Driving south on 280 near Lawrence Expressway I just noticed that a new building and parking structure/garage are being built. As I had been driving along that stretch of the freeway rather regularly for the past several months, I did not see them before; it was almost as if they had appeared overnight. A bit disconcerting how much escapes one's attention, though my eyes are rightly directed to the freeway and surrounding traffic, and not to what lie next to it?

Xiao Jimmy called me while I was at work and told me he wanted to tell me something. It was either good news or bad news...

Soompi: Interview With “We Got Married Global Edition” Star Fujii Mina

Kendall or Calhoun?

The Constitution vs. Calhoun: Why Harry Jaffa Is Still Wrong About Willmoore Kendall by Daniel McCarthy

"Kendall was, in American constitutional terms, a “nationalist” rather than an advocate of states’ rights."

PaleoMag: AMA Redefines Obesity

John Médaille on Capitalism

An Imaginary Conservatism: Realists v. Romanticists

Even though James Spader is in The Black List, the commercial was not that impressive, and I couldn't take him seriously as a master criminal. (Spader was good in Boston Legal; probably deserved his awards for his acting in that show.) Criminal who wants to deal only with a young female FBI agent. Sound familiar? Overused trope yet?

The Duties of a Free Citizen by Kevin Gutzman

The third contribution to ISI’s symposium, Conservatism: What’s Wrong with It and How Can We Make It Right?

Peter Haworth comments.

"He was touching down here [feigning grabbing his balls] and humping, doing this." - One 4th grader telling about what another 4th grader did while my back was turned. Where do they learn this?

Celebrity Deathmatch: Bryan Cranston or Gary Oldman?

Remember the MTV animated shorts? (I was thinking of Gary Oldman's various roles as villains, especially after I saw parts of Lawless again.)

I didn't know Bryan Cranston played the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, until someone mentioned it in FB, in connection with the final episodes of Breaking Bad.

Access Hollywood
CBS News

Must have picked up a cold from one of the small virus carriers.

The latest Foyle's War series has the new, shiney "period look" that you also see in the new Upstairs, Downstairs and The Midwife. I don't think it's solely the effect of HDTV.

Watching Valhalla Rising - the graphic violence does repel; I saw another of Nicolas Winding Refn's movies recently, Drive - I thought the depiction of the effects of violence in that movie too was a negative, and the story didn't need it. I don't think the showing of graphic violence does anything to create a reaction of aversion to it in those who do not already have the character or natural inclination/sensitivity to be repelled. Can it convert someone who enjoys watching graphic violence in movies to hating its use in movies, to becoming "squeamish"?

Given the anti-Christian animus of some of the characters, has Valhalla Rising become a cult favorite among the neopagan alternative right?

No North American Distributor Yet

TIFF’13: ‘Cold Eyes’ is perceptive action thriller

Paul Gottfried's Perspective on the Conservative Scene

Claes Ryn, Allan Bloom, Leo Strauss, And Me by Paul Gottfried

Even more importantly, says Ryn, Catholics recognize in Straussians figures who share their own “alienation” about living in a predominantly Protestant country. As Canadian philosophy professor Grant Havers documents in a forthcoming book about the studied avoidance by Straussian interpreters of America’s Protestant heritage, Straussians provide a narrative about the American founding that make ethnic Catholics feel secure about their Americanness. 

According to the Straussians, America was founded on secular, materialist and democratic principles, but in no way on Protestant ones. Thus, if the Straussians try to de-Christianize and de-ethnicize America, they also conveniently cover up the Protestant aspects of a specifically American tradition.

Catholic Straussians (of whom there are many in Conservatism, Inc.) feel safe living in a “propositional nation” and “global democracy” in which they don’t feel threatened by the real American Protestant (and/or Northern European) American past, extending back to the colonial period. It’s more convenient to jettison such associations for the vision of a constantly changing hybrid society that is held together by universal, egalitarian propositions.

See also: How Russell Kirk (And The Right) Went Wrong

HuffPo: Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy

Ken Myers on Community

Mere Comments: Communicable Dis-ease - full article

Met in my dream the "old men" of Chronicles, which was followed by a raid or mobilization of some sort on a small town...

Kevin Gutzman on Constitution Day

Unconstitutional Constitution Day: A Federal Holiday that James Madison Would Reject

Part 2 of Peter Haworth's Piece on West Coast Straussianism

West Coast Straussians, Harry Jaffa, Bad Originalism, and Teleocratic Fantasies, Part 2

"There is nothing new under the sun."

Something from 2010: The Law as a Weapon in Marital Disputes: Evidence from the Late Medieval Court of Chancery, 1424–1529

Dumb and Dumber

Shakespeare’s Language and the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Andrew Kern

Mother Jones Article on the BOTMC

Gettin' Rowdy and Real at Berkeley's Old Time Music Convention by Maddie Oatman

Alt Right: The Managerial Revolution by James Burnham by Matt Forney

Plus:
What You Need to Know about Paul Gottfried by Seth Bartee

USA Today: Video debut: Sarah Jarosz's 'Build Me Up From Bones'

Downton Abbey... Yay or Nay?

Series 4 trailer.