more than 95 theses

2009

December 66
November 35
October 39
September 50
August 103
July 142
June 64
May 91
April 75
March 104
February 85
January 84

2008

December 90
November 64
October 32
September 52
August 79
July 38
June 53
May 56
April 74
March 58
February 83
January 63

2007

December 56
November 63
October 81
September 86
August 1
July 63
June 82
May 48
April 53
March 73
February
January
The Book of Eclipses
Feb 1st
Madeline von Foerster
Jan 31st
“Until within a few years past, very little has been...
Jan 30th
“New York Times science reporter Natalie Angier recently...”
— Heather MacDonald
Jan 30th
“Being just simply means being with Christ and in Christ. And...”
— Pope Benedict XVI, November...
Jan 30th
“Failed presidencies are one of our last thriving industries....”
— Joel Achenbach
Jan 30th
future text
Jan 29th
more fabulous London-at-night photos from The Big Picture....
Jan 28th
“Gladwell’s overarching thesis in Outliers is so...”
— Isaac Chotiner in TNR
Jan 28th
what we read when we read
Jan 28th
Off the Shelf - In ‘Grown Up Digital,’ the...
Jan 28th
Gods and Monsters - Ross Douthat
Jan 27th
The Triumph of the Readers - WSJ.com - Ann...
Jan 27th
Terry Eagleton: Milton's republic
Jan 27th
“Farmelo believes that the cause of [Paul] Dirac’s...”
— here
Jan 27th
A twenty-five-year-old piece of design. Holy moly, those...
Jan 27th
“The real shame about the inappropriate utterances coming...”
— other examples here
Jan 27th
Shouldn't All Students Learn Economics?
Jan 27th
So Deep a Wound: Home, and the novels of...
Jan 27th
“What is rational control? In the brand new building where I...”
— Harvey Mansfield, quoted by...
Jan 27th
the enemy of thought? really?
Jan 27th
forget that earlier Facebook post, just watch...
Jan 26th
The moon passes in front of the sun, during a partial solar...
Jan 26th
but everybody can see me!
Jan 26th
“I gotta use words when I talk to you But if you understand...”
— Sweeney, in T. S....
Jan 26th
it’s Google’s world; we’re just living in it
Jan 25th
addendum on Nicholas Carr
Jan 25th
the sound of silence
Jan 25th
“This point about manufacturing things that last is...”
— Brian Appleyard on Andrew...
Jan 25th

Les Murray, "The Instrument"

Who reads poetry? Not our intellectuals: they want to control it. Not lovers, not the combative,...
Jan 24th
the end of book reviews?
Jan 23rd
more atheist bus slogans
Jan 23rd
the Republic of Letters
Jan 23rd
teaching people how to use books
Jan 23rd

New Scientist interview with James...

NS: Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?
JL: Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It's absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt - that's an awful lot of countryside.
NS: What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?
JL: That is a waste of time. It's a crazy idea - and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.
NS: Do you still advocate nuclear power as a solution to climate change?
JL: It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures.
NS: So are we doomed?
JL: There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.
Jan 23rd
in the reign of King Josiah
Jan 23rd
“Mother Teresa recited the simple prayer of Saint Francis...”
— NYT
Jan 22nd
A map of heavy metal band names. Awesome. Thanks,...
Jan 22nd

Jane Kenyon, "Let Evening Come"

Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun...
Jan 22nd
Vertie Hodge, 74, of Houston, Texas
Jan 22nd
Jan 22nd
apologies
Jan 22nd
a new life for old books
Jan 16th
“It’s true, I did break bread with Obama. It was amazing. He...”
— David Brooks
Jan 16th
Jan 16th
“Mon père s’appelle Albert Uderzo et m’a élevée...”
— All Gaul is once more...
Jan 16th
against Facebook fascism
Jan 16th
evicted!
Jan 15th
“Even moderate amounts of [caffeine] can lead people to hear...”
— Here. This explains a lot.
Jan 14th
“kill your word processor”
Jan 14th
the right tools
Jan 14th
Franz Wright, “Learning to Read”
Jan 14th

Richard Wilbur, "Anterooms"

Out of the snowdrift Which covered it, this pillared Sundial starts to lift,   Able now at last...
Jan 13th
get yer red-hot news here
Jan 13th
“Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the...”
— R. A. Lafferty, courtesy one...
Jan 13th
the anguish of the English teacher
Jan 13th
Camiroi curriculum, fourth grade
Jan 12th
learning from the Camiroi
Jan 12th
reading redux
Jan 12th
Jan 9th
Jan 9th
Christmas and Epiphany photos from The Big Picture
Jan 9th
growling
Jan 9th
My what-Father-Neuhaus-means-to-me thoughts are here; an...
Jan 8th
alas, Babylon!
Jan 8th
“It was a couple of days after leaving intensive care, and it...”
— Father Richard John Neuhaus,...
Jan 8th
another kind of scanning
Jan 8th
lines and interruptions
Jan 8th
“Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media...”
— Michael Hirschorn
Jan 7th
generativity
Jan 7th
“Rather than making Guitar Hero guitars harder or more...”
— Steven Wells. I think...
Jan 6th
Warch Watch
Ouch. Via Erin O’Connor.
Jan 6th
snark
Jan 6th
“Most people, as they grow up now, secretly believe that...”
— Adam Phillips and Barbara...
Jan 6th
“As a mixed-race novelist (hell, just as a novelist), I would...”
— Hari Kunzru in a 2007 letter...
Jan 6th
“Max Müller’s view of mythology as a ‘disease of...”
— J. R. R. Tolkien
Jan 6th
the age of correspondence
Jan 5th
Florence Nightingale’s chart depicting the causes of...
Jan 4th
“As we all know, lax writing practices earlier this decade...”
— Treasury Secretary...
Jan 4th
pegobry: youwillbeassimilated: Beautiful work by...
Jan 3rd
“In the first place the millennium, which I have perhaps...”
— Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of...
Jan 3rd
“‘My country, wrong or right’ is a thing no...”
— G. K. Chesterton
Jan 2nd
advice to a prophet
Jan 2nd
“The telephone blasted Peter Fallow awake inside an egg with...”
— Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the...
Jan 1st