May 2013
11 posts
"Retroculturation"
I heard this public radio program from 2006 about “retroculturation” in the Hispanic community rebroadcast recently on 88.5.
There might not be any connection, but this somewhat odd 2007 essay from TAC by Paul Weyrich and Bill Lind uses a similar term:
One of conservatism’s most fundamental impulses, and one of its most valuable in a time when history is neglected or forgotten, is...
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we...”
– From Kierkegaard’s Journals, and beyond question my favorite passage from his works. (via ayjay)
The Locust Economy →
Last week, I figured out that I am a part-time locust. Here’s how it happened. I was picking the brain of a restauranteur for insight into things like Groupon. He confirmed what we all understand in the abstract: that these that these deals are terrible for the businesses that offer them; that they draw in nomadic deal hunters from a vast surrounding region who are unlikely to ever return; that...
April 2013
32 posts
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“Don’t expect any breadth or grandeur from the Empire’s Christian divines. Across...”
– Love Is Stronger than Debt | Books and Culture. A sublime rant from Eugene McCarraher. (via ayjay) Righteous
“The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote...”
– Frances Stonor Saunders, “Modern Art was a CIA Weapon” Abstract expressionism is counter-revolutionary!
“And so it is with the wonk—he needs to appear to be deeply knowledgeable about a...”
– Peter Frase, “The Perils of Wonkery”
“Like a passive-aggressive boyfriend, I not only hear the problem, girl, I have...”
– Zachary Lipez, “Rock and Roll is So Boring It’s Making Kurt Vile Seem Interesting,” Hazlitt
Unpresidential presidential quotations in the OED →
“Just as a lamp is not able to illuminate unless a fire is enkindled, so also a...”
– Thomas Aquinas, commentary on the Gospel of John (via ayjay)
“IT IS TOLD-1 Kings, Chapter 12-that the people of Israel petitioned their new...”
– Frank Chodorov, “The Income Tax: Root of All Evil”
Happy tax day, serfs. Also, it’s complete bullshit that I don’t qualify for the EITC because I’m not yet 25. Maybe I should have just stayed in my parents’ basement and gotten them a deduction. Or fathered a...
“In 1984, Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground, a violent, oafish...”
– Michael Moynihan, “How 1960s Radicals Ended up Teaching Your Kids,” The Daily Beast
““Rivers of Blood” was a marvel of political soliloquy, not one we see often, if at all. It has none of the hallmarks of recent oratorical train wrecks in our own country. It is not an act of a stupid person saying something stupid as with Sarah Palin’s “blood libel” speech, nor is it an act of a mediocre person saying something pandering as with Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” statement. It was,...
“But in their rush to condemn corporate agribusiness, food marketers, and...”
– Helen Lee, “The Making of the Obesity Epidemic,” The Breakthrough
“A few years ago a man was replacing carpeting in a room he was renting. As he...”
– The Criminalization of Almost Everything | Cato Institute (via pegobry)
March 2013
22 posts
“The notion of the Bible, distinct from the community of believers, as a source...”
– Fr. Stephen Freeman | People of the Book (via epiklesis)
Ayn Rand on C.S. Lewis: "The abysmal bastard!"
From Rand’s collected marginalia, brought to us by the indomitable Matthew Schmitz: The bastard actually means that the more man knows, the more he is bound by reality, the more he has to comply with an “A is A” existence of absolute identity and causality – and that is what he regards as “surrender” to nature, or as nature’s “power over man.” (!) What he objects to is the power...
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