Assistant Village Idiot

There is no such thing as “structural sin” because “structures” do not have immortal souls.  “Structural” is an old word for what up-to-dat...

A regular reader sent the WSJ op-ed "No Guardrails" from 10/3/2023 via March 1993 via 1968 protests. It called the 1993 editorial...

A line I read years ago, but no longer remember who said it. "She was the sort of girl you could bring home to Mother.  That is, if you...

 From the National Association of Scholars, The Case for Colonialism. Editor’s Note (Updated June 6, 2021): NAS member Bruce Gilley’s articl...

I have been reading a good deal online about autism, especially high-functioning, and especially women, and scratching down some things for ...

We get given a mixed picture of carnies in the arts.  Wait a minute, my information is 40 years old.  I have no idea how carnies are portray...

 When someone asks you what your pronouns are.

We think God should give it to us because it is so small and unimportant, such a little thing.  C'mon God, it's not going to disrupt...

His book review winners for the year are up.

 When Graber and Wenfrow's The Dawn of Everything came out about a year and a half ago I described it in some detail , with no real cri...

 This took me a minute

My post from 2006 on the subject has over 12,000 hits and is the second-most visited on the site.  It is not my wisdom about the subject, bu...

 Charles Wesley.  1. Dead, dead the child I loved so well  Transported to the the world above I need no more my heart concel I never dared ...

 Show all Dunkins near me. (Works better clicked)

CS Lewis talks about George MacDonald "baptising his imagination," making it open to the person of Jesus.  For me that was Tolkien...

I have heard better instrumentalists, but this may be the smoothest vocals yet. Not everyone likes "smooth" in their bluegrass voc...

Always judge someone by how they treat people who can’t do anything for them. As rules for life go, it’s pretty much unbeatable . Ed West ...

I have noticed for years that as the cost of weddings has gone up the amount of marital commitment in the culture has gone down.  Now there ...

I didn't much like the Beach Boys early on - great music and harmonies, if a little happy-clappy, but the lyrics seemed shallow to a ser...

My conversations on the Nostalgia Destruction Tour have included some interesting observations I have not made aloud. Some people are very q...