Schools are some of my favorite places in the world. Were I to rank the pleasures in my life, they would be there with libraries, forests, and the quiet of an old church. Something of the smell of reheated surplus cheese and frozen foods drags me back to the glory days of my childhood. Even […]
Category Archives: sadness
A Plague of Locusts
The absurd contempt for life expressed in the apparent lack of concern for the necessities of survival — air, water, food — by the powerful drives me to despair. Either these folks are exceptionally ignorant and obtuse, to think that they are unaffected by poison, or they simply have no thought for the future. To […]
Why I Cancelled My Newspaper Subscription
I’ve maintained a subscription to the deadtree edition of my local newspapers since I was old enough to pay my own bills. I’ve continued to subscribe even though the newspaper has grown less and less interesting, because I have found some things of value in it. But those things have steadily grown fewer and fewer, […]
The Case of the Wrong Way Driver
On July 26th, Diane Schuler left Sullivan County, New York, on her way home to Long Island. Around 1:30 p.m., she entered the northbound Taconic State Parkway from an exit ramp, and proceeded to travel south. A few minutes later she collided head-on with another vehicle, killing herself and seven others. If she was driving […]
Speaking of Hate
I really hate that the rhetoric of liberty is perverted in the service of illiberal causes. And I hate this not just because of the hypocrisy of it. I hate this because now that the language of liberty is indeliably associated with those wishing to deny liberty to others, it is relatively simple for all […]
Bobby Dunbar
I’m listening again to This American Life‘s story “The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar.” The story is remarkably affecting, sad, and hard to imagine. [This paragraph intentionally left blank in a moment of silence.] But didn’t the DNA test simply demonstrate that Bobby Dunbar, Jr., and Alfonso Dunbar did not have the same male ancestor?
Lost Friends
I lost touch with my room-mate from Hampden-Sydney. He dropped out after my first semester there, and I ended up with a single for the next year. We did not keep in touch. I’ve often wondered what happened to him, but never put much effort into finding him. The Internet makes catching up with old […]
Evolution in Action
This is sad, but preventable. Can you count how many ways these parents were irresponsible? Sorry about the guilt, folks, but it’s yours to bear.