Sometimes, the definition of a word is pretty hard to dispute. For example, the meaning of “iron” is, unless it is used metaphorically, pretty straightforward. So is the definition of “ion”, or “book”, or “supper”. Of course, very little of interest is said to do with this. People tend not to dispute whether some food is supper, whether something is made of iron, whether some ion is present in some compound, or whether so-and-so object is a “book”; they simply look at it, and then say, “Ah, yes, it is a book” or, “Oh, no, it’s not a book.” What …

(Yes, I cut the last post and I’m editing it to this.) If a troll lives under a bridge, what’s the best way to make the troll leave the neighborhood? It’s not the troll’s fault that he needs goats to eat. That’s the nature of the troll. Trolls are sad, ill creatures that cannot imagine living any other way than lurking under bridges, feeding on passersby, regardless of whether the meat that comes is of the kind they crave. When you’ve got a troll’s claw, everything looks like a goat. Still even with compassion considered, it’s best to blow up …

In my continued effort to work through/cull my Bloglines subscriptions, I have noticed a strange and saddening trend of people seemingly suggesting that we should just shut up. (That is, stop blogging.) I saw it in this post at What not to do in Asia…, as well as in this final post at ξενιτεια. (Boy I hope the Greek shows up correctly.) I can understand the sinking whumph of deciding to give up—for however long—on blogging. I can see the motivation in mocking Friday Cat Bloggery—I mean, I don’t give a damn about other peoples’ cats, of course, except my …

Unlike some bloggers, I don’t get a lot of mail from readers. Not much love-mail, not much hate-mail. And I haven’t particularly minded; the fact that most readers either comment in the comments section, trackback to me, or just don’t feel like commenting at all is fine with me. But sometimes mail from a reader is a real treat. Like this morning. I woke to find an email from a very enthusiastic reader in Buenos Aires who wanted to let me know how much he enjoyed my email about my post on Kierkkegaard. He said that he will be translating …

If you like webcomics, I highly recommend checking out The Jain’s Death, and anything else at electric sheep comix that grabs your attention, too.

Well, Pollhost seems to have lost the data for polls on several of the websites I’ve visited, including the data for the last poll I ran. I’ve decided to go with something a little different, this time. I was looking through my cookbooks this morning and ran across the funniest passage in the recipe for Peking Duck, in a little book out of Hong Kong that was sent to me by my sister and her husband: Mix syrup, wine, and vinegar well and rub into the duck in windy place. I think the original (in Chinese) probably meant in a …

A couple of good links from Arts & Letters Daily: – on comic books as “intellectual marijuana”. – an eerie piece about Hitler being the “Feelgood” Fuhrer… timely, timely. – the New Criterion website