Monthly Archives: May 2007

The Wild Abyss

29th
May. × ’07

I’m a big fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, which has been called the “anti-Christian answer to Narnia.” (Though I’m a big fan of Narnia too. Knee-jerk pro-Christian attitudes and knee-jerk anti-Christian attitudes are both impediments to literary enjoyment, among other things.) It has also inevitably been compared with the Harry Potter series, [...]

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More Spencer Nonsense, Part Deux

29th
May. × ’07

Earlier this month I wrote a letter to the New York Times and posted it here. Then I discovered that the Times would only print letters that haven’t appeared previously, so I deleted the letter from my blog. But since they didn’t print it anyway, here it is again: To the Editor: Patricia Cohen’s May [...]

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Wings Over Niagara

28th
May. × ’07

As I work my way through the lesser-known novels of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, I keep finding new material to blog about. I’ve speculated previously about the possible influence on Tolkien of Wells’ 1908 The War in the Air. I now suggest pushing the line of influence four years farther back, to Verne’s [...]

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A Way With Words

28th
May. × ’07

Heard on the news today: “Lindsay Lohan has been battling sobriety.” I’d say she’s been winning.

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Happy Birthday, Star Wars

25th
May. × ’07

Today is the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars. Star Wars first entered my consciousness either just before or just after my 13th birthday, when I saw a homemade sign in the window of a Phoenix, Az. movie theatre announcing “COMING SOON: STAR WARS.” But I assumed it was some movie about wars among [...]

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Immigration, Secession, and Taxation

23rd
May. × ’07

[cross-posted at Liberty & Power] 1. A frequent argument against secession is: What about the tax money that the rest of the country has invested in the would-be secessionist region for infrastructure, education, security, etc.? A region shouldn’t be allowed to secede until it first pays back the full costs of those investments. Now many [...]

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