An Economist Nitpicks Sci-Fi: Foundation and Chaos
In which an economist looks at one of the seminal science fiction works of the 20th Century.
How to learn Mandarin Chinese characters
A language is more than a listing of its words.
Hillary Clinton Settles Her Accounts
Parting thoughts on the former next Madame President. (Or: I listened to 16 hours of Hillary Clinton so you don’t have to.)
Human Rights & God
Is “God” a necessary component to undergird universal human rights? And if so, what kind of God best serves the purpose and how compatible is the biblical God, and/or God of the various orthodox traditions with said purpose?
America’s Cold War
Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Revisionism
How UFOs Conquered the World
David Clarke vs the Flying Saucers!
What Makes a Children’s Book for Children?
Forest Born of the Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale
We are at Rest Five Miles Under the Sea
You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn
An Economist Nitpicks Sci-Fi: Employment in The Expanse
Many scientists like to nitpick science fiction, but why should they have all the fun?
Book Review: My Immaculate Assassin
Murder: what if there were an app for that?
Book Review: Discourses of Mourning in Dante, Petrarch, and Proust (2016)
A scholarly look at how literature can help us to understand the hard work of being human.
In Praise of Youtube Pop-Culture Academics
Youtube is where intellectuals should be making community outreach.
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
A less-than-fair review
Sunday!
The beauty and power of the opening passage.
Book notes: Foucault and the Iranian Revolution
Two scholars do a service for intellectual history in arguing how a distinguished thinker could have been so misguided.
Sunday!
How to build a book collection for pennies on the dollar.
Spy
“Didn’t anyone get out?” Jim said.
“No. They seem to have been shot.”
Remembering Elie Wiesel, Novelist
The late Elie Wiesel spent his life telling stories — just not the kind he’s known for.
Canada by Richard Ford
A book written for book reviewers
Writing in Public
Confessions of a public scribbler
In Defense of Poetry
Old poetry is laden with the baggage of centuries of hidden metaphor and archaic references. New poetry is prone to abstraction and whimsical laziness. But poetry deserves our consideration as an art form nonetheless. After all, all the music we love is poetry, and all the fun little things we can do with language are best done in poetic form.
Narrative Tension
How we write stories mirrors the strange and uncanny ways we make sense of our lives.
The Small r “republican” Tradition Offers Something to Religious Left Originalists
Read about cutting edge research from Harvard that both contradicts a “secular” understanding of modernity and supports an egalitarian economic vision of such.
Marilynne Robinson and the Absence of a Religious Left
In her essays, the award-winning novelist examines the significance, past, present, and future, of America’s missing Religious Left.
National Poetry Month
Poems. (Not mine.)
Not Paranoid Enough
The best biography written by a CEO is not a business biography.
Radical Reading: Detroit – I Do Mind Dying
This is the second in a series where I read and discuss a radical book on the left or right. This time, I address a book related to radical Black organizing in Detroit in the 60s and 70s.
Slavery’s Legacies, Addiction’s Realities: Delicious Foods, by James Hannaham
Slavery, like the past, isn’t past. It ain’t even dead yet.
An Admirable Attempt: Theodore Dalrymple’s Admirable Evasions
The problem with psychology, and the seductive fallacy of “studies have shown.”
Book Notes: “Violence Girl” by Alice Bag
The memoir of an East L.A. barrio girl turned punk rock legend.
Edward Feser: Possibly the Worst New Atheist Book Yet – First Things
Biologist Jerry Coyne has managed to write what might be the worst book yet published in the New Atheist genre…
Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms & Pythagoras
I’m super-interested in this book, just like Bill Clinton is and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson probably would have been.
Sunday!
Another book for kids that may also help you in your meditative practice.
Sunday!
My (current) favorite children’s picture books.
The Fifth Annual Mindless Diversions Unsolicited Shopping Guide
If you’re stuck wondering what do I get for the person who has everything (or you just want to see what we think is cool), we’re here to help!
“You must have no masters, for you are a master”
What do you say to your young aspiring writer friend who just wrote The Sun Also Rises?
