Tag: technology
Caritas in the Veritable Welfare State
We need not rely with some desperation on the Hope that is a gift, if we can gin up optimism of our own sort.
Kill Your Kindle
Claremont, CA. When my mother came to visit last week, she brought a copy of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union with her. Before she departed...
You’re Probably Looking For Porn
Claremont, CA. If you don’t want to read the new report from Harvard Business School, titled “Understanding Users of Social Networks,” you can just...
Dirt, Dollars, and Devices
Holland, MI. I confess: I hate farms. I hate everything about them. I hate the malodorous smells that take days to wash off. I...
Last Call at Descartes’ Bar and Grill
Washington, Connecticut. The urge, some might say mania with which our species has attempted to distance itself from Nature is a defining occupation and...
“On the Grid”: When Electricity (and Other Things) Came to the...
“Come in and look,” Quintín urged me, as he disappeared with a shuffle through the low doorway in his adobe house. I got up...
Of Games, Gadgets, and God
Coeur d'Alene, ID. One evening our family and two cousins were playing Uno. It’s a simple game requiring nothing more than a deck of...
Descartes, Algebra, and Alienation
Democratizing eighth-grade algebra promotes social justice. (Brookings Institution)
Money, mechanization, algebra. The three monsters of contemporary civilization. Complete analogy. (Simone Weil)
Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. ...
So: Are We Hypocrites?
Claremont, CA. A student has confronted me about Front Porch Republic. So now I'm writing the post that I've known I would have to...
Brave New World Reconsidered: A Tale of Two Gnosticisms
Many who are alarmed at the prospect of the “abolition of man” have found in Huxley’s Brave New World a dark and salutary warning...