Erictheblue

LATEST ARTICLES ( 375 )

• Schopenhauer

  

  Arthur Schopenhauer was born at Danzig (now known as Gdansk) in February of 1788.  His father was a successful shipowner and merchant; his mother, a more... Read more

  Posted on 22 April 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Brian v Alex

  

  I was, on account of unusually rapid progress from waiting room to exam table to clinic exit, home before the normal hour Monday and relishing the prospect of... Read more

  Posted on 19 April 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Masters

  

  It's a cold, sleety Sunday afternoon and I am home alone with a couple of napping girls.  The Twins game has  been postponed on account of the... Read more

  Posted on 14 April 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Roger Ebert

  

  Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, was the author of perhaps the most worn volume in our house: Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion, 1990 edition. It must have... Read more

  Posted on 07 April 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• R. J. Hollingdale

  There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about the literary scholar George Lyman Kittredge, who despite never taking a Ph.D. was both the greatest Shakespearean... Read more

  Posted on 02 April 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Books of the Bible: Amos

  

  Begins with the prophet denouncing, in formulaic phrases, the wickedness of nations that experts in ancient Mideast geography will recognize as neighbors of... Read more

  Posted on 29 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Best Picture?

  

  The other movie we saw in L.A., when I was fresh from being released from the hospital (and therefore too limpy for walking tours) and Amanda was fresh from... Read more

  Posted on 27 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Sickness: the Upsides

  

  One prescription for longevity, according to someone (Lewis Thomas?), is to contract a chronic disease and then take good care of it. Read more

  Posted on 23 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Los Angeles II

  

  We're home from California.  Amanda ran her marathon Sunday morning in 4:34:23 while her one-man support crew lounged in the Santa Monica branch of the... Read more

  Posted on 21 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Los Angeles: This and That

  

  We're in Los Angeles, where Amanda is running in the L.A. Marathon on Sunday.  When you don't travel much, everything is new, so I hope jaded frequent... Read more

  Posted on 17 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Human Drama of Athletic Competition

  

  How many times have I answered a version of the question, put to Woody Allen by his exasperated former love interest in Annie Hall, "What is so... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2013 ATHLETICS, SPORTS

• On the Editorial Page

  

  One of the mainstays of the prose style of wing-nut Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten--besides the dashed off parenthetic comment--is the use of scare... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Home from Work

  Home from work. Not a cold, not the flu. On Monday I slipped and fell on a patch of ice and hurt my knee badly enough so that I am ambulatory again today for th... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Cardinal Keith O'Brien: the Beat Goes on

  

  Keith O'Brien, the recently retired head of the Roman Catholic Church's Britain Division, said in a statement today: "I wish to take this opportunity to... Read more

  Posted on 04 March 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Electoral College: My Bete Noire

  

  I indicated, here, that people who think the electoral college should be preserved, but reformed so that electoral votes are won by carrying congressional... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Jonah

  

  Perhaps no biblical book has suffered more than Jonah from the depredations of fundamentalists.  (I acknowledge the competition is fierce. Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2013 RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY

• George Packer and Walmart Americans

  

  I like the stable of writers at The New Yorker magazine, but every so often one of them lets fly a linguistic fart that smells just the way described by... Read more

  Posted on 23 February 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Octogenarian Retires

  

  I haven't relieved myself on the subject of the pope's early retirement.  What's surprising to me is that so many people seem to care. Read more

  Posted on 22 February 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Lincoln, the Movie

  

  For our sixth wedding anniversary, Amanda and I saw Lincoln, more my idea than hers but it's really her fault, because after the decision was made to "go t... Read more

  Posted on 19 February 2013 ENTERTAINMENT, MOVIES

• Not Necessarily an Impossible Task

  The CW regarding the opposition party's response to the State of the Union address concerns what a hopeless task it is.  There you are, in some deserted... Read more

  Posted on 16 February 2013 POLITICS, SOCIETY