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New Medieval Literature Imprint


I am a big fan of the Loeb Classical Library with their distinctive red and green volumes (red for Latin works and green for Greek). Now they HUP is putting out a new imprint focusing on the works of medieval Europe.

Books like the Latin (and most will probably be in Latin or Old English, one suspects) bible translated by Saint Jerome, the Benedictine Rule, plus far more earthy works, will be published under the imprint of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library.

Even better, the physical presence of Dumbarton Oaks is right here in Washington, DC.

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Merry Christmas From Washington, DC


(there isn’t actually any snow in DC this year, by the way – for which I am most pleased)

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More People Who Miss Borders


A paean to the Borders in Palo Alto.

I picked up my better half at a shopping center in the DC suburbs. Coming in, I noticed that it listed Borders as a tenant on the sign. Which made me realize that that space is almost certainly empty now.

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So Glad That Politics & Prose Is Getting Some Love


Salon put up a post about DC’s own Politics & Prose.

Among other things, the bookstore was asked to create a list of recommended books that fit the arbitrary theme of ‘American Spring.’

Well, at least their list looked pretty good.

Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges

The Change I Believe In by Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life by Thomas Geoghegan

The Enigma of Capital And the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey

I can definitely vouch for Ill Fares the Land as being an amazing, though heartbreaking book.

 

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Better Things For Tourists To Do Than Stand Outside The White House


Take a tour of DC Writers’ Homes. There are more than you might think.

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Occupy & The Social Sciences


I’m came across this after doing some googling following attending a teach in at the tent city on the National Mall the other week.

An anthropology professor from Montgomery College spoke both about her own experiences as a someone self identifying as queer and as a former New York City punk and historical/anthropological perspectives on movements for social change. Cool stuff. You shoulda been there.

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What A Truly God Awful Liberal Straw Man


I used to work across the street from the American Enterprise Institute. It made me unclean and I took two showers a day to try and wash the scent of war mongering and crony capitalism from my skin. But you never get truly clean after that. Not ever.

And Bill Kristol, who is not only a terribly columnist, but also a fellow at the Institute, used to get his coffee at the same place as me.

You probably remember Bill Kristol as being the son of respected thinker and essayist, Irving Kristol (Bill will never be remembered as either). You might also remember Bill Kristol for being a big ol’ sycophant and for generally being wrong about everything.

But all this is leading up to offering you a glimpse of this marvelously wrought bit of straw man ridiculousness.

Because you know who the real enemy of science is? California liberals.

They’re always in the street, demanding that evolution not be taught in schools and ignoring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence supporting both the existence of global climate change and humanity being a driving factor in its acceleration.

Or am I getting them confused with someone else?

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Finished ‘A Crown Of Swords’


I finally finished book seven of the late Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, A Crown of Swords, on the bus this morning.

This one wasn’t that bad. It might even be one of the better, but it’s still mostly sheer bloody mindedness that’s driving me to slog through this. I think I’m half way through the series.

Jordan still (can I say ‘still?’ he’s dead, after all) writes about capital R ‘Romance’ with a most irritating and unrealistic seriousness. Sort of like a teenage virgin, D&D enthusiast taking refuge in old tropes to compensate for his inability to find a real girl who will let him touch her boob (over the shirt, of course). Thankfully, he at least lacks the chauvinism of Piers Anthony (who also liked his romances to be ‘Romances’ with a capital R).

And I get to trade in the book for some store credit at Capitol Hill Books. Since I have exactly zero intention of ever wading my way through this again, I don’t need to keep them in my library. Better to trade ’em until I have enough credit to get some classic pulp from the basement.

Of course, I’m also taking the bus home again this evening and I don’t have anything to read…

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Parks


In this list of top cities for various kinds of parks and public swimming pools, I’m pleased that DC tends to do well. Somewhat surprisingly, Orlando also figures highly.

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DC Minus The Metro


Every wonder what Washington, DC would be like if the Metro had never been built?

Me neither. But I’m glad some one asked the question anyway.

Here’s their answer.