Eric Scheske

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St. John of the Cross Feast Day

St. John of the Cross Feast Day

He arguably wrote the most Zen-like passage in the Christian tradition To reach satisfaction in all desire its possession in nothing. To come to possess all desire the possession of nothing. To come to the knowledge of all desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to the pleasure you have

Orwell Paints Abortion in the Soul

Orwell Paints Abortion in the Soul

In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Orwell describes the protagonist's reaction to the suggestion from the girl he impregnated that she get an abortion: "That pulled him up. For the first time he grasped, with the only kind of knowledge that matters, what they were really talking about.

Dalrymple Explores the Exploding Underclass (11/22/2020)

Dalrymple Explores the Exploding Underclass (11/22/2020)

Everything--from the permissive culture, to mass immigration, to COVID--coalescing at once "I have encountered many alcoholic Sikhs, for example, who were among the most refractory with regard to abstinence of all my patients; I have encountered almost every kind of social pathology among Muslims, from incest to drug addiction.

Bill Eerdman, RIP (11/21/2020)

Bill Eerdman, RIP (11/21/2020)

I just learned that Bill Eerdman, long-time president of Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Co. in Grand Rapids, passed away a few days ago. Mr. Eerdman was the son of the publishing company's founder. He took theology and publishing very seriously: Once, at the last minute, he

Negativity Bias Identified Long Before It was Identified (11/18/2020)

Negativity Bias Identified Long Before It was Identified (11/18/2020)

The minds of men always dwell more on bad luck. They accept ordinary prosperity as a matter of course. Misfortunes arrest their attention and remain in their memory. William Graham Sumner, Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals Just one of the hundreds

Epstein Corner

Epstein Corner

A joke from Joseph Epstein's entertaining essay, “You Could Die Laughing: Are Jewish Jokes a Humorous Subject?” “Walking along the beach, Goldstein finds a bottle, picks it up, and–surprise! surprise!–a genie emerges. The genie instructs Goldstein that he will grant him one wish, and one wish

From Johnson's Dictionary: Myrmidon

From Johnson's Dictionary: Myrmidon

myrmidon. Any rude ruffian; so named from the soldiers of Achilles. (If you're interested in the Trojan War, this word isn't new to you. But it surprised me that it was apparently in currency during the 17th-18th centuries (probably 17th; Johnson refused to use books to

Proto-Kerouac

Proto-Kerouac

D.H. Lawrence, writing in the early 1920s, about the poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892). “The Open Road. The great home of the Soul is the open road. Not heaven, not paradise. Not 'above'. Not even 'within'. The soul is neither 'above' nor '

Max Beerbohm

Max Beerbohm

Max Beerbohm's older brother, Herbert, was a funny guy. Once, when a man walked past him groaning under a grandfather clock he was carting on his back, Herbert said, "My good fellow, why not carry a watch?" (Joseph Epstein, Partial Payments).

Bernays: Propaganda King

Bernays: Propaganda King

Tom Woods recently hosted Mark Crispin Miller, a NYU professor and expert on propaganda. He says the whole COVID campaign hits a lot of the basic traits of propaganda: stifling dissenting opinions, ignoring inconvenient facts. The whole thing reminded me of the Father of Public Relations, Edward Bernays. He wasn&