Sweet Vengeance Makes Bad Justice: McVeigh's Execution a Grim Spectacle

Sweet Vengeance Makes Bad Justice: McVeigh's Execution a Grim Spectacle: "'If a tree falls on a philosopher in the forest and nobody hears, is the philosopher really dead?' "

Orwin Teaching

Orwin Teaching:
"Teaching is like making love
Or it's like making war.
Anyway, it's not virtual

Clifford Orwin
National Post "

Clifford Orwin - Compassion and the Softening of Mores

Clifford Orwin - Compassion and the Softening of Mores - Journal of Democracy 11:1:
"As men become equal, they become the same; the French word �gal conveys the sense of 'sameness' as well as 'equality.' These chapters thus invite us to consider, with the benefit of the hindsight denied Tocqueville, whether democracy is in fact a oneway street leading to increasingly universal sameness, and more generally, whether its effect on mores has been as Tocqueville predicted. "

Reading and Writing

The Sloppy Mermaid: Socratic Solopsism Recension

Only Moderns are Bored

New Statesman - Books:
"I was fascinated to learn that boredom was invented in 1760; the word is not found in English prior to this, though related concepts such as melancholy and acedia did exist. Acedia is from the Greek akedia, meaning 'not to care'. Usually translated as sloth, it meant not so much laziness as a betrayal of your duty to observe God."

War of Rhetoric

AKINBOLA E. AKINWUMI--REVIEW OF RAYMOND WILLIAM BAKER: LOGOS SUMMER 2004: "Nicholas Xenos and the Rhetoric of the War on Leo Strauss

Dear Editor:

I thought I had read enough of the recent commentary on the thought and influence of Leo Strauss. The recent commentary in Logos by Nicholas Xenos seemed to be different, however, due to the fact that Xenos (unlike the rest of the bandwagon) seems to have read Strauss for himself rather than relying on secondary sources or simply quoting from other likeminded articles. In this respect, and this respect only, his original effort is to be commended."

Don't Kill the Rabbit

The website is http://www.savetoby.com. Some people are upset by the very idea of the website. These people (the upset ones) make a good point, but they seem to be in the minority. The majority of people seem to find the website hilarious and think the proprietor of the website is a genius. No one I’ve talked with seems to be in the middle.

The Man Who Wasn't There

The Man Who Wasn't There: "Christopher Marlowe's life was short, sharp and irresistible. His fame rests not only on six violently glittering plays written in his 20s but also on the tantalizing story that may be considered his masterpiece, for Marlowe inhabited his time like a player strutting upon an invisible stage. His life was his most remarkable piece of theater. "

Commentary - Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up?

Commentary - Will the Real Shakespeare Please Stand Up?: "Anyone setting out to write a biography of Shakespeare has to weigh two considerations against each other. On the one hand, we do not know all that much about him. On the other hand, we know a great deal."

The manliness of Theodore Roosevelt by Harvey Mansfield

The manliness of Theodore Roosevelt by Harvey Mansfield

Thus, according to TR, manliness is in the main a construction, an individual construction of one’s own will-power. To make the construction, a man should engage in “the manly art of self-defense” against other men, but he should also seek encounters with nature in the form of dangerous animals. He must hunt.

Wootton on History : The road is still open

LRB | David Wootton : The road is still open
Dick Turpin was executed in York on a cold spring Saturday in 1739. In those days, before the invention of the trapdoor drop, the prisoner was expected to climb a ladder, the noose around his neck, and step off into space. Turpin, dressed in finery suitable for a wedding or a funeral, died admirably, for he ‘went off this stage with as much intrepidity and unconcern, as if he had been taking horse to go on a journey’.