- Blog
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What’s in a Domain?
Just to alleviate any confusion among my tens of readers, I wanted to let you all know that I recently changed the official domain for this blog. Once it was near-earth.com, but now more. The blog’s new domain is nearearthobject.net, but the good part is that near-earth.com will still redirect to here, and I suppose…
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A Natural Worshiper of Serendipity and Whim: Alan Jacobs’ “Pleasures of Reading”
Alan Jacobs, who readers of this blog (all ten of you) may know from previous references to his excellent blog TextPatterns, has recently released a wonderful book about reading that I simply can’t recommend highly enough. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction is just the sort of pithy, sympathetic tract that our times demand —…
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Hopelessness Watch: Mommy and Daddy Bought Me My Own Paywall
I know what you’re thinking. “Paul,” you’re thinking, “it feels as though the economic divide between the rich and poor is not quite as gaping as it ought to be, nor is it accelerating at a pace that sufficiently turns the vast majority of Americans into a forgotten underclass.” Well, fret no more! In a jaw-dropping…
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Why We ‘Refudiate’ the Brasolaeliocattleya: Thoughts on ”The Lexicographer’s Dilemma”
Jack Lynch’s fascinating book, The Lexicographer’s Dilemma, is full of original insights, refreshing perspective, and delightful trivia about our mother tongue. It spans history and academia to lend understanding to what it means for a word to be considered an “official” part of the English language. The gist, as you might surmise, is that there is no such…
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Self-Evident Job Ad
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…
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David Mamet Exchanges One Herd for Another
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…
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Hume and the Panhandler: The Chief Triumph of Art and Philosophy
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…
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Darwin’s Mischief, Through Antebellum Eyes
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…
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The Moral Stain on the Electoral College
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…
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Spinoza, Leibniz and Teabaggers
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:…
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The Internet is as Exhausting as You Make It
In the consistently-fascinating journal n+1, Alice Gregory insightfully expounds on the modern race to keep pace with the imagined expectations of the social digital world. I have the sensation, as do my friends, that to function as a proficient human, you must both “keep up” with the internet and pursue more serious, analog interests. I blog about real life;…
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Fumes
There’s been a lot of upheaval in Fidalgo Land since my violent encounter in October of last year. As my tens of regular readers already know, not only have we left behind a city, I’ve left behind not just a job, but perhaps a career. My master’s degree is specifically for professional politics, and while I did not anticipate abandoning that particular…
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