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And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

February 18, 2012 By Michael Sigman Leave a Comment

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. – Albert Einstein I’m no Buddhist. (Then again, neither was the Buddha.) But you don’t have to meditate to see that in satisfying our innate desire to make lists, [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Agitation, Albert Einstein, Aristotle, Buddhism, Counterpoint, dalai lama, Eightfold Path, Equanimity, Good Fortune, Indifference, Innate Desire, List Of Lists, Noble Truths, Paralysis, Piano Bench, Prejudices, Social Environment, Virtual Insight, Window Sill, Woody Allen

The Cult of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits

February 7, 2012 By Jim Cullen Leave a Comment

Jim Cullen, Review of Kent Greenfield’s “The Cult of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits” (Yale 2011) Some readers have compared this book to the work of Malcolm Gladwell. It’s not hard to see why; the core strategy of Gladwell mega-bestsellers such as The Tipping Point — arrestingly simple assertion illustrated with anecdotal [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Baptist Minister, Boston College Law, Boston College Law School, Conservative Evangelicals, Contest Of Wills, Core Strategy, David Souter, Elementary School Teacher, Intellectual Rigor, jim cullen, Justice David Souter, Kent Greenfield, Life Experiences, Person Voice, Principle Goal, Social Activists, Social Science Courses, supreme court justice, Supreme Court Justice David, Supreme Court Justice David Souter

Reflections on Literature: Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers

February 2, 2012 By Walter G. Moss Leave a Comment

Have you ever picked up a novel, almost at random, and enjoyed a great read from it? I recently did with Marge Piercy’s 770-page book set in WWII, Gone to Soldiers (1987). It reinforced a point—Literature matters!—I had made almost a year ago in an essay in Hollywood Progressive: “Why Literature Matters.” But Piercy’s novel [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Daughter Jenny, Ethnic Group, Existence, Experiences, Female Companionship, Forethought, Graduate School, hollywood, Ipads, Literature Matters, Marge Piercy, novel, Novels, Paced Age, Political Persuasion, Progressive, Reflections, Visions, Wife Nancy, Wwii

Julian Barnes’s “The Sense of an Ending”

January 30, 2012 By Jim Cullen Leave a Comment

This novella tells an extraordinary story about a very ordinary man. The Sense of an Ending won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for any number of literary reasons. But one of its most distinctive attributes is its power as a meditation on the way memory is a form of personal historiography. Our master narratives of ourselves change [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Bequest, Chums, Cobwebs, Crime Fiction, Dan Kavanagh, Deft Sense, Detective Novel, Distinctive Attributes, Early Adulthood, Historiography, jim cullen, Julian Barnes, Man Booker Prize, Master Narratives, Middle Aged Man, Novella, Ordinary Man, Schoolboy, Tony Webster, Vagueness

The Psychology of Gratitude

January 30, 2012 By Jane Baek Leave a Comment

When life throws you a curveball, sometimes it takes a bit more intention to be grateful, but it’s worth it! Having an attitude of gratitude literally shifts you closer to your loving and shifts the vibration of the state of energy you are in helping you to manifest the positive dreams in your life. In [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Attentiveness, Attitude Of Gratitude, Curveball, Dreams In Your Life, Experimental Comparison, Experimental Conditions, Goal Attainment, Gratitude, Gratitude Journals, Heartfelt Connection, Personal Empowerment, Personal Goal, Personal Goals, Personality Psychology, Positive Dreams, Psychology Of Emotion, Psychology Of Religion, Robert Emmons, Social Comparison, Uc Davis, Young Adults

Roger Ebert: Life Itself

January 24, 2012 By Jim Cullen Leave a Comment

Jim Cullen: Review of Roger Ebert’s “Life Itself: A Memoir” At one point in this memoir, longtime film critic Roger Ebert describes taking an undergraduate class at University of Illinois on the fiction of Willa Cather and being arrested by Cather’s prose, which he describes “as clear as running water.” Yes, I said aloud: that [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Ann Landers, Artlessness, Attendee, Chicago Land, Childhood Friend, Ebert Review, Effervescent, Eppie Lederer, Film Critic Roger, Film Critic Roger Ebert, gene siskel, Inimitable Voice, jim cullen, Maureen Dowd, Parish Priest, Pauline Kael, Roger Ebert, Royko, Running Water, Scribes, Terkel, Undergraduate Class, Willa Cather

