L.M. Sacasas on accusations of romanticising the past.
At The Frailest Thing blog, L.M. Sacasas identifies something I’ve often noticed and wish there was a handy word for: Steven Pinker and Jason Hickel have recently engaged in a…
Tag: progress
Extinct in Ireland, September 9th, Black-necked Grebe
From Whittled Away: Bred at Lough Funshinagh, County Roscommon, until 1957. This 2015 Irish Examiner piece gives more of the story: The species once had a special relationship with Ireland; a County…
“We should sing the Land song again” Brian Anson AA Lecture (story) from 1974
Originally posted on Beyond Post-Conflict Architecture:
What follows are the extensive notes from a paper on ‘LAND’ that the late architect Brian Anson gave at the Architectural Association (AA) in…
“Democracy is a thing which is always breaking down through the complexity of civilisation” – GK Chesterton, Allan Massie and complexity
. As I have recently written, I am reading a collection of Allan Massie’s Life and Letters columns from the Spectator, which is full of shrewd judgments. In particular there…
Frank Ebrington, The Dubliner who was The World’s Fastest Man
From “Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed With Time” by Simon Garfield Before sport became a subject for record books, there was just the realisation that humans (upright, no tail)…
From “LA*HWI*NE*SKI: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist” by John Jeremiah Sullivan
That’s what’s so terrifying but also heroic in Rafinesque, to know he could see that far, function at that outer-orbital a level intellectually, yet still wind up viciously hobbled by…
Janan Ganesh on “history’s luckiest generation” and J G Ballard on the moon landings
In today’s FT weekend there is an interesting column by Janan Ganesh (who I previously featured on this blog) on how, given our times are in so many ways disconnected…
