I know nothing about art or music. OK, that’s not entirely true– I know a little bit here and there. I just have no systematic knowledge of art or music (by which I mean fine art and classical music). I don’t know Beethoven from Bach, Renaissance from Romantics. I’m not even sure those are both… Continue reading The Innumeracy of Intellectuals
Category: Society
Sizzle: Framing :: Hit-With-A-Brick: Stabbed-With-A-Fork
I’ve been somewhat decoupled from blogdom in general recently, as I’ve been busy working on the book and getting ready for FutureBaby. It’s also been a useful mental health break, though, as I’m a little less worked up about stupid stuff than I was a few months ago. Every now and then, I catch the… Continue reading Sizzle: Framing :: Hit-With-A-Brick: Stabbed-With-A-Fork
An Ethical Dialogue
Just before we turn the corner, a woman goes jogging past with a Golden Retriever. As we continue on our way, I can hear the Doberman three houses up barking at them as they go past. The windows muffle the sound, but I can make out a bit of it. “Get offa my lawn! Gonna… Continue reading An Ethical Dialogue
Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos
John Allen Paulos’s Innumeracy is one of those classics of the field that I’ve never gotten around to reading. I’ve been thinking more about these sorts of issues recently, though, so when the copy I bought a few years ago turned up in our recent book-shuffling, I decided to give it a read. Unfortunately, I… Continue reading Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos
The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
A bunch of academic bloggers have been talking about the American Scholar essay by William Deresiewicz. The always-perceptive Timothy Burke offers some insightful comments about the general problems of elite education. Burke is also a lot kinder to Deresiewicz than I’m inclined to be. Because, frankly, the piece pisses me off, from the very first… Continue reading The Self-Justification of Elite Nerds
How Good a Spouse Are You?
How will you know, unless you take this Internet quiz?
Cities in Their Old Age
Continuing the morning’s theme of “crushingly depressing stories from the New York Times,” there’s also a downer article about cities where there are more deaths than births: What demographers call a natural decrease has been occurring for years in tiny rural towns and in some retirement meccas in the South. But the phenomenon is relatively… Continue reading Cities in Their Old Age
Get a Grip!
A few days back, John Scalzi posted a piece celebrating YA books and authors, which included some reading recommendations. In the comments, a few people said that as childless adults they were reluctant to go into the YA section of the store, lest people think they were creeps looking for kids to prey upon. I… Continue reading Get a Grip!