768 words
Everybody knows the old joke:
Man: Would you consider sleeping with me for a million dollars?
Woman: Well . . . I guess so.
Man: How about ten dollars?
Woman [angrily]: Do you think I’m a whore?
Man: Yes, we’re just haggling over the price.
This came to my mind when I saw coverage and comment on the usual Black Friday frenzy, (more…)
2,508 words
Rhonda Hetzel
The Simple Life: The Pleasures and Rewards of Getting Back to Basics
(A Penguin Special)
e-Penguin (Australia), 2014
“I was pulled into simple living before I knew what it was. (more…)
382 words
Now not all the waves
of the four seas are calm,
but in the land of Yamato,
where the sun rises,
the winds are sated, men devote themselves to pleasure.
Under the virtuous rule of His Majesty
peace reigns everywhere.
(more…)
The huckster D’Souza
The huckster D’Souza
2,879 words
There’s no easier way to make a living than as a non-white activist in the American conservative movement. Simply offer well-meaning whites the nectar of racial absolution and say you care about their country, and they will throw money at you no matter what else you tell them. (more…)
2,926 words
In an earlier essay, I shared ten aphorisms from “my code.” In case you missed that essay, I will just say that a few years ago I decided to establish a code to live by. Like most of the things I do, this turned into a major project and I wound up gathering nuggets of “practical knowledge” from all manner of sources: Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans, the Eddas and Sagas, medieval Chivalry, Japanese Bushido, Tyler Durden, G. I. Gurdjieff, and even Indian Shaivism. (more…)
2,015 words
In the last few decades, white flight from the cities has been reversed. With homosexuals serving as the shock troops, wealthy white liberals are gentrifying neighborhoods and cities, and remaking them in their own image. Such communities have certain symbols and institutions to let you know that you are in conquered territory where the “SWPL” (Stuff White People Like) rules. These include expensive cupcake boutiques, COEXIST and Human Rights Campaign bumper stickers, and a Starbucks on every block. (more…)
Salvador Dalí, "Allegory of an American Christmas," 1934
Salvador Dalí, "Allegory of an American Christmas," 1934
2,403 words
Part 2 of 2
When a people loses a sense of blood-relatedness, what basis is there for community? American community is not based on blood ties, shared history, shared religion, or shared culture: it is based on ideology. He who professes the American creed is an American—he who does not is an outcast.
2,042 words
Geoffrey Miller
Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior
New York: Viking, 2009
When I was asked to review this book, I half groaned because I was sure of what to expect and I also knew it was not going to broaden my knowledge in a significant way. From my earlier reading up on other, but tangentially related subject areas (e.g., advertising), I already knew, and it seemed more than obvious to me, that consumer behavior had an evolutionary basis. (more…)
