After the five-year anniversary of hurricane Katrina, a number of articles came out that hoped to indirectly debunk our narrative of it — to replace our memories with other visions, ones that obscured the basic truth. Here’s a good starter: The narrative of those early, chaotic days — built largely on rumors and half-baked anecdotes [...]
Posts from ‘September, 2010’
An introduction to libertarian beliefs
Interest in libertarianism has been rising, but the major problem anyone new to libertarianism finds is that there’s very little real information about it. There are plenty of charming political pieces extolling its virtues, but very few clear summaries of what it is. Before we can explore libertarianism, we need to look at modern politics [...]
On the much-hyped Tea Party victories
Like many in American politics, I find the Tea Party refreshing for the following reasons: They’re not politicians. This is citizen activism at its best: normal people rising up and demanding change. They are above-average. Tea Partiers are more educated, wealthier and more experienced than the average voter. They have a feeling more than a [...]
The green world that never came
Overheard, the other day: Person 1: We didn’t get the hybrid SUV. I’m not even sure I believe all this global warming stuff. Person 2: You really should, since the consensus in the scientific community supports it. This made me think: the consumer world is like another planet that orbits earth. We look at earth [...]
Rethinking the Enlightenment
You know things have gotten out of hand bad when people start referring to a historical event as “The Enlightenment.” That’s the old monkey trick in action — by praising one thing too much, you’re implying something nasty about everything that came before. Oh, you mean before The Enlightenment? Well, judging by the name — [...]
Ignoring the patterns of nature
Modern life takes effort. Just getting through to the end of the day — fighting egos and layers of management at work, then ignoring family drama, then a few hours of TV before bed — can take all you’ve got. But the last thing you need is some idiot telling you that “life is precious,” [...]
Education: quantity vs. quality
Many of us have that one friend with whom intellectual banter and even serious debate can be had with no fear of personal feelings and ego ruining things. I’m fortunate enough to have a friend like this. In our debates, he usually plays the softer side of the human race, and I play more the [...]
Save KTRU (91.7 FM)
Rice University plans to sell its radio station KTRU (91.7 FM). This would remove a rare source of local, independent, non-corporate radio programming. Secret negotiations excluded input from Rice students and alumni. KTRU, which was created independently of the university by students with alumni funding, was never funded by Rice and is only “owned” by [...]
When easy answers die
Europe is awakening to the fallacy of globalism, which comes to us in the form of immigration and superstates like the EU. This is part of Europe’s general awakening to its own decline, which it has been able to hide for years under “easy answers”: super-simplified partial renditions of the truth that are more justification [...]
