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Do We Need Government? No, But You Need This Anthology

By on September 7, 2019 0

[cross-posted at BHL and POT]

A long-awaited anthology I’m scheduled to appear in (with a couple of pieces on the question “Do We Need Government?”) has now, I hear, been split into two – one volume on metaphysics and epistemology, and the other on ethics, æsthetics, and politics – and in that form (and with a bunch of historical selections deleted) is/are finally slouching toward publication; see the tables of contents here and here. Some old friends are in it/them too, as you’ll see (if you know who my old friends are).

I’m told: “The eText will be coming out in February [2020], with hard copies soon to follow.”

The Paragon of Animals

By on August 9, 2019 16

One of my favourite summer jobs in my college days was working at this place, Paragon Park, just four miles from where I was living in Hull, Mass. (so I could walk there when I had to). I worked there in the summer of 1984, which turned out to be the last summer of its existence. (I was bummed that in the following summer I had to work as a bagger at the Purity Supreme grocery in Weymouth instead.)

This isn’t my video, but it was taken during the time I was there:

One of the main rides I worked on was the Bermuda Triangle, glimpsed here at 0:22:

(The other two were the Ghost Train and the Tilt-a-Whirl.)

Plus this is where it was located:

Odi et Amo

By on August 6, 2019 1

I posted this in the comments section of a post by Stephan Kinsella, but I thought it was worth pulling out separately:

When I was living in the Boston area (early 80s), many subway stops still had these ancient escalators with slippery, oddly-angled wooden steps that always made me clutch the handrail for dear life. Last time I was there they seemed to be gone, though I obviously didn’t check every stop.

Those wooden escalators encapsulated everything I love and everything I find unlovely about New England in one tidy package. An aversion to the new and flashy, a determination to make do with the old until it absolutely positively cannot be used any more, like using a pencil down to the shortest nub that can still conceivably be grasped with the fingers. On the positive side, an aversion to wastefulness, a rock-ribbed reliability, and a skepticism toward the showy, shallow, and gimmicky. On the negative side, a stingy meanness and hidebound traditionalism, a cramped narrowness of perspective.

New England is in those respects – both the good and the bad – the polar opposite of southern California, my first home, where I also find much to love and much unlovely.

Maybe Montesquieu was on to something with his theory of climate as an influence on culture.

When I think about either New England or southern California, though, my feelings of love predominate over my misgivings.

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 20: Merlin and the Dragons

By on July 30, 2019 0

Continuing the theme of Celtic sorcery, and children of unknown and/or magical parentage, from Y Mabinogi and Ewenn Congar, we have Merlin and the Dragons (“Animated Tales of the World,” 2004).

This version oddly leaves out (apart from a cryptic closing reference to the modern Welsh flag) the whole point of the story, which is what the red dragon’s triumph over the white symbolises: namely, Merlin/Myrddin’s prophecy of the triumph of the Britons over the Saxons. (It also has Merlin engage in a bit more dragon-riding than I recall from the original, but I suppose that’s excusable poetic license. Leaving out the prophetic meaning is not so excusable, especially since that prophecy eventually gets linked up with the Arthur legend.)

I remember my mother reading a version of this story aloud to me (actually onto our then newly acquired cassette player, though I’m sure the cassette is long lost, and would likely be unplayable even if it weren’t) out of Helen Miller’s book The Realms of Arthur (not to be confused with more recent books of the same title) when we were living in San Diego, thus when I was between 8 and 10; I even seem to remember the section of the library where we picked it up – on the right-hand side upon entering, where I believe recent acquisitions were displayed (though whether it was the Ocean Beach library or the Point Loma library I can’t say, as we used both regularly; I’m not sure why I haven’t revisited either library on my various trips back in recent years).

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