A good article in Slate’s Explainer column on what the legal repercussions would be for congressmen who revealed NSA secrets. An interesting article by Graeme Wood in New York magazine about online reputation management. Gene Weingarten, A story that could make Roger Ebert look bad. Too soon? Often Weingarten is a bit (or, well, more …
Tag Archives: quotes
A Story about Bertrand Russell’s Plane Crash
In the past few days, a video has been circulating of an interview where Bertrand Russell credits smoking with saving his life.1 Russell explains: In fact, you know, on one occasion [smoking] saved my life. I was in an airplane, a man was getting a seat for me, and I said, “Get me a seat …
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Remember Learned Hand Before Criticizing Apple’s Tax Practices
Apple is the news, charged by Congress with evading taxes. In any discussion about taxation, the following quote from the great judge Learned Hand1 should be kept in mind: Any one may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will …
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A Sonnet for Morgenbesser: Dear Astrophil, Love Stella
Two summers ago, I sat in on a wonderful introductory poetry course taught by John Whittier-Ferguson. Among the poems we read was Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet Astrophil and Stella 63 (“O Grammar rules…”). In this sonnet sequence,1 Astrophil is less than successfully wooing Stella. By this 63rd sonnet he resorts to linguistic trickery: You have …
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Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard Shooting Hoops
This week’s New York Times magazine features an article by Adam Davison about economists Larry Summers and Glenn Hubbard. Forgive me for being superficial and ignoring the weighty macroeconomic topics discussed in the article; instead I’m going to offer three thoughts about the basketball tie-in. On Scrawny Moderately Athletic Kids The article begins with Larry …
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John McPhee and the Irregular Restrictive Which
It’s been a busy few weeks with research and the end of the semester. I promise I’ll get to writing substantive posts very soon. In the interim, I’d like to express my incredulity at John McPhee’s ignorance of the “irregular restrictive which” until it was pointed out to him by New Yorker editor William Shawn: Mr. …
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Interesting Articles, Links, Etc.
Some more links. Why do companies buy out startups just to get their employees, rather than just offering them higher salaries, which seems like it would be cheaper? An interesting article in the NYT gives some answers to this puzzle about so-called acqui-hiring in Silicon Valley.1 See also the longer law article by the original …
Allusion and Undertones in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist
I wrote in my introductory post that I am ambivalent about much of contemporary fiction. Well, it’s wonderful to come across as singular a counterexample as Mohsin Hamid’s beautiful novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. This is the sort of work that reminds you why you read; I heartily recommend it to all. (A word of advice: …
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Letters to the Living Dead
The eponymous hero of Saul Bellow’s Herzog spends his days writing letters. Moses Herzog1 is writing to “everyone under the sun…to the newspapers, to people in public life, to friends and relatives and at last to the dead, his own obscure dead, and finally the famous dead.”2 Later, he pauses during one his letters: He …