So says a Craigslist job ad: NEED A ENGLISH TUTOR No kidding. And the post itself just keeps proving itself true. We are looking for someone who is genuinely passionate for teaching children and understand well how to interact with children and manage classroom independently Teaching experience isn’t necessary, but a natural ability to teach in …
Monthly Archive: May 2011
May 20 2011
It’s Not Really about the Toy
I have it in my mind that I must have a particular piece of expensive technology — never mind the specific device. What’s important is that I’ve identified it as The One True Device that will jump-start my creativity, and spur me to be more productive in my various passions. Without it, my creative life is on …
May 15 2011
David Mamet Exchanges One Herd for Another
The National Review has a must-read cover story on David Mamet’s (de)evolution toward conservatism, and despite my loathing of everything the magazine stands for, Andrew Ferguson does a marvelous job of putting Mamet’s beliefs into context, and exposing his subject’s reasonings and inconsistencies. And that’s what catches my eye. For as something of an idiosyncratic liberal (my sympathy for …
May 09 2011
Hume and the Panhandler: The Chief Triumph of Art and Philosophy
I am directed to a quote of David Hume’s, whose 300th birthday is this week, from Robert Zaretsky in the New York Times, which for me sums up beautifully my best hopes for art, theatre, literature, and deep, considered thought. Though Hume himself (at length) expresses his “doubts” about their overall power, he still nails it: Here then …
May 03 2011
Darwin’s Mischief, Through Antebellum Eyes
In 1860, botanist Asa Gray reviewed the brand new book, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is a fascinating read. Not least of all for what about it induces cringing to modern liberal eyes: The prospect of the future, accordingly, is on the whole pleasant and encouraging. It is only the backward …
May 02 2011
The Moral Stain on the Electoral College
I wholeheartedly agree with Hendrik Hertzberg, this editorial from the Los Angeles Times in support of the National Popular Vote initiative (which neuters the utterly undemocratic Electoral College and allows for popular election of the president, and was just passed in Vermont) is excellent, and perhaps the clearest and most persuasive piece on the subject I’ve seen (and I am not always a big fan of what …
May 01 2011
Spinoza, Leibniz and Teabaggers
Reading Matthew Stewart’s The Courtier and the Hereticis proving most fascinating. It is illuminating to me how genuinely modern Spinoza and Leibniz were in their thinking, and then again how sometimes backward Leibniz could be. For Spinoza, it’s as though his conception of the modern state is a reaction to today’s teabagger Christianists. From the book: …
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