Thomas Merton: Seeing the Salvation of God

For several months I have been feeling diffuse, totally out of control of my life. Tension and anxiety can rule during such periods, and it’s no fun. I sleep with the television on to block out the runaway train of my ruminations. Sometimes it works; sometimes it makes things worse. I had been seeking some [...]

Must-Read Books of 2010

“Do you have a soulmate?” the shrink asked Will Hunting.  A soulmate, someone who challenges you.  ”Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O’Connor, Kant, Pope, Locke…” replied the precious brat. “That’s great; they’re all dead.” “Not to me they’re not.” This is one of my favorite scenes from Good Will Hunting. Both characters have a point.  The written [...]

A review of Thomas Woods’ “Meltdown”

One of the marks of great writing is that, no matter how abstract a subject might be, the author’s text remains lucid and understandable.  It is not crowded with irrelevant information, unduly antiquated language, or a dense texture.  H.L. Mencken, Joseph Ratzinger, and Murray Rothbard all have this gift.  So does Tom Woods, whose recent [...]

Henry Hazlitt and the unseen

One of my Christmas presents was Henry Hazlitt’s very excellent Economics in One Lesson.  The essential point of this work is the importance of understanding the broader consequences of economic decisions, and not just the immediate effects. For instance, certain spread-the-work policies do give jobs to more people, but without an actual increase in production [...]

Of plumbers, philosophers, and would-be “DeFamers”

There has been some discussion on the Mises Yahoo! Group regarding an attack that a Brad DeLong — a man who does not register on my radar — directed towards a book written by Ludwig von Mises, the dean of the Austrian school of economics. The target of the attack was The Theory of Money [...]

Ten Must Read Books for Your Christmas List

Here is a short list of selected books which I’ve read in the past year which I think are indispensable to anyone’s bookshelf. I have listed them in order of what would seem like a good progression from one to the next for the reader. 1. Richard Weaver: Ideas Have Consequences With every turn of [...]

The dynamic tension between Albert Jay Nock and Murray Rothbard

In his book Egalitarianism as a Revolt against Nature, Murray Rothbard confronts the cynicism of Albert Jay Nock and asserts that such outlooks on life lead inevitably to conservatism. To the Nock enthusiast this can be a jolting statement to contend with. At first one might not want to believe what Rothbard is saying, but [...]

The people you meet and the books you read

In 1988, then-coach Lou Holtz of the Notre Dame football team wrote in his chronicles of that championship year that the two things which will make a difference between where you are now and where you are five years from now are the people you meet and the books you read. The year 2008 is [...]

Richard M. Weaver

I seem to have begun a trend of reading books about language.  Right now I’m delving into H.L. Mencken’s The American Language, Fourth Edition.  In addition, however, while browsing around the library website I happened upon Richard M. Weaver’s Language is Sermonic, and I can’t wait to get started on it.  I’ve placed a hold, [...]