A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

—Lazarus Long


Archive for August, 2008

McCain makes a bold move

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Picking Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee was a clever and gutsy thing for John McCain to do. I think he has just wrong-footed the Democrats on several levels.
First, this choice looks bold and change-making in exactly the way Obama’s choice of Biden did not. Instead of a tired old pol with a [...]

Why I hate identity politics

Monday, August 25th, 2008

I was born with a congenital defect. That’s a value-free statement that nobody can conceivably insult me by repeating. It is a fact that I have cerebral palsy, probably caused by neonatal oxygen deprivation. It is a fact that my central nervous system (specifically the motor-control areas of my right temporal lobe) does [...]

A welcome outbreak of sanity

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Instapundit links to this interesting news story: Texas school district lets teachers, staff pack pistols. While this is a step in the right direction, I think it does not go far enough.
I think all teachers, day-care staff, and other adults in loco parentis for groups of children should be required to carry [...]

Deducing From What Isn’t Reported

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

There are a couple of things we can deduce from what the national press is not reporting about the killing of Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney:

The killer has no particular ties to the Republican Party or any other right-wing political organization. How do we know this? Because that is without question [...]

The Great Skank Question

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

Monica Lewinsky. Rielle Hunter. I’d haul out the tired old Marx quote about history repeating itself as farce, but l’affaire Lewinsky was pretty farcical to begin with. As I looked at images of Hunter and Lewinsky, though, I was struck by a question:
If power is, as is so often claimed, the ultimate [...]

George Lakoff Framed Himself

Monday, August 11th, 2008

I’ve been a fan of George Lakoff’s writings on cognitive linguistics since reading Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things around 1990. Later, I observed his foray into political advocacy with increasing concern for him as the trajectory from expected savior to derided scapegoat became increasingly obvious. Now, the Chronicle of Higher Education gives us [...]

On Enjoying a Fight – a Genetic Speculation

Monday, August 4th, 2008

Sword Camp 2008 reminded me how much I enjoy fighting. I’m not speaking abstractly, here; by “fighting” I mean physical hand-to-hand combat.
Now, on one level, this revelation shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows what I do for fun. I’ve trained to black belt level in tae kwon do, [...]

Sword Camp 2008: Graduation Day, Day Seven

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

The final day of Sword Camp. We spent our morning learning advanced field medical techniques, up to and including learning how to suture a wound by stitching together a slash through the skin of a banana with actual surgical sutures. We also learned how to use a trach tube for clearing an [...]

Sword Camp 2008: Live Steel Day, Day Six

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Live Steel Day arrived, and we spent the first half of the morning attacking a couch.
This is a much less trivial exercise than it sounds. Couches are tough, full of padding and wood and springs and more difficult to cut than flesh. We had a tablefull of weapons — machetes, a parang, a couple [...]