomayor (“Mr. Olson, the bottom […]
One of the intrinsic disadvantages conservatives have in the P.R. war with the Left is that we weren’t brought up to think that victimhood is an appropriate foundation for a well-built life. For traditional, conservative sorts, weaned on solid Christian pessimism, it is simply the plain truth that life will always dish out insults and […]
Charles Cooke, who is a very sensible fellow for one so young, comments at length on Albany’s stupid, histrionic, opportunistic, and authoritarian reaction to Newtown.
March 23, 2013 – 11:05 pm
Here’s Alfred Jay Nock, writing in 1936 about a little-sought-after but highly rewarding career path: prophet to the Remnant.
This one’s been making the rounds: the fish with “human teeth”.
March 23, 2013 – 12:03 pm
The perfect should never be the enemy of the good, but we should always let the good be the enemy of the merely convenient.
March 21, 2013 – 11:05 pm
This caught my eye: US plan calls for more scanning of private Web traffic, email Non-electronic communication will soon be a thing of the past. It’s interesting that the simplest of technologies — a packet of paper, a drop of wax — made possible, for thousands of years, something that for most people will soon […]
When you abandon reason and due process, and act only upon hysteria, emotion and sensationalism, this is what you get. That such people are in charge of our public affairs — and have the power to revise and abridge our cherished liberties at their whim — is horrifying.
Here is a sensible piece by George Will on why the Court should strike down the ‘Defense of Marriage Act’. In brief: the definition and regulation of marriage is not among the Federal government’s enumerated and carefully limited powers. Students of history will recall that this actually used to mean something.
March 20, 2013 – 10:20 pm
I’m working late again tonight, so all I have, I’m afraid, is this brief item from NRO, in which we learn that a Connecticut principal has canceled his school’s annual celebration of its honors students, in order not to bruise the emotions of those less successful. Yes, readers, America is well on the way to […]
Today’s good news: it looks like Dianne Feinstein’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” is dying on the vine.
March 18, 2013 – 11:32 pm
I was wondering when this was going to happen. One Twitterer remarked: If Silicon Valley is a meritocracy (or aspires to be) why not let everyone see company hiring stats for women and people of color. Here’s a guess: It’s because Silicon Valley (which is really just a proxy for companies that make their money […]
March 17, 2013 – 11:31 pm
Here is a very beautiful performance of Lachrimae Pavane, written by the English Renaissance composer and lutenist John Dowland. The player is the Swedish guitarist Per-Olov Kindgren. It’s hard to describe the emotional effect of Dowland’s music; it’s terribly sad, but just to call it “melancholy” is too one-sided. There is also something deeply comforting […]
On the elevation of the new Pope, we’ve seen a lot of sulking about the Catholic Church’s inexplicable reluctance to get itself properly aligned with the Left’s social-issues agenda. It is, as Dennis Mangan points out here, perfectly understandable for socially ‘progressive’ sorts to consider the Church a political opponent, and to seek to reduce […]
As usually happens, the middle of this week has meant long hours at work. So for the moment, just a few links: — A fine rant, from across the pond, on the new subjectivity of justice, and the culture of victimhood. — A necessary government expenditure that appears, so far, to have survived the sequester. […]
March 12, 2013 – 11:05 pm
I don’t drink Coke, but I certainly had a smile when I read that Michael Bloomberg’s infantilizing sugary-drink ban had been smacked down by the Supreme Court of the State of New York. (Smacked down by the very researchers he quoted in support of it, too, but that’s another story.) From the Times: In an […]
March 11, 2013 – 11:18 pm
Well, that’s a big job, but it can be done! You just have to work hard, and keep the goal in view. As with all big jobs, the trick is to break it down into smaller parts. Here’s Victor Davis Hanson on how to take care of the economy. (Hat tip: Bill Keezer.) Forgive me, […]
March 11, 2013 – 12:27 pm
Here’s an outstandingly clear and well-informed article addressing the commonest of the Left’s positions on gun-control. It’s long, but well worth your time.
From Democracy In America, here’s Alexis de Tocqueville on the complexity of American law: The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one; nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation founded upon precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which […]
After a round of too-long-put-off periodontal surgery today at the hands of the gifted healer Louis Franzetti, I am in a deep post-operative torpor. Back soon.
All right, I know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, sure, all this ‘civilization’ stuff you’re always on about is probably kind of important, I guess… …but what about knotted vortices?” Right you are. And here you go.
Finally. From ‘The Diplomad’, a brief and accurate summary. Excerpt: In short, his was a bravura performance which has left Venezuela awash in debt, crime, and poverty–the signature achievement of leftism everywhere in the world. Thanks to Bill Keezer for the link. And here’s another.
