LATEST BLOG POSTS

I don’t write much about the type of politics covered in daily newspapers, but I can’t help commenting on a pattern these days I haven’t seen anyone comment on. Regular readers know I’m interacting more with institutions that promote limited government, such as the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and Hillsdale College. Since I grew up in liberal, progressive households and school systems, but don’t fly, I consider it[…] Keep reading →

Judith just published The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and Our Planet Before It’s Too Late. I’ve read a lot about plastic and hosted many authors. I won’t lie. Before starting the book, I thought I should read it because I knew her, but didn’t expect much. Instead, I learned a lot new. I found it engaging and compelling. I recommend it. Yes, you’ll learn things that are[…] Keep reading →

Do you like for experiences in life to have meaning? What makes an event or experience meaningful? It’s tempting to say it’s difficult to define. The dictionary defines meaningful as “Having meaning, function, or purpose” and meaning as “significant quality, especially: implication of a hidden or special significance.” Those definitions seem vague to me. They just substitute the word quality for meaning. They don’t suggest how to make something more[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: This America: The Case for the Nation, by Jill Lepore: I’ve seen Jill Lepore’s books at the top of bestseller lists and read pieces she’s written in the New Yorker and probably other places. Her work seems to overlap with authors I’ve found valuable: Akhil Reed Amar and Gordon Wood. Her two big books These Truths and We the People are huge and daunting, though reviews[…] Keep reading →

Each Sunday I post selected books, movies, courses, and other media I finished that week. Today, I’ll see if I can pick the ones I liked the most. I’ll write the categories first, then fill them in after searching this year’s posts. I’m not sure which I’ll remember or forget. I don’t think I read many fiction books. I don’t usually note podcasts or short videos, but I listen to[…] Keep reading →

Doing things consistently and daily for a long time enables you to notice nuances, which increases self-awareness. Since I have a six-day exercise cycle that I begin on the first of each month, in months with 31 days, I like to vary what I do with the extra day. In December I did two things. Sorry for the long post, but what I describe below felt like a meaningful experience[…] Keep reading →

The more I see flying from the outside, the more I see it as the opposite of travel, or of achieving what people want in travel. First, if you walk somewhere, or bike or even ride a horse or sail a boat, you are traveling. That is, you are actively causing yourself to move from one place to another. When you get in a vehicle like a plane, train, or[…] Keep reading →

First, context: When, over a decade ago, I started my experiment avoiding packaged food for a week, I discovered why my mind debated with itself over minutia like “should rubber bands count as packaging,” “what about stickers on fruit,” “what about food already in my cupboard,” and so on. As soon as I started, I found I could answer all those questions by doing. Most didn’t matter. Those that mattered,[…] Keep reading →

I’ve been posting my usual posts on Christmas Pagan trees. Here’s a picture of my alternative and the story behind it. In conversation with alumni from my workshops (which I recommend you take), one mentioned all you need to do to grow garlic is stick a clove in the dirt and water it. Could it be that easy? It wasn’t hard to try. I did it the other day and[…] Keep reading →