Part of Last Night and This Morning

 

In addition to preparing several drafts of a Substack essay, there was the surprisingly enjoyable chore of going through several years of The New Criterion and ripping out articles I want to save.

There were quite a few.

It's a great publication.

Chopin!

 

Bloggers with Books

And these aren't your average bloggers!

Check out Nicholas Bate and Patrick Rhone.

Crank It Up

 

White Guilt: European Style

Elsewhere, the (British) Library said that although the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge had expressed antislavery views himself and had recorded those views in his poetry he was on the blacklist nonetheless because he was recorded as having a nephew who lived in Barbados and worked closely with estates where there were slaves. The sins of the father is a familiar problem, but the sins of the people known to the nephew is a new form of associative guilt.

- Douglas Murray, The War on the West

Burning It All Down

 

Ira and Bill

Huffington Post in 2011: Former American Civil Liberties Union head Ira Glasser remembers William F. Buckley, Jr. An excerpt:

One more thing must be said, and it was his most attractive quality: he was, on a personal level, an uncommonly kind and gracious man, and a good and loyal friend. I cannot say I was his intimate friend, but in the years I knew him, I saw him on a great many occasions, as a dinner guest, a travel companion, a debating colleague and an adversary. I was there at many a salon, where he enjoyed a social evening of good food, drink and spirited discussion. I saw him with peers, and I saw him with employees. I saw how he behaved with me, and how he behaved with my wife. He was, unfailingly, kind, graceful, and attentive. As imperious as he could be -- and relished being -- in his public persona, that is how unassuming and sensitive to others he was privately. I have known more than a few people in my decades of public life who took exemplary positions on the abstract questions of human rights, but were terrible people privately. Buckley was the opposite: I deplored many of his public positions and thought their consequences cruel and insensitive; but in private he was wonderful and decent and generous to those around him. He was, therefore, a good friend, in a way I never imagined was possible when we first began our series of public policy debates over 30 years ago. I shall miss him.

Boom!

 

Your Personal Compass

Nicholas Bate provides sound advice on setting your personal compass.

It's thought-provoking. I know of many activities that are highly enjoyable, but I am not sure how often I've reached the level of "fun."

I need to work on that. 

A solution which is amusing in itself.

The Background