[Photo by Nicholas Doherty at Unsplash]
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Saturday, July 11, 2020
Truth-Seeking, Democracy, and Freedom of Thought and Expression
A few years ago, Princeton professors Robert P. George and Cornel West posted this statement and asked others to sign.
You can still add your name.
You can still add your name.
Miscellaneous and Fast
- Nicholas Bate has a sales primer.
- City Journal: "Brave New Britain"
- Jonathan Turley on "People will do what they do."
- Rick Gervais says "The Office" could not be made in cancel culture.
Friday, July 10, 2020
Courage in a Time of Bullying
Joshua T. Katz, a professor of classics at Princeton University, has signed his own declaration of independence. An excerpt:
Innumerable sensible people have commented on the impossibility that anyone can pass the Purity Test. Someone who passes today will not pass tomorrow.
Innumerable sensible people have commented on the impossibility that anyone can pass the Purity Test. Someone who passes today will not pass tomorrow.
Little League Experiment
The following is a reason why so many of us visit Cultural Offering every day:
I haven’t coached little league eight years but I still remember.
One year at practice I brought the parents out to home plate and had them, one-by-one, simulate a hit, having them run to either first or second base, depending on instructions I would give them as a first base coach. I had the kids stand behind the home plate fence and yell out conflicting advice to them as they ran the bases.
After the exercise was over, the parents confessed that they couldn’t understand all the kids’ shouting and it made the base-running more confusing.
I thought I was brilliant and had taught parents a valuable lesson. When the first game came around, the parents didn’t change their behavior a bit. They continued to yell out (conflicting) advice from the stands so I never tried the exercise again.
First Paragraph
In 1945, eighteen physicians from Hamburg, all of them on the staff of the Rothenburgsort Pediatric Hospital, were brought before the German criminal justice system at the behest of the British Occupying Forces. All eighteen were charged with murdering, or acting as accessories to the murder of, fifty-six children who had been diagnosed as permanently unfit between 1939 and 1945, by means of lethal injection. In 1949, the Langericht (regional court) of Hamburg dismissed the charges. Yes, "it has been objectively verified" that "at least fifty-six children were killed at the Rothenburgsort Pediatric Hospital." Yes, these acts were "against the law." The judges argued, however, that "all of the defendants . . . deny their guilt . . . and contest the charge that they committed any acts in objective violation of the law, explaining that they believed their actions to be permitted under the law."
- From The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi by Johann Chapoutot
- From The Law of Blood: Thinking and Acting as a Nazi by Johann Chapoutot
Thursday, July 09, 2020
Modern Life
Among the riveting calls of the day:
- "Kate in the Computer Refund Department"
- An outfit that wants me to know that the warranty on my 2005 vehicle has expired.
On Critics and Bullies
Professor Robert George on a common problem in our society and especially on social media. An excerpt:
A critic recognizes that you are entitled to your opinion, even if, in his or her judgment, it is erroneous; a bully insists that “error has no rights” and that those in error must be “re-educated” (via such things as ideologically inflected “training” in “cultural competency,” or “diversity,” or “unconscious bias awareness”) or cancelled.
A bully believes that dissent from his or her opinions is evidence of either stupidity (perhaps even mental illness) or malice (“bigotry”).
Miscellaneous and Fast
- Victor Davis Hanson on the impending obsolescence of universities.
- Althouse: The City of Seattle takes a big step backwards on race.
Finding The Feel
The chapters accumulate and they keep changing order.
What once seemed like a great Chapter One is now Chapter Six. [What is now Chapter One didn't exist two days ago.] The trunk of the book - the main theme - is growing but the number of branches has not greatly increased.
There is a point in writing which I call The Feel. You can write fine material for months and yet sense that you still don't possess The Feel for the ultimate result. You may have a compass but you still lack direction.
But when you get The Feel, you know you are onto something very tangible. Something of significance.
That is when everything begins to come together and you can get several weeks of writing done in one day.
This week, it arrived.
What once seemed like a great Chapter One is now Chapter Six. [What is now Chapter One didn't exist two days ago.] The trunk of the book - the main theme - is growing but the number of branches has not greatly increased.
There is a point in writing which I call The Feel. You can write fine material for months and yet sense that you still don't possess The Feel for the ultimate result. You may have a compass but you still lack direction.
But when you get The Feel, you know you are onto something very tangible. Something of significance.
That is when everything begins to come together and you can get several weeks of writing done in one day.
This week, it arrived.
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
FutureLawyer Goes Full Zorro
Update: While considering the subject of lawyer fashion, this story causes me to worry about one lawyer I know who is seriously addicted to Brooks Brothers shirts and suits.
Tuesday, July 07, 2020
Monday, July 06, 2020
First Paragraph
"Is your desk always buried under piles of documents? Yikes! Where's the report I have to submit tomorrow?"
- From Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein
- From Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein
The Week
I have some surgery this week followed by recuperation. Will be posting less and reading more. Should be back to normal (make that quasi-normal) by the end of the week.
Take care, have a great week, and don't forget to check the great blogs listed to the right.
[Photo by Toa Heftiba at Unsplash]
A New Hong Kong?
Washington Examiner: Daniel Hannan reviews the current tension in Hong Kong and makes an interesting proposal:
Why not, in other words, find some suitable land and give it to Hong Kongers as a charter city? Let them bring their enterprise and global business networks. Let them set their own regulations and taxes. And let the wealth that used to spill into neighboring China instead flow into the new host country?
Why not, in other words, find some suitable land and give it to Hong Kongers as a charter city? Let them bring their enterprise and global business networks. Let them set their own regulations and taxes. And let the wealth that used to spill into neighboring China instead flow into the new host country?
Patriotism and the View from Norway
"In Norway, where I live, May 17 is Constitution Day. In every city, town, and hamlet in this country, the inhabitants celebrate it by dressing in traditional garb (bunad) and congregating downtown, where they wave Norwegian flags and sing the national anthem. Local politicians and high school students give patriotic speeches. Larger communities hold parades with marching bands. In Oslo, the streets are crowded, and schoolchildren march past the Royal Palace, where the king and his family wave at them from a balcony."
Read the rest of Bruce Bawer's essay here.
Read the rest of Bruce Bawer's essay here.
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