This report on defamation law reminds me that I wrote an essay on the intellectual and moral history of defamation.
Zadie Smith: “I think itโs important to be a bit more forgiving when theyโre being those people online. I see that too โ people I love, I see them online, and Iโm like, who are you? This is not the same person I hang out with. This is a different person. But itโs really important to take the responsibility and the blame off individuals. Itโs a behavior modification system. Itโs meant to do that. Itโs really well designed. People arenโt terrible. The system is terrible. You want to lift that off people, that sense of guilt or shame, and make it more about anger โ anger toward the people who created this.”
โHello, Public Safety? Thereโs some dude outside my office window, just sitting there and staring in. Sitting and staring. Itโs creeping me out.โ
Today Robert Caro’s The Power Broker is available as an e-book, and I would love to know how many copies it will sell in that format in the first 24 hours. Book sales are such a black box, I don’t even know where to put the over/under. Maybe 15,000 copies?
Adam Roberts, “Musรฉe des Prole Arts.”
I LOLโd while reading this post by Phil Christman because it captures so perfectly a certain moment in a certain subculture I know intimately. (Iโm too old to have gone through it myself, and anyway I wasnโt raised a Christian, but the โChristian-artsy-kidโ world of 25 years ago is one for which I have great affection.)
I wrote this morning about the world’s best copy editor and offered your occasional reminder of how much I hate Microsoft Word.
Christine Rosen’s new book The Extinction of Experience โ which I blurbed โ is here also, and here’s a preview in podcast/interview form.
Jeff Bilbro’s new book Words for Conviviality โ which I blurbed โ is just out, and here’s a preview.
Hi! Iโm back!
I’ll be back!
Looking at what the next few weeks hold for me ๐ฌ I realize that I need to take a break from micro.blog for a while. I’ll still be writing at the big blog, though perhaps less frequently than usual. Ciao for now!
I just keep coming back to this one. ๐ต
People love Big Stories, sweeping narratives that seek to describe the whole world or the last thousand years, but Big Stories always obscure two essential truths: (a) that local conditions are endlessly variable, and (b) that you and I are constrained by and accountable to our local conditions.
Rachmaninoff in Sydney โ a report from one of my students.
I wrote up My Correct Views on Theological Diversity โ the title being a nod-and-wink in the direction of Leszek Koลakowski.
You probably have not heard of Mildred Pope, but I bet you’ll be glad to learn about her.
When Iโm writing my back would very much prefer that I do it while reclining in a comfy chair, but this photo shows why that wouldnโt really work.
