Felix Fenon, At La Revue Blanche (1940)Image source. It is a common observation that internet life and real life don’t really match. Spend a few hours on twitter and you will think America is a 21st century Weimar Republic. But spend time talking with neighbors and friends in the flesh and you find that this […]
One of the best histories I have had the pleasure to read is Frederick Lewis Allen’s Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. There are many things to love about this book. Allen wrote his history of the 1920’s in a jaunty, breezy style. When you pick his book up it is hard to […]
Sir Galahad in stained glass (1910) From Andrew’s Dune Church, Southampton, New York. (image source) That terrible bond, that most salutary of human bonds, those invisible threads of gold and light and blood attaching men sworn to a common endeavor! —Victor Serge, Unforgiving Years (1947) My life’s short course has brought me to many places, […]
This video is a good demonstration of what Chinese teenagers (or in this case, a Taiwanese teenager) mean when they say the 2D world is more ‘meihao’ than the 3D one. I have spent a great deal of time with Chinese teenagers. When I lived in Beijing, I paid no rent: instead I lived in […]
“Bag End” by Tim Doyle.You can purchase this print here. Deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden […]
Image Source For readers curious about my the lack of new posts over the last month, the answer is easy: I recently relocated to Cambodia, and have focused my efforts on establishing things here instead of on writing. Hopefully posting will improve a bit over the next few weeks as things become more settled down […]
The original signalling theorist. There is a principle, supposed to prevail among many, which is utterly incompatible with all virtue or moral sentiment; and as it can proceed from nothing but the most depraved disposition, so in its turn it tends still further to encourage that depravity. This principle is, that all benevolence is mere […]
. The twelve core socialist values.Image Source. The few intellectuals who incited the students to action oppose the socialist system and advocate bourgeois liberalization. By that I mean they want China to be totally Westernized and to take the capitalist road. Our experience has shown, however, that we cannot take that road. —Deng Xiaoping (1986) […]
Image Source DR. STOCKMANN: It’s my own fault. I should have faced them down long ago—shown my teeth—and bite back! Call me an enemy of society! So help me God, I’m not going to swallow that! MRS. STOCKMANN: But Thomas dear, your brother does have the power— DR. STOCKMANN: Yes, but I’m in the right! […]
TOP BILLING “The Recent Unpleasantness: Understanding the Cycles of Constitutional Time”Jack M. Balkin, Public Law Research Paper No. 648. 8 August 2018. (Indiana Law Journal, 2018 Forthcoming). Our present condition is a little like an eclipse, although much less enjoyable. To understand what is going on today in America, we have to think in terms […]
