Month: October 2022
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Recent Views
More photography here and on my Instagram. The view of the capitol building in Madison from the Madison Children’s Museum rooftop: Mr. 3 Year Old and his cousin on the slide at the Madison zoo: Stumbled upon this view atop a slide at a nearby suburban park: Ascending a magically wooded tunnel of stairs adjacent…
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In praise of microhistories
Clive Thompson on the appeal of microhistories: When you drill down deeply into a single subject, you nearly always realize: Holy crap, this is more complex than I’d have thought. This is true of just about any subject, right? And it’s exactly the opposite feeling you get from a “big” book, which strives to make…
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Maybe join a book club instead
Adam Mastroianni, in an article on the myths of political hatred: I think there is one very good reason to cap our political hatred: it makes us miserable. Not because we’re always coming to blows with our political enemies—the data suggests that doesn’t happen very often—but because we’re always thinking about them. I’ve seen perfectly…
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On the arts as blunt instruments
Alan Jacobs, considering a John Adams letter on the usefulness of the arts: Everyone in power, or aspiring to power, in this country seems to be studying Politics and War, though they will sometimes cover that study with a flimsy disguise. On the so-called Left we see surveillance moralism (and often enough the sexualization of…