Monthly Archives: April 2009

To Dallas: Out April 29th – May 9th

I’m going to Dallas in a few hours – no, it is not to defend. I have some research to do there, actually: writing the dissertation draft made me realize there is literature my own school has produced that I’d better make myself familiar with before I defend. I don’t know if I’ll be able …

April 29, 2009 – 12:55 am | By ashok | Posted in personal | Comments (2)

Links, 4/26/09

Reason Magazine is concerned about MADD’s potential influence over the Highway Traffic Safety Administration. A case where “enhanced interrogations” saved American lives. Bruce Bawer on Europe’s (seeming) march rightward: Heirs to Fortuyn? Oh yeah. The Taliban are threatening to conquer Islamabad, while we sit around and talk about how they don’t pose any vital threat …

April 26, 2009 – 4:46 pm | By ashok | Posted in links | Comments (2)

Moderation and Justice in Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 1

I’m looking at Federalist No. 1 right now to see how Hamilton elaborates on the following: It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing …

April 25, 2009 – 11:42 pm | By ashok | Posted in politics | Tagged | Comments (0)

On Yeats’ “Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors”

Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors William Butler Yeats What they undertook to do They brought to pass; All things hang like a drop of dew Upon a blade of grass. Comment: The difference between “bring” and “take” that too many teachers have mentioned too many times opens the first half of the poem. The undertaking …

April 24, 2009 – 11:46 pm | By ashok | Posted in poetry, yeats | Comments (6)

Just finished a dissertation draft…

…and I don’t know what I want to write on, but I’m pretty sure about what I don’t want to write on. I’m going to head out to the bookstore in a bit, journal in hand. I had things I wanted to write about this month, but I haven’t been thinking about them in a …

April 23, 2009 – 2:43 pm | By ashok | Posted in personal | Comments (2)

Links, 4/23/09

Politicians Love the Tax Code We Hate – no surprises here, but nice to see the case made so concisely I think that a fierce woman’s better, a woman / That breaks away when you have thought her won, / For I’d be fed and hungry at the same time. Matt Drudge is notoriously secretive. …

April 23, 2009 – 2:53 am | By ashok | Posted in links | Comments (0)

I’m busy, but here are other older things to read…

…not everything that’s a halfway decent read on this site is listed in the Index or Key Posts. A few older entries of note: Paris Hilton At Moments Has A Sweetness About Her, Or This Time I’m Really Lowering My Standards Things I Think I’ve Learned About the Internet While Blog Promoting Thoughts on the …

April 17, 2009 – 4:28 pm | By ashok | Posted in links, personal | Comments (0)

Information Overload: How do you know what to trust nowadays?

We on the Right have several problems, but a big one is that crazy stuff can come in mainstream packages and trick all of us. The latest escapade – and I don’t even know what to believe myself, I’m just reading the sources and pretty much withholding judgment – involves a Department of Homeland Security …

April 15, 2009 – 10:41 am | By ashok | Posted in blogging, media, politics | Comments (6)

A Note on the Term “Essence”

I use the term “essence” a lot, and I sorta regret/sorta don’t regret doing that because it does oversimplify issues. It also provides a good-enough introduction to thinking without getting lost in too much jargon or too many distinctions. I throw plenty of those at you. Nonetheless, I should have posted this earlier, from Joe …

April 14, 2009 – 9:32 am | By ashok | Posted in aristotle, philosophy | Comments (2)

Being, Appearance, Becoming: A Thought on Xenophon, Memorabilia III.10.6-8

What is below is very speculative. Like this blog, it is a work in progress. Xenophon, Memorabilia III.10.6-8, translation Amy Bonnette: When he [Socrates] visited the sculptor Cleiton once and conversed with him, he said, “That the runners, wrestlers, boxers, and pancratists that you make, Cleiton, are beautiful I both see and know. But how …

April 13, 2009 – 11:15 pm | By ashok | Posted in philosophy, xenophon | Comments (1)