As many of you know, my oldest son, Satchel, had a rare form of brain cancer, which — thank god — he’s had successfully treated. He’s fine, though he has to take a regimen of medicine every day to replace pituitary function, having lost his pituitary gland during the surgery. What many of you don’t know is this: at around the time my son was recovering and was in and

3 yrs ago, writing in The Federalist, I noted how the left’s embrace — and political deployment — of identity politics had given rise to, and a perverse justification for (in its own hive mind), white supremacy, a blunt rejection of the collective call by the left and academia to demonize whiteness. I pored over & unpacked the “alt-right manifesto” of an influential “thought leader” of the movement and found

At the risk of bringing up a sore subject… From NPR, “How ‘The Hidden Brain’ Does The Thinking For Us”: After making a silly mistake, it’s not uncommon for a person to say, “Oops — I was on autopilot.” In his new book, The Hidden Brain, science writer Shankar Vedantam explains how there’s actually a lot of truth to that. Our brains have two modes, he tells NPR’s Steve Inkseep

(Note: This post was originally published back in May 2006) ****** To this point, I’ve been kind to Thersites, whose flabby attempts at engaging my intentionalist arguments have been both lazy and, quite honestly, embarrassing. In fact, I’ve treated those who’ve come over from his site seriously, and attempted to answer their questions, because it seems at least they are interested in having a substantive discussion on these issues. Which,

Blah blah right-wing Rumsfeld warmonger chickenhawk evil Bushies Wolwowitz and his neocon cabal for oiloiloiloiloiloil blah blah ignorant stupid bloodthirsty morons, the real axis of evil on a ranch in Crawford and blah blah blah no WMD he lied, Bushitler lied, people died died died tie-dyed peace peace peace down with the Zionists! peace peace Kyoto! they hate us they hate us they hate us and what can we do

It’s time to start talking language again, so I’ll begin by harkening back to the early days. This excerpt comes from a 2006 post in response to “Thersites,” in which the plump community college new historicist decided he’d tackle what he referred to as the “standard simplification” of intentionalism. My response should refresh some basic insights into our relationship with signs and signifiers. ***** update:  Thersites replies, first by [contemporaneously]

He’s done a lot of what he’s said he’d do, and while I still don’t personally like the guy all that much, I can’t complain about the job he’s done. Given the alternative, which seems to be socialism drenched in the stink of identity politics and pseudo-science, I don’t think there’s a free person alive wishing to remain free who can, in good conscience, vote for the emotionalist fascists the

Tanner grew up watching Satch wrestle. And it’s starting to show. These videos were taken from the last tournament he competed in a couple weekends back in Brush, Colorado. The first two matches were against opponents trackwrestling.com had ranked higher than Tanner. See how that turned out…

One is never enough. — Unless it’s an Amy Schumer comedy special. In which case, one is way too fucking many.

I see dead people. — or maybe they’ve just gotten old while I’ve been away, and learned to keep really, really still. Either way. This has been a test.