If you’re on Facebook long enough, you’ll probably get a wall post, a message, or a chat request from someone who seems to be one of your contacts, but soon reveals themselves to be someone who has hijacked their account, and it trying to get something out of you. Or at least, that’s the hope: that you figure out it’s not them before you lose your shirt. The other night, my wife Jessica was chatted up on Facebook by just such a... Read more
So says a Craigslist job ad: NEED A ENGLISH TUTOR No kidding. And the post itself just keeps proving itself true. We are looking for someone who is genuinely passionate for teaching children and understand well how to interact with children and manage classroom independently Teaching experience isn’t necessary, but a natural ability to teach in a fun and creative way is a must, and we prefer a Bi-lingual but not mandatory; English, Spanish and French Private Tutor needed. I know... Read more
I have it in my mind that I must have a particular piece of expensive technology — never mind the specific device. What’s important is that I’ve identified it as The One True Device that will jump-start my creativity, and spur me to be more productive in my various passions. Without it, my creative life is on hold. Which is, of course, ridiculous. And I’m only now beginning to see how my brain is trying to justify getting the dopamine squirt of... Read more
The National Review has a must-read cover story on David Mamet’s (de)evolution toward conservatism, and despite my loathing of everything the magazine stands for, Andrew Ferguson does a marvelous job of putting Mamet’s beliefs into context, and exposing his subject’s reasonings and inconsistencies. And that’s what catches my eye. For as something of an idiosyncratic liberal (my sympathy for nation-building, my alignment with Sam Harris on our conflict with radicalized Islam, and other positions which I feel stem from a liberal humanism but challenge... Read more
Jonathan Chait manages to come to the justified defense of Al Gore, attack the political media for its laziness and shallowness, and make me sympathetic with Mitt Romney, all in one fell swoop. An Al Gore problem is what happens when the media forms an impression of your character and decides to cram every irrelevant detail of your appearance and behavior into that frame, regardless of whether or not it means anything. Thus Romney’s hair and lack of tie are now... Read more
I am directed to a quote of David Hume’s, whose 300th birthday is this week, from Robert Zaretsky in the New York Times, which for me sums up beautifully my best hopes for art, theatre, literature, and deep, considered thought. Though Hume himself (at length) expresses his “doubts” about their overall power, he still nails it: Here then is the chief triumph of art and philosophy: It insensibly refines the temper, and it points out to us those dispositions which we should endeavor... Read more
I was on tour with the American Shakespeare Center in 2004, and we were performing in a suburb of Chicago. During our stay in the area, we were hosted at a party by someone associated with the college at which we were performing. In their foyer was a local alternative weekly that trumpeted on its cover the would-be political star that was then-State Senator Barack Obama. I don’t remember for sure, but I suspect it was when he was merely a contender... Read more
In 1860, botanist Asa Gray reviewed the brand new book, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is a fascinating read. Not least of all for what about it induces cringing to modern liberal eyes: The prospect of the future, accordingly, is on the whole pleasant and encouraging. It is only the backward glance, the gaze up the long vista of the past, that reveals anything alarming. Here the lines converge as they recede into the geological ages,... Read more
I wholeheartedly agree with Hendrik Hertzberg, this editorial from the Los Angeles Times in support of the National Popular Vote initiative (which neuters the utterly undemocratic Electoral College and allows for popular election of the president, and was just passed in Vermont) is excellent, and perhaps the clearest and most persuasive piece on the subject I’ve seen (and I am not always a big fan of what appears on the LA Times’ editorial page). A taste: What both sides recognize is the effect that winner-take-all rules have on campaigns. Candidates who are far... Read more
Reading Matthew Stewart’s The Courtier and the Hereticis proving most fascinating. It is illuminating to me how genuinely modern Spinoza and Leibniz were in their thinking, and then again how sometimes backward Leibniz could be. For Spinoza, it’s as though his conception of the modern state is a reaction to today’s teabagger Christianists. From the book: In the closing sections of his Tractatus, Spinoza sketches the outlines of a radical and quintessentially modern political theory. His fundamental aim is to replace the... Read more
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