Heroes

January 8, 2012 By Gary Corseri Leave a Comment

Do not call them “heroes” if they have done your killing for you. Say that they have done your bidding; say they were your “soldiers.” Say that you have trained them well: They are the oiled machinations of war, performing as expected. Refrain from saying “professionals,” and the usual nonsense about “surgical strikes.” They were [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Doctors And Nurses, Fire Incidents, Friendly Fire, Gary Corseri, Global Research, Holy Grail, Japanese Universities, Machinations, New York Times, Presidential Library, Prose And Poems, Sadist, Sonofabitch, Surgical Strikes, Village Voice, What Is Honor, What Is Truth, White Linens

The Behavior Gap

January 6, 2012 By Manisha Thakor Leave a Comment

Last week my hubby and I had dinner with our dear friends Harry and Olivia. Towards the end of the meal Harry asked a very interesting question. “When you pick up a menu, what side do you look at first — the right or the left?” Harry and I immediately said “the right” while my [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Behavioral Patterns, Capital Management, Cocktail Napkin, Dear Friends, Dinner Conversation, Dumb Things, Financial Behavior, Gap, Hubby, Manisha, Money Sex, New York Times, Npr, Opposites, Personal Finance Book, Pithy Points, Polite Company, Quite Some Time, Sharpie, Spreadsheets

New Threats to Freedom

January 6, 2012 By admin Leave a Comment

New Threats to Freedom: From Banning Ice Cream Trucks in Brooklyn to Abandoning Democracy Around the World New Threats to Freedom, edited and introduced by HarperCollins’s executive editor Adam Bellow, is an ambitious anthology. Its premise: The twentieth century faced unique threats to freedom, such as communism and fascism, and the 21st century equally confronts [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: Adam Bellow, Campus Speech, Christopher Hitchens, Classical Liberal, Democracy Promotion, Executive Editor, First Glance, Grab Bag, Individualism, Jessica Gavora, Juxtaposition, Legal Scholar, Libertarians, Lifestyle Choice, Mangu, Mark Helprin, Renowned Authors, Richard A Epstein, Speech Codes, Threats To Freedom

Hitchens Debunked Facile Maxims to the End

December 19, 2011 By Michael Sigman 7 Comments

I may be the only person on the planet who never shared a smoke or a drink with the brilliant author/bon vivant Christopher Hitchens, who died Thursday at age 62 of pneumonia brought on by esophageal cancer. But his work suggests that if his strident atheism is wrong and there is an afterlife after all, he might [...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: American Conservative, Benedict Xvi, Bon Vivant, Brilliant Author, Bush Cheney, Christopher Hitchens, Erudition, Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher, Henry Kissinger, John Kerry, Maxims, Painful Experience, Polemics, Pope Benedict, Pope Benedict Xvi, Rupert Murdoch, Sentimentalism, Vanity Fair, Weekly Standard

Popular This Month

As President Obama returns to Hollywood in search of campaign dough from the “Hollywood progressives,” it is a moment to praise Matt Damon who speaks with clarity and conviction about his disappointment with President Obama. Let me state my conclusion at the beginning. For those who seek my advice (and some have) I say it’s [...]

For the past several years, Mike Price has graced these pages with some of the finest and certainly funniest writing we have had the honor to publish. Just now, we received notice from his dear friends Wayne and Marsha Williams that Mike has passed away. Here’s Wayne’s letter: Friends, I have very sad news to [...]

A few nights ago, we saw a very revealing movie. “No Strings Attached” is a silly romantic comedy. Plenty of skin was shown, but that was not the most revealing feature. I found the portrayal of gay people much more interesting. The film was targeted at young heterosexual filmgoers. Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman (shown [...]

Reflections on Literature: Marge Piercy’s Gone to Soldiers

Julian Barnes’s “The Sense of an Ending”

Roger Ebert: Life Itself

Heroes

The Behavior Gap

New Threats to Freedom

Hitchens Debunked Facile Maxims to the End

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