Living requires something worth dying for
If you have ever ventured into the strange realms of internet echo chambers known as TikTok, the author offers her condolences for […]
What stories of dignified mice can tell us about human dignity
Few creatures are as repulsive to urban sophisticates as the lowly mouse. Vectors of disease that rummage through our pantries and leave […]
Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck” and teaching children the value of rational fear
An interesting contrast exists between Beatrix Potter’s charming little story of predation, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck, published in 1908, and Michael […]
The interminable rerun or the ultimate experience
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always […]
Practically Speaking: What to do when you’re angry
Women’s anger has become an influential commodity in the post-modern world. Measures of women’s happiness are declining decade over decade, and “liberated” […]
Marmee: the fictional patron saint of mothers with a temper
Many mothers attest to never having suffered a temper until having children. Something about the biological agitation and emotional intensity of motherhood […]
The loss of all pleasure: growing older without meaning
P.D. James was eerily correct in choosing 2021 as the year in the beginning of her unsettling novel The Children of Men. […]
What Children of Men shows us about ourselves
This humble blog is not the first to comment on the notable differences between P.D. James’s novel The Children of Men and […]
What GoodFellas and Frozen have in common—and what they don’t
On the surface, there is little commonality between GoodFellas and Frozen. One is a violent, gritty chronicle of Mafia life, while the […]
The truth doesn’t depend on you
The art of courteously disagreeing is becoming sorely neglected. The most minor misunderstanding or disagreement can result in explosive verbal spats. Although […]