Bad blogger
It is thanks only to Sarah, with her stimulating guest post on gender segregation, that this blog has limped through the last few weeks. Still, I'm doing better than Martin, who has popped out of retirement for "POOPCANS", on how liberal infoolectuals can ruin their best books.
A wonderful post I missed earlier in the month is Peter Ryley's "Beauty and bestiality", on music and the Shoah. Two more must-reads, both tangential to the left's received wisdom on the late Margaret Thatcher, are Marko Attila Hoare on how Maggie turned us upside down, and Kellie Strom on Terry Glavin's Irish politics. Another is George Szirtes on Hungary's fast track to the past. I also liked Michael Harris on meeting a Chinese dissident on a train. Some important reading is Ben Six's series on Theocracy in the UK.
Some other things that have caught my eye: Two posts on academic boycotts, both via Engage: Jonathan Lowenstein on historical parallels; Raphael Cohen-Almago on the fallacy behind the boycott. The IWCA on UKIP and the working class. Carl Packman on Why David Cameron is right about Syria. Ben Cohen on deepening authoritarianism in Venezuela.
New blogs: Steve H's new music blog: Disaccumulation. Rob Palk's new blog, with posts on War Weariness, Boston Bombing Conspiracies, New Atheists, The Other Side of Orwell and a Defence of Book Snobbery.
A wonderful post I missed earlier in the month is Peter Ryley's "Beauty and bestiality", on music and the Shoah. Two more must-reads, both tangential to the left's received wisdom on the late Margaret Thatcher, are Marko Attila Hoare on how Maggie turned us upside down, and Kellie Strom on Terry Glavin's Irish politics. Another is George Szirtes on Hungary's fast track to the past. I also liked Michael Harris on meeting a Chinese dissident on a train. Some important reading is Ben Six's series on Theocracy in the UK.
Some other things that have caught my eye: Two posts on academic boycotts, both via Engage: Jonathan Lowenstein on historical parallels; Raphael Cohen-Almago on the fallacy behind the boycott. The IWCA on UKIP and the working class. Carl Packman on Why David Cameron is right about Syria. Ben Cohen on deepening authoritarianism in Venezuela.
New blogs: Steve H's new music blog: Disaccumulation. Rob Palk's new blog, with posts on War Weariness, Boston Bombing Conspiracies, New Atheists, The Other Side of Orwell and a Defence of Book Snobbery.
Comments
Anyway, in the blogosphere today I feel like I'm stuck in this Bob Dylan song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGN8lpDCfEw
Isn't our particular clique now moving into the part of our lives where our jobs and families get the best of our brain power, while the unencumbered generation behind ours cuts its teeth gratis on the Web?
I could be wrong.
Further to Beauty and Bestiality, did anybody see this year's BBC Holocaust Memorial broadcast? It was entirely musical and recorded at Auschwitz. I thought it would be dull but it wasn't. It was absolutely gripping. I can't find it right now
It is also true that Twitter and Facebook are ways that some of the steam that builds up is let off. They give you instant connectivity, are good ways of sharing what you have read.
I'm not on Facebook, but am on Twitter. Twitter doesn't take away time from blogging for me - I do it on the bus, while making the breakfast, etc. But it does satisfy an itch that used to only be satisfied by blogging.
I am sad that the conversation and community seems to be attenuated. But I think it might come back.