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Monthly Archives: May 2020

Jonathan Haidt

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

White House photo A couple of days ago, The Atlantic published a flattering portrait of Jonathan Haidt: Jonathan Haidt Is Trying to Heal America’s Divisions. “Over the past decade,” wrote Peter Wehner, “no one has added more to my understanding of how we think about, discuss, and debate politics and religion than Jonathan Haidt.” Haidt […]

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Ken in the Washington Post

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Ken on the Scottish isle of Ulva, September 2018 Ken has an op-ed in today’s Washington Post on the right to roam and why we need it now more than ever: America may be opening back up, but most of our land is still off-limits. Let’s change that.

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Scary new predictions from Nouriel Roubini

Friday, May 22, 2020

Scheduled air traffic, 2009. Wikipedia. I owe a great deal to Nouriel Roubini. I had been a liberal prepper since 9/11. I was preparing for retirement as the Bush-Cheney financial bubble grew — and grew and grew. If you believed the horsewash and the noise in the media, it was a fine time to borrow […]

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Sixth Column — Robert A. Heinlein, 1941

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Once again, unable to find any new (or newish) science fiction that I wanted to read, I turned to an oldie — Robert A. Heinlein’s Sixth Column, which was first published in 1941. Of course it’s dated, but part of the fun of old science fiction classics is the nostalgia. It’s recognizably Heinlein, though — […]

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — the soundtrack

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Fred and Joanne Rogers, circa 1974. PBS photo. Last night I watched “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” the Tom Hanks film about Mr. Rogers. There’s no need for a review here, and you’ve probably already seen the film. But I did want to comment on the soundtrack, which I thought was extraordinary. It was […]

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Ken writes about Doomsday at the abbey

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Ken, who has been a featured author at the Wigtown Book Festival in Scotland for several years, has written a piece for the festival’s web site about being stuck here at the abbey during the Pandemic. Regular readers of this blog will recognize the characters. Please think of it as an interpretation of the American […]

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What’s happening, May 13

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Who will ever be able to forget the spring of 2020 — the Pandemic Spring? Here in this little corner of the world, the strange weather continues. An arctic incursion brought two late frosts. The tomatoes, basil, and squash are hating it (we covered them), but they survived. The cool-weather crops are flourishing. Mustard and […]

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Crimson clover

Friday, May 1, 2020

Click here for high-resolution version. Last October, I sowed 10 pounds of crimson clover seed in the yard, bought from Amazon for $34.99. Now I can’t bring myself to mow the yard. Next October, I’ll sow at least twice as much.

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