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- ARE PEOPLE LESS VIOLENT? (COMMENT). (2)
- Dick Weisfelder: My prior comment was just in the context of sports. Whether or not from Pinker, I have seen the...
- erik: It seems doubtful that human nature has changed. The most likely explanation would be that modern culture gives...
- HOW BANKS PREPARED FOR A U.S. DEFAULT. (2)
- GREECE’S ADVANTAGE IN THE CHICKEN GAME. (2)
- Nick: That makes sense. It reminds me of the stories Pater Familias would tell me about how in Boston the person with...
- Dick Weisfelder: Greece seems to me to be playing a game that Karl Deutsch called “underdog.” While one...
- FOOTBALL PLAYERS DELIBERATELY CAUSING CONCUSSIONS? (3)
- Nick: It was my understanding that boxing gloves were to protect the puncher’s hands and not the...
- Dick Weisfelder: Remember the Roman arenas? Bare knuckled boxing? Such injuries were taken as natural and accepted in...
- Mary Jane Schaefer: This isn’t about football. Or even sportsmanship. Well, it is about sportsmanship. But what...
- A 25 % CHANCE OF A EURO DEFAULT? (1)
- Nick: The fact that this has gone on for so long is pretty perplexing. The Economist is referring back to articles it...
- DECIDING WHAT KIND OF PATIENT YOU ARE. (1)
- Dick Weisfelder: One can be very open to new technology, but also risk averse. The recent debates about how to...
- THE EUROZONE—A CHICKEN GAME WHERE EVERY MEMBER CAN BLOW IT UP? (1)
- Mary Jane Schaefer: This is not a matter of chicken. These are all turkeys.
- ARE PEOPLE LESS VIOLENT? (COMMENT). (2)
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Monthly Archives: January 2010
WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAN EXPECTED?
WHY IS UNEMPLOYMENT WORSE THAN EXPECTED? Two good economists raised a similar question this week about why the unemployment rate is higher than economic models would have predicted. Arnold Kling posted here on January 15: “I would suggest that explaining … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, History
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A NIGHTINGALE’S SONG.
A NIGHTINGALE’S SONG. After watching Bright Star, it occurred to me that I had never heard a nightingale’s song and that I could find one on the internet. Here is one recording of a nightingale.
Posted in Literature
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DOES CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR SHOW TOO MUCH?
DOES CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR SHOW TOO MUCH? Christopher Ricks is a good and important critic, but he had a much different reaction to Jane Campion’s Bright Star than I did. Ricks objects to Campion’s showing images which are in Keats’s … Continue reading
Posted in Literature
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KEATS’S BRIGHT STAR.
KEATS’S BRIGHT STAR. BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEDFAST By John Keats Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, … Continue reading
Posted in Literature
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CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR.
CAMPION’S BRIGHT STAR. We loved Jane Campion’s Bright Star. Fanny Brawne has, I think, suffered the same kind of unjust scorn from scholars that Anne Hathaway has. It seems that there is an expectation that a spouse or lover should … Continue reading
Posted in Literature
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SAINT AGNES’S EVE.
SAINT AGNES’S EVE. January 20 is Saint Agnes’s Eve. Here is the poem.
Posted in Literature
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COMMARES.
COMMARES. Kids, you may have recognized the word “cumma’s” that I used in yesterday’s post as Neopolitan dialect. If so, you won’t be surprised that it comes from the Italian word “commare.” (The spelling is my own transcription of what … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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A FLOOR COLLAPSES.
A FLOOR COLLAPSES. This article reports that: “Members of a Swedish Weight Watchers clinic said a floor collapsed from under a group of about 20 dieters participating in a weighing event.” Kids, I took note of the article because of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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DID PHOENICIANS IN DENMARK FORM THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?
DID PHOENICIANS IN DENMARK FORM THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE? John McWhorter has a special interest in what happens when two languages collide. He argues that Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of English, was “deeply affected by adults of some extraction learning it as … Continue reading
GRIMM’S LAW—A WEIRD CHANGE IN LANGUAGE?
GRIMM’S LAW—A WEIRD CHANGE IN LANGUAGE? Kids, Grimm’s Law is wonderful. It is useful; if you are trying to learn German it tells you how to remember lots of German words. It’s elegant; it works on so many words that … Continue reading
Posted in History
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