With a hat tip to Bill Vallicella, we urge you to read an excellent article at The Jurist, by criminologist Don Kates, on the lack of empirical evidence for the Left’s position on gun bans. The article includes links to public recantations by many former gun-ban advocates, including a 1995 paper by noted criminologist Marvin […]
Here’s yet another interesting item from Edge.org, this time an interview with a young psychologist named Adam Alter, whom I hadn’t heard of before now. The article’s accompanying biographical note says this about him: ADAM ALTER is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Stern School of Business, NYU. He is the author of Drunk Tank […]
I guess we’re all feeling pretty low, now that the Sequester has gone into effect. I haven’t been paying much attention to the news since Friday (been busy arranging the canned goods down in the shelter), but if the predictions I’d been hearing have turned out to be correct, the entire nation is now unemployed, […]
Yes readers, it’s gotten this bad.
Back in January the New York State legislature rammed through a major gun-control bill, in the middle of the night, as a hysterical reaction to the Newtown shootings. The legislators were given just a few minutes to read the bill before a vote was called, in violation of a law that imposes a three-day review […]
February 28, 2013 – 9:05 pm
I’m working late tonight, so here’s a strange item for you to mull over: the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Read about it on Wikipedia, here, or for a more detailed account, have a look here. Strangest of all: the missing tongue.
February 28, 2013 – 1:54 pm
Here’s Maxine Waters, who is a walking one-woman argument for limiting the power of the Federal government, “explaining” sequestration. Apparently, more jobs will be lost — 170 million — than currently exist. As Charles Cooke said on Twitter just now, “I wouldn’t trust this woman to explain how a fork works.”
February 27, 2013 – 11:58 pm
From Norway: an uncommonly open-minded video about race. Here.
February 26, 2013 – 11:19 pm
… goes wabbling back to the Fire.
February 26, 2013 – 11:13 pm
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a festschrift on Federal spending, from the Heritage Foundation. Browse. And just for some perspective about the calamitous effects of the impending “sequestration” — upon which event, we are told, the sun will be folded up, the heavens flayed, the pregnant she-camels neglected, and Hell set […]
February 23, 2013 – 10:37 pm
I’ve written and deleted three posts already today, and am just going to lay off for a day or two. I’m cranky and fed up, and have a toothache besides, and nothing interesting, good or useful will come of writing under such circumstances. Back in a bit.
February 22, 2013 – 11:40 pm
Writing at NRO, Jonah Goldberg comments on the sky-is-falling hysteria surrounding the impending “sequester” — which, were you just to listen to the news or to White House Press releases, you’d never imagine would still leave the federal government spending more money than last year. Mr. Goldberg observes: Obama wants more tax hikes and thinks […]
February 22, 2013 – 2:36 pm
The world’s tuna fishery is collapsing, with prime specimens selling for seven-digit prices. Yet tuna is everywhere, from supermarket shelves to delis to sushi bars, and the retail cost remains low. How is this possible? According to this item, a majority of the “tuna” being sold in the U.S. isn’t tuna at all. A lot […]
February 21, 2013 – 11:47 pm
Mencius Moldbug comments on the approaching death of Lawrence Auster, here. Auster himself is puzzled, and I think his puzzlement illustrates rather well exactly the points Moldbug makes about him: Auster’s specialty is order and clarity, while Moldbug’s piece, as always, is long, discursive, and sesquipedalian. But I thought it was quite a nice tribute, […]
February 21, 2013 – 3:29 pm
Over at Mangan’s, our friend Dennis links to a post by Bruce Charlton about the cratering birthrates of the developed, Westernized world. That there is something maladaptive about secular modernity has been apparent for some time, and I’ve written about this myself; most of the discussion to date, however, has focused on social and cultural […]
February 20, 2013 – 9:35 pm
I’m just whipped tonight, having got home from work at 5 a.m. this morning, and having to get right back up for another long day. A miscellany for tonight, then: — Some Forteana, here and here. — The world’s Tweets, in real time. — From Russia, with love (you might have missed this one). — […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:44 pm
With a hat tip to reader Bill Keezer, here’s a blunt, crepuscular rant from noted gloominary Victor Davis Hanson.
February 19, 2013 – 12:02 pm
A young researcher in China has begun a project to find the genetic basis for the heritable components of human intelligence. We shouldn’t be surprised to see that this is happening in China, and not in the West, where most of the academics I know are of the opinion that there’s no such thing as […]
February 19, 2013 – 1:01 am
Milton Freidman responds to President Obama’s call for a hike in the minimum wage. Here, from beyond the grave.
February 18, 2013 – 9:24 pm
Kevin Kim, whose academic specialty is the study of the world’s religions, has written a stupendous essay on the possibly-divine nature of Peter Sellers’s character Chance, from the movie Being There. Get thee hence and read it, here.
February 18, 2013 – 3:08 pm
Reader JK sends along a provocative item from ABC News. The gist: the soldiers who were shot at Fort Hood by the jihadist infiltrator Nidal Hasan have been denied various benefits, including the Purple Heart, because the Defense Department refuses to define the shooting as an attack by an enemy combatant — preferring instead to […]
February 17, 2013 – 10:46 pm
I do love Wikipedia. Here’s a page listing those parts of our bodies that are named after people.