OK, so my latest read is Judith Shklar’s Ordinary Vices, which treats, oddly enough, of ordinary vices, such as cruelty, hypocrisy, snobbery, betrayal, and misanthropy. I loved the chapter on cruelty (“Putting Cruelty First”, which is based on an article…
There’s an interesting interview with Todd Gitlin and George Monbiot about their books Letters To A Young Activist and The Age of Consent, respectively. I have not read either of the books, not do I know the two authors from…
Well, dog my cats! It’s Cliché Week on Madam and Eve, Your Humble Blogger’s favorite South African English language daily comic strip. OK, it’s my second favorite currently-running strip in the Whole World (after The Boondocks, of course). Redintegro Iraq,-Vardibidian….
Well, and Your Humble Blogger is sorry about the delay. Much business at work, much news in the personal life, and so on. Still, I have at last finished George Santayana’s essays on Character and Opinion in the United States….
OK, Your Humble Blogger finds this really hard to believe. Of course, my union doesn’t even have that empty space. A couple of years ago on Labor Day, my family went to the Bread and Roses Festival and sang the…
Your Humble Blogger is currently reading George Santayana’s essays on Character and Opinion in the United States. I wasn’t much enjoying it; in part, a lengthy discussion of the virtues and flaws of William James’ philosophy is less enlightening to…
So. Since Your Humble Blogger started reading philosophy, people occasionally look at me like I’m mad. OK, that started earlier. But now it’s at least partially because of the philosophy. Why the heck would anyone read Spinoza, or Shklar, or…
Your Humble Blogger has been laying off the day-to-day politics of late, as it only makes him mad. Besides, there are plenty of blogs you can go to for your daily dose of Bush-bashing; I have nothing to offer on…
Your Humble Blogger has reached the longest of the Conservative Tenets: 17. The primacy of the community—a wondrous, divinely ordained union of land, laws, customs, institutions, traditions, ideals, things, and people dead, living, and unborn—over the whims and rights of…
Your Humble Blogger came across the following lines in a work of speculative fiction written for juveniles: [T]he room was of dazzling brilliance and beauty, for it was lined throughout with an exquisite metal that resembled translucent frosted silver. ……