Breaking news about 2.5K-year-old-texts.
Given all the time we spend talking about Platonism around here, I thought it would be a good idea to link to this Guardian article about a new analysis of Plato’s texts. Through an...
Monthly Archive: June 2010
Homophobia’s Littlest Victims
For a long time I wondered whether science would one day find a way to eliminate gays and lesbians. It seems probable that it will. But would most people prefer a society without us?...
Jacobites Vindicated
Andrew Manshel of an outfit called the Greater Jamaica Development Corp takes aim today at sainted urbanist Jane Jacobs. I yield to no one in my admiration for Jacobs. Still, she has become something of...
The MacDonald Slaughterhouse
Whatever your opinion on whether the Supreme Court reached the right result in MacDonald, Ilya Somin destroys the plurality’s argument against applying the privileges or immunities clause despite unambiguous evidence that the privileges or immunities...
Pork and Deliberation
After the news of Senator Robert Byrd’s death broke this morning, I exchanged a couple of text messages with my brother. In one of them, he wrote that Byrd’s “style of governance has been...
Does Europe Need US Defense Spending?
E.D. has a fine piece in NRO today that lays out the conservative case for cutting defense spending. One thing that actually weakens his case is the claim that Europe depends on US defense...
Let’s cut defense spending
I have my first publication in a major magazine today over at National Review Online. Thanks to the good folks over there for publishing it, especially given the subject matter. And thanks to Reihan...
Friday Think Piece: Oedipus and Anti-Oedipus
I’m going to introduce a new semi-periodic series here, the Friday think piece. They’ll be disorganized. They’ll be wild. They’ll be unpredictable. Unlike many things I write, I am as likely to back off...
The Two-fisted Films of Sam Fuller
It is a strange irony that the French, for all their criticisms of America, tend so often to discover and celebrate great American artists long before their compatriots. Such is the case with Sam...
Medea: Aliens, Barbarians, and One Bad Mother
We can’t completely condemn Medea: after all, she was seduced and manipulated by the Corinthian warrior Jason, tricked into using her magic to win the golden fleece for his people, betraying her family and...
Time-lapse of the Schultz fire
It’s sort of strange in Flagstaff right now. Helicopters and planes rattle the buildings. If you live on the West side you see smoke, but the fire still feels somehow distant. If you live...
Soccer Omnibus Post
I apologize for my noticeable absence around here of late. That is largely the result of real-world commitments, but on top of that, the free time I have had has been spent passionately following...
Toward an organic society
I have been a bit of a curmudgeon lately. Cranky and disillusioned by the fact that the tribe with whom I most often agree on policy and economic issues seems determined to shoot themselves...
The Vuvuzela: 2010’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner
SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU”VE DVR’D TODAY’S GAMES.
Another casualty of the recession…
From The Los Angeles Times: Maywood, a small working-class community south of downtown Los Angeles, plans to lay off all its employees, disband its Police Department and turn over its entire municipal operations to...
Quote for the Day
“I was griping about getting old the other day, and then I remembered it used to be an ambition of mine.” — Andrew Sullivan
Buddhism, Digha Nikaya, and the eightfold path
Continuing with our detour into the Buddhist scriptures- ‘wandering on the way’ as it were- I am struck by how little the western tradition has readied me to read them. In Christianity, for example,...
Prematurely Popping the McChrystal (w/ Updates)
This Rolling Stone article on Stanley McChrystal is causing a stir. An aide has already been fired and some are speculating McChrystal himself might be next on the chopping block. Like Spencer Ackerman I...
Matt Bai’s strange populism
Couple of pieces caught my attention this week, the first on a “new American populism” by Matt Bai, and the second, a response by Michael Kazin: Bai: Most Democrats, after all, persist in embracing...
