Evil Marriage
I've harped on this point before: the marriage of big government and big business. The nuptials have been going on since the 17th century. It infuriated Belloc and Chesterton, and it ought to infuriate the rest of us, but we just keep voting for bigger government even though it merely further lines the pocket of big business.
The most-recent manifestation: Bailouts helping big banks get bigger. Excerpt: "As smaller banks start to fail at an alarming rate, many complain they are being penalized for the mistakes of Wall Street, including excessive trading of derivatives, whose values had little connection to the actual economy. . . . Some 37 independent banks have failed so far this year and more than 300 others are on the FDIC's watch list. As more and more government funds go to the 800-pound gorillas of the banking sector, there is less remaining for the banks that are regarded as small enough to fail."
Philosophy Corner
Interesting complaint from a philosophy student: "I've done my time for a BA in philosophy. In my experiences so far, there is a lack of Middle Eastern credit. Maybe I haven't gone to the big leagues and have an immature preconceived notion about academia. I got to survey from Pre-Socs, Classical, Hellenists, Medieval/Christianity, then there is a jump to Descartes all of a sudden."
He goes to school in California. Maybe he ought to try to an authentically-Catholic college. Most Thomists are unabashed admirers of Averroes, Avicenna, and the many Muslims who labored to preserve the works of Aristotle at a time when Europe was not able to do so. I'd suggest to the student that it's not a conspiracy against Islam, as much as a total blind spot toward all things Aristotelian. Aristotle, after all, thought that the brain cools the blood, right? He must be a doofus.
The student says he received a dose of medieval/Christian philosophy. That surprises me, and I'm a bit incredulous. If he really received some, I'm guessing it was in a dismissive way ("For the record, some medieval Scholastics, when they weren't obsessed with how many angels can dance on the head of pin, addressed some of the ontological arguments raised by modern existentialists, but let's talk about Sartre").
Autobiographical Corner
Whew, yet another whirlwind weekend. Two baseball games (the first one, Friday night, for the regular season league championship--we lost in extra innings), high school meeting for kids going on a Mammoth Cave expedition, niece graduation party, son birthday party. I really enjoy all the people events, but I really (really, really) wish these things were spaced out more. Every weekend for the past six have been a blur, and it's really getting to be a drag.
But I'm thinking that might change at least a little bit. Vacation time is coming up, and I should have plenty of time for reading.
But vacations also mean an even bigger distraction from blogging. When I am away from my computer I will arrange for something to be posted every day, but some of the posts might be brief and otherwise kinda lame. When you see something unusually short, you can figure, "Scheske must be away today." I recently received a few books of curmudgeonly quotes. Some are pretty good ("When a new book is published, read an old one"--Samuel Rogers). I suspect the slow-posting days will feature 'em.
Not Your Father's Roach Coach
"A new generation of lunch trucks is hitting the streets. They serve high-end fare such as grass-fed beef hamburgers, escargot and crème brûlée. As they rove cities like Austin, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, they alert customers to their locations using Twitter and Facebook. Their owners include highly trained chefs and well-known restaurateurs." Link.
