I recently started listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast. When he’s good, he’s very good.
My Little Hundred Million, is very, very good. Listening to it is instructive, but you could spend a lot of time thinking about other applications of the insights.
Apparently today is National Eat What You Want Day, the “one day a year of eating with no regrets.” You can eat what you want the other 364 days, too, but you have to regret it.
A secular feast day! Do tell! Who says humans aren’t intrinsically religious?
I notice an awful lot of orphans in Obsidian, and when I re-read them, I find nothing to connect them to.
I think I need to return to using Pinboard for mere curiosities like them.
A local grade school principal challenged her students to collect 1000 cereal boxes in a week, promising that she’d let them ritually duct-tape her to the wall if they did. They did and she did.
Problems with disrespecting teachers and administrators don’t come from nowhere.
Happy Monday to everyone except Medina Spirit, this year’s Kentucky Derby winner (for now) who, it turns out, is actually a total fraud and a junky. You should be ashamed of yourself, Medina.
Doyle has 43,000 Twitter followers, a fan base 20 times smaller than that of the Sarcastic Mars Rover parody account.
How Substack Soap Operas Change the Media Business - The Atlantic
Comparative measures of smallness like this are another usage I’ll never consider proper.
In the past few days, my wife has gotten official-looking certificates congratulating her on her 70th birthday from both our state representative and our state senator. Unless the intended effect was outrage over creepiness, they have not had their intended effect.
Environmentalism, the Tower of Babel and the Disintegration of Culture | with Paul Kingsnorth. A terrific interview.
Disclosure: Contains the deftly-told story of Kingsnorth’s reluctant conversion from eco-Pagan, through Buddhist and Wiccan, to Orthodox Christian.
I just finished watching Julie & Julia on Netflix. 🍿
I watch very few movies. I’d watch more if they were all this good.
I don’t even feel like I need to shower off any slime! Pure pleasure!
I understand that language evolves. I reluctantly admit that usage (eventually) makes proper.
Generally.
But—usage be damned—I will never, ever, accept that “literally” means “I’m about to engage in wild hyperbole because I feel strongly about this.”
Thank you.
Sunday was the 10th Anniversary of SEAL Team 6 killing Osama bin Laden. Politico has a terrific, well-sourced long read, mostly on the political side rather than any SEAL tactics. ’I’d Never Been Involved in Anything as Secret as This’
I just bought Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals in full expectation of finding much of interest in it, despite the book’s bugbear usage by the Right. Anyone who got an acknowledgment from Jane Jacobs in The Death and Life of Great American Cities can’t be all bad.
Finished The Overstory. Ingenious winding of characters. 📚
Tonight, Orthodox Christians keep midnight vigil for Christus Victor. Knocking Down the Gates of Hell - Glory to God for All Things
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree …
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree, The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery. He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face. The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails. The Son of the virgin is pierced by a spear. We worship Thy passion, O Christ. We worship Thy passion, O Christ. We worship Thy passion, O Christ. Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.
If evangelicals can come to the realization that the United States is the more superior the less it is a religious juggernaut or a military hyperpower, they may actually become truly conservative.
D.G. Hart, From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin
We in the West invented this thing called ‘modernity’, and then we took it out into the world, whether the world wanted it or not. Once we called this process ‘the white man’s burden’ and exported it with dreadnoughts. Now we call it ‘development’ and export it via the World Bank.
We’re not destroying the environment simply because our cars spew carbon; we’re destroying the environment because it requires a significant car trip for modern Americans to do things our ancestors could do with a five minute walk.
This morning, I’m feeling churlish about news media. One story after another has made me feel stupider for having read it.
Despite an apparent 5.6 percent decline in suicides over the past year, additional preliminary data showed a 29 percent increase in deaths from drug overdoses. I mention it because I mentioned the suicide decline earlier.
