A busy couple of days. Back shortly. I’ve noticed also that there have been a lot of backend errors recently that have been affecting connectivity here. I’m investigating and hope to have a resolution shortly. Thanks for your patience. Update, 3/12: The backend problem persists. (Just posting this update took me half an hour.) Support […]
Big news tonight about a meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. Most commentators, including many I respect, are suggesting that Mr. Trump is being played, just as previous presidents were. I’m not so sure. Here’s why. What’s different this time around is that Trump is using a different lever, and he isn’t using […]
I was back at my old alma mater, Power Station Studios, earlier today. It’s on West 53rd Street in Manhattan. Nearby, some expensive apartment buildings have gone up. If you’re lucky enough to afford one of these tony residences, here’s your front door: Is it me, or did we miss a turn somewhere?
February 21, 2018 – 9:25 pm
As the din of political combat intensifies all round us, and comity and goodwill vanish in the smoke and fires of battle, I thought it might be good to remind ourselves of what real statesmanship and patriotism look like, and to remember that even in the darkest times it is possible to rise, however briefly, […]
February 20, 2018 – 2:08 pm
Here’s a legal article with an “arresting” preamble: I hope to convince you in the next hour, some of you, that the greatest single threat to our freedoms, the freedoms set forth in the Bill of Rights, is not from Iraq or Iran. I don’t think it’s from North Korea. I don’t think it’s from […]
February 18, 2018 – 6:34 pm
I’ve once again raised the comment-form caching issue with my hosting service, Bluehost. I’m hoping that this time they will get it sorted out, once and for all. Thank you for your patience.
February 9, 2018 – 7:53 pm
As someone who is very rarely unwell, it’s always a jolt to be reminded how debilitating a nasty cold can be, especially as I get a bit older. Writing seems to be quite out of the question this evening (indeed I stared at the page for a good two or three minutes just now just […]
February 4, 2018 – 2:57 pm
As I wrote in the previous post, it’s time for this blog to have a new name. I chose the old one, waka waka waka, rather impulsively; its meaning was not obvious, and over the years many people assumed it had something to do with Fozzie Bear. The original title came from a Fela Kuti […]
February 3, 2018 – 3:01 pm
I am going to stop capitalizing every word in my titles. I’m weary of the effort. I might change the name of the blog, too. It’s out of date, and I’m tired of it.
January 31, 2018 – 12:58 pm
Now my email’s broken. If you’ve been trying to email me and I haven’t replied, or you’ve gotten a message-undeliverable notice, that’s why. On the line with support again (my new hobby, it seems). It’s a sign of the times that it’s so disturbing to be disconnected like this. Update, 3 p.m. EST: email’s all […]
January 30, 2018 – 11:12 am
Well! We’re back, it seems, after having been shut down for two days. What happened was this: while looking in to the problem we’ve been having with comment-form caching, the Bluehost admins found that the site had been riddled with viruses and malware. They suspended it until I could get it cleaned up, which I […]
January 9, 2018 – 8:34 pm
For tonight, I have an article by a Chinese national, Puzhong Yao, who emigrated to the West — first to England, then to the United States — to complete his education, and to work in the financial industry. He is obviously highly intelligent, and has done very well. He writes about the difference between Chinese […]
January 6, 2018 – 9:40 pm
Yes, the caption says it all. As much as I enjoy life, I do find it difficult, at times, to be optimistic about the future. (Readers may have noticed this.) Some days it’s harder than others.
January 3, 2018 – 10:48 pm
You won’t often find me linking to the New Yorker these days, but this article by Joan Acocella is so good I’m passing it along.
December 31, 2017 – 2:36 pm
To all of you. Thanks as always for reading and commenting. Buckle up! 2018 looks like it’s going to be an “interesting” year.
December 24, 2017 – 4:24 pm
(Noel!) Merry Christmas, everyone.
December 18, 2017 – 10:49 am
I noticed that comments on old posts had been automatically closed. I’m not sure why; it may have been an anti-spam move on my part a while back, or just something that happened during a site update. Anyway, I’ve got better spam protection now, and they are open again.
December 5, 2017 – 12:16 pm
We’ve been having a server-side problem that caused commenters to see the comment-form populated with the name and email of whoever commented previously. Bluehost tells me the issue is now fixed. Please let me know if you’re still seeing this.
December 2, 2017 – 10:28 pm
Ugh. Food poisoning. There were things I’d have liked to comment on today, but it will have to wait.
