What’s Been Going on

Once people accepted the idea of an app, you could get them to pay for dozens of them—if not more. You could get people to send thousands of dollars to strangers in other countries to…

Today’s One-Liner (#4)

bi you shi yan. –Mengzi, “Always have a task” Wang understood Mengzi’s teaching of bi you shi yan as “always have a task.” One must maintain a constant vigil over one’s thoughts and ideas and…

Reading Jewish

In 1994, I purchased Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon, and would peruse it from time to time, and pick a book off of Bloom’s four lists.    He got me back to Shakespeare  and sparked…

Today’s One-Liner (#3)

May I be a light for those in need of light.  –Shantideva, The Bodhicaryavatara: A Guide to the Buddhist Path of Awakening, translated by Kate Crosby & Andrew Skilton

Today’s One-Liner (#2)

Do not waste time on nonessentials.  –Miyamoto Musashi, Nine Articles, in John Stevens, Budo Secrets:  Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters

Thus Spoke a Chinese Dissident

There is no revolution like the Communist revolution. You simply burn all the books, kill all of the thinking people and use the poor proletariat to create a very simple benchmark to gauge social change….

The Chutzpah!

 [Thomas] Sowell’s habit of challenging liberal orthodoxies that are held dear by most of his fellow intellectuals  and the mainstream media has led to a good deal of criticism over the decades. This book explores…

Picking and Choosing

“Nothing Jewish is alien to me.”  [Gerschom] Scholem liked to say that. We argued about it many times. I objected that a great deal that is Jewish is alien to me (and to him, too)….