PicoBlog

Dear Classical Wisdom Readers,  History is replete with examples of those getting what they deserve... as well as those who do not. One politician, through lies and propaganda, goes down throughout history as one of the greatest rulers of all time... while another has his head literally handed to him on a plate.  So... what gives? Doesn’t really seem fair, does it? It makes us ask if Karma exists at all?

Over the last few weeks I’ve been posting a short series on Jeffrey Nealon’s critique of new materialism. This felt timely for me, because at present we’re seeing a significant turn towards new materialism (NM) in the healthcare literature, but so far there has been little critique of the reasons for that turn or its implications. Nealon’s argument is powerful in large part because it sets NM against itself: where its advocates argue that it provides new tools for the analysis of asymmetrical power, Nealon suggests it is playing into the hands of neoliberal biopolitics.

The other day, a friend pointed me to Arthur C. Brooks’s new essay in The Atlantic, “The One Big Thing You Can Do for Your Kids.” Brooks is a Harvard social scientist, an Atlantic columnist, a former president of the American Enterprise Institute, and the author of 13 books, including one he co-wrote with Oprah Winfrey. Brooks makes a lot of points in his essay that I agree with. Like that “the parenting technique that truly matters is warmth and affection” and that “you will make a lot of mistakes, but mostly they won’t matter.

This question came in on a recent AMA, from a new male reader. Based upon his follow-up comments, I believe that he is sincere and interested in learning, if horribly naive and partially swept up in misogynist ideology. I have just a sincere question. Despite the dialect (if i speak far right wing you would hate me too), what you say makes lots of sense to me. So I have a question please.

In 2018, Clayton Kershaw’s fastball velocity declined, down to 90-91 MPH. Since then, it’s fluctuated a little bit, but has essentially remained in the same band. In that time, he’s been almost as dominant as his early days, striking out 9.5/9 IP, with a 27% K% and a 22.1% K-BB%, for an ERA of 3.10 and a FIP of 3.23. Cristian Javier last season struck out 33.2% of the batters he faced, powered by a fastball that averaged “only” 93.

I had no idea my dog was chewing so many holes in her blankets. When I first adopted Junee on Juneteenth, I’d given her an older, knitted blanket that my grandmother made. I thought it’d be a nice little memory — my puppy would be attached to my grandmother’s handiwork, similar to Linus from The Peanuts. Instead, my dog treated that knit blanket like Charlie Brown did while trying to create a ghost costume.

In the late 1970s, my big brother adopted a stray dog—a massive St. Bernard. Back in those days, white people sometimes dumped their unwanted mutts on our reservation. I guess they thought that we Indians, being so romantically and stereotypically associated with flora and fauna, would take care of those abandoned dogs. And Indians did adopt some of those pooches. Other dogs disappeared. Some turned feral and formed dangerous packs.

I’ve been telling people that I got the idea for my book DOGLAND* when I was sitting at home one night, watching a dog show, and wondered: Are those dogs happy? *DOGLAND is the working title for the book. Not sure what the real title will be. That story is true. But I found something not long ago that made me realize I was thinking about dogs even earlier than that.

For my Turkish friends, few things bring back childhood memories like the aroma of dolmas cooking away in the kitchen. Yourtill, grandmother’s – dolmas are some of the most anticipated flavours of the Turkish kitchen. And no wonder. It’s an incredibly comforting food, even for those who didn’t grow up with it. To most, dolma is basically any stuffed vegetable that is vaguely Mediterranean or Middle Eastern in flavour. In Turkey, they’re a bit more specific.