November 30, 2017 – 8:20 pm
It’s been quite a while since I’ve put up one of these omnibus posts. Let’s see what I have lying around here: ‣ Jonathan Bowden on the Soviet gulag. ‣ WWII waist-gunner training cartoon, featuring none other than the great Mel Blanc. ‣ Twelve ways artificial wombs will change the world. ‣ […]
November 23, 2017 – 1:15 pm
… to all of you, as always. Thank you for reading and commenting. As we noted recently, gratitude is perhaps the most important requirement for a happy life. We have much to be thankful for today in America; as a nation we can be thankful, especially, for the mortal calamity we avoided a year ago […]
November 21, 2017 – 7:31 pm
Is it me, or does the Las Vegas shooting seem to have dropped right down the memory hole? We still don’t have a clear motive; there’s the laptop with the missing hard-drive; the time-line has gone through several revisions, and there was the very curious story of the actions of the hotel security guard — […]
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 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 […]
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 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.
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 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.
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 […]
August 22, 2017 – 12:09 pm
For nearly all of us, a gravestone or other physical memorial is in any real sense as temporal, as evanescent, a thing as we ourselves are. For when such memorials no longer serve as a token, reminder, or feeble proxy for the deceased in the minds of those who knew them, they simply display a […]
August 18, 2017 – 2:15 pm
Our e-pal Bill Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher, has a post up about “white supremacy”, a loosely defined term that is very much en vogue just now. Dr. Vallicella quotes Robert Paul Wolff: Hatred has fundamentally very little to do with White Supremacy. White Supremacy is a policy of domination and economic superiority of Whites in […]
August 12, 2017 – 10:15 pm
Four years ago, I wrote the following thing: America’s ideological landscape is like the continent itself: transected by deep fault-lines at the irregular boundaries of rigid plates. Though crushed tightly together, these great masses seek to move in different directions, and so they strain relentlessly against one another. The pressure builds, and builds ”” until, […]
More than a few readers have complained to me about the “Captcha” used to screen comments here. I’ve just installed a new one that, for most of you, shouldn’t be visible at all. I hope it works well enough that I can keep using it.
Well, our daughter’s wedding happened this past Saturday, and it was a splendid event. We still have guests in town, and follow-on activities, but things are getting back to normal around the Pollack household, and I’ll soon be back in harness here at the blog. Thank you all for your patience. Meanwhile, here are just […]
I apologize for the slowness around here. With house-guests, and a wedding coming up, the actual world has pre-empted the online world for a little while now, and will do so for another couple of weeks. If the Muse grabs me by the collar, I’ll find the time to write, but posting will likely be […]
Here we are again: it’s Independence Day, 2017, and the nation feels more deeply divided than ever in my lifetime — even more profoundly so, it seems to me, than it did in the Sixties. I say this for two reasons. First, back then the nation was far less heterogeneous; the real demographic inundation of […]
I found myself chatting online this morning with an old friend from my New York studio days. I was dismayed to learn that he’d moved to Florida. I’ve never seen the appeal, I must confess, of the “Sunshine State”. It’s always seemed to me a tacky and unserious place — like southern California without the […]
Some years ago I read The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene. The book, which has become an international best-seller, has its flaws, but it is, on the whole, a sharp and insightful distillation of timeless principles. Today I ran across a half-hour animated summary of this vade mecum for the ruthlessly ambitious. Here […]
I must apologize for the lack of content here over the past week or so. As I mentioned earlier, it’s been a busy time: sadly, I still must labor to earn the daily crust, and meanwhile we have been preparing for a wedding. (Also, on Monday the 12th, the lovely Nina and I celebrated our […]
A busy few days here. Back in a bit.
Here’s a video clip that dramatically illustrates an interesting and counterintuitive fact: a small domino can knock over a domino up to 50% bigger than itself. This means that this knocking-over can very quickly “scale up”. How is this possible? The first domino in this video can’t weigh more than a gram, while the […]
Our reader and commenter Robert, a.k.a. “Whitewall”, has sent along an item from the University of Chicago Divinity School’s newsletter Sightings. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the postmodern cult-Marx priesthood that haunts the halls of the 21st-century Cathedral. (That is to say, the ones who are responsible for the grooming and education […]
Recently I quoted Col. Jeff Cooper. Our e-pal Bill Keezer passed along the quotation to Bill Vallicella, who reposted it on his blog. Bill did, however, notice that I had offered no source, and remarked that he doesn’t like unsourced quotations. He looked for a source, and couldn’t find one. I can’t either. I have […]
After much wrangling with Bluehost, I believe the server-side caching problems we’ve been having with the site are now fixed. Please leave a comment if you see any more odd behavior.
Here’s something to listen to: a roving two-hour conversation between Sam Harris and Charles Murray. Of particular value is their discussion of the hard reality of intelligence, and of its measurability, its heritability, and the cross-cultural reliability of intelligence tests. Also: the word that changed the history of the world.
April 26, 2017 – 10:43 am
There’s been some odd behavior here – strange lags between publishing and items appearing, and comments appearing under the wrong author’s name. I don’t know what’s going wrong, but I do recall there being a recent WordPress update. I’ll try to sort it out. I invite affected commenters to leave a comment on this post […]