Books are for Reading
I wish more people would read more books. There. I said it. Oh, and if I could get more specific: I’d ask that everyone choose from a wide range: fiction and nonfiction; written for children and adults; history, science, religion,…
How Absolute?
Two chapters a day is my quota for War and Peace. It’s possible that I will make it more of a priority at some point, but for now, I am content with my pace and have been pleasantly surprised by…
It Can Get Hazy Among Humans
Reading Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels set in Roman Britain is a bit of a paradox. As a lover of freedom, I should be rooting for the native tribes who have had their ways of life upset, curtailed, and sometimes ruined by…
Any Remorse? Justice? Freedom?
At one time, I stumbled upon a video or two in which a psychiatrist of some sort explained the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths. (I think I may have written about it.) The net/net was that psychopaths are born with…
Letting Myself Look
I guess I have not written about Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O’Neill and that surprises me. It, or maybe the just the Joe Rogan chat with Tom O’Neill, turned out…
Which Character are You?
Once in a while, I remind myself that I used to get frustrated with people who wouldn’t hand out answers like candy. I liked the sound of this: “Literature leaves you with questions; lesser works give you all the answers,”…
The Compartmentalization of Attention
Thanks to the attention-span-killing Internet, it becomes harder to pay anything the attention it deserves. This works well for those who exploit it. What was earthshattering news last week can barely be recalled today. We more easily forget and, to…
Almost a Year
The day after Ash Wednesday, I remembered my not terribly solid Lenten tradition of reading The Gaze of Love by Sister Wendy Beckett, so I pulled the book off the shelf and quickly caught up. The subtitle is Meditations on…
Groupthink
Groupthink: A Study in Self Delusion turned out to be rather a different book that what I thought I was in for. I sometimes buy books impetuously, skimming descriptions as quickly as possible, glancing at a review or two, and…
Discernment and Desire
If nothing else, the last year has taught me to be more discerning. I have learned that little is as it seems and nothing that comes out of the mouths of the ruling elite or their propaganda machine is to…
An Inevitable Implication
My family and I spent the first day of the new year visiting Dennis’s parents in New Hampshire. I guess it’s nice to get away from home once in a while, but no more than that. I’ve become too much…
Roughly Recognized
According to Gary Saul Morson in Hidden in Plain View, “In the early reviews of War and Peace, objections were raised most frequently against the plot. ‘This disordered heap of accumulated material,’ as one reviewer called it, was perceived as…
