Category: Autobiographical
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Of E-Mail, Doing Nothing, and a Life Worth Living
I do appreciate e-mail, and I consider it rude not to respond; but lack of time and energy in synergy with congenital inefficiency conspire to make it difficult for me to answer everything. I am also temperamentally disinclined to acquiesce in mindless American hyperkineticism, in accordance with the Italian saying: Dolce Far Niente Sweet To…
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Why Do You Carry a Notebook?
If I am wearing a shirt with pockets, I almost always carry a 3 X 5 notebook and a pen in my top left pocket. People sometimes ask why I carry it. I have a prepared response: It's in case I get a good idea. Haven't had one yet, but you never know. And if…
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Cacoethes Scribendi
The fan is on and my shirt is off. The Sonoran spring is sprung. Spring fever in the form of cacoethes scribendi has me in her sweet grip. A weird mix of Greek and Latin, cacoethes scribendi means compulsion to write. ‘Cacoethes’ is a Latinization of the Greek kakoethes, which combines kakos (‘bad’) with ethos…
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How Little They Remember
A man hereabouts with a passion for chess got my number. We've become friends. He told me he took a course in the philosophy of religion way back when. I pressed him on details. All he remembers is the old professor walking into the room, flipping a switch, and intoning "Let there be light!" The…
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Klavan on Experience
I am now on p. 118 of Andrew Klavan's memoir, The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ. Thomas Nelson, 2016, 269 pp. As I reported a few days ago when I was on p. 18, If you are a tough-minded American Boomer like me on a religious/spiritual quest you will probably be…
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Words for Declining a Group Hike Invitation
I don't like playing 'follow the leader' unless I'm the leader.
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Philosophers as Bad Drivers?
Just over the transom: C.J. F. Williams told me a [Richard] Swinburne story. Swinburne offered to give him a lift to some philosophy conference, but warned him ‘I only drive at 30 miles an hour’. Christopher thought he meant that he strictly abided by the urban 30 mph speed limit, and accepted the lift. It…
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A Philosopher on the Midlife Crisis
Kieran Setiya, The Midlife Crisis. An outstanding essay. What exactly is a midlife crisis? In the form that will concern us, then, the midlife crisis is an apparent absence of meaning or significance in life that allows for the continued presence of reasons to act. Although it is often inspired by the acknowledgement of mortality,…
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Hillary ‘Won’ Last Night’s Debate
I spent the whole day yesterday at an auto dealership buying my wife a new car. But last night I didn't dream about the car, but about Hillary who appeared young and stunning and topless, but with very small breasts. What does this dream mean? My subconscious was telling me that Hillary came across in…
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I Used to be a Human Being
Andrew Sullivan recounts the perils of life in the information superhighway's fast lane. But our man certainly is verbose. One would have thought that all that smartphone use and all that manic tweeting and updating would have induced a bit of pithiness into his writing. I love the Internet and use it everyday except when…
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The Origins of Political Correctness
A YouTube video by William S. Lind with footage of Martin Jay, David Horowitz and Roger Kimball. Traces the origin of cultural Marxism from the breakdown of economic Marxism and the role of the Frankfurt School including discussion of the '60s New Left guru, Herbert Marcuse. By the time I began as a freshman at…
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Juvenilia
I pulled out my scribblings from the summer of '66. Puerile stuff from a half-century ago. Painful in places. But earnest and sincere with a good line here and there. The old man honors the adolescent he was. I wrote for posterity, though I didn't realize it at the time. And I still do. The…
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It’s a Dry Heat
It's hot and dry in these parts this time of year, the candy-assed snowbirds have all flown back to their humid nests, and we desert rats like it plenty. That's why we live here. It takes a special breed of cat to be a desert rat. You Californians stay put in your gun-grabbing, liberty-bashing, People's…
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Mirabile Dictu: Irish Reader Finds New Yorkers Civil and Friendly
London Karl, an Irish resident of London, checks in with this update: I'm just back from my first ever trip to America. Only New York, which I am reliably informed is representative of nothing other than itself, but I was touched and impressed by the civility and friendliness I encountered. People there are way friendlier…
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Not Dark Yet: Bob Dylan Turns 75 Today
25 things you might want to know know about Dylan. Excellent, except for the introductory claim that he is "rock's greatest songwriter." A better description is "America's greatest writer of popular songs." Bar none. We can discuss the criteria later, and consider counterexamples. Maybe this Saturday night. His earliest four or five albums are…