One More
Just one more sad, sad quote from Nothing to Envy: Dr. Kim staggered up the riverbank. Her legs were numb, encased in frozen trousers. She made her way through the woods until the first light of dawn illuminated the outskirts of a small village. She didn’t want to sit down and rest—she feared succumbing to hypothermia—but she knew she didn’t have the strength to go much farther. She would have to take a chance on the kindness of the local residents. Dr. Kim looked down a dirt road that led to...
The Great Vituperator
A sadly funny excerpt from Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea: Mi-ran’s mother later told her that four of her father’s buddies in the mines, fellow South Koreans, had been executed for minor infractions, their bodies dumped in mass graves. Being a member of the hostile class meant you would never get the benefit of the doubt. A sarcastic inflection when referring to Kim Il-sung or a nostalgic remark about South Korea could get you in serious trouble. It was especially taboo to...
New E-mail Subscription Option
You can now subscribe to my blog via e-mail and get each post in its entirety instead of only an excerpt. If that interests you, click here. My old e-mail subscription option has been turned off.
Chronological Snobbery
I don’t want to be, but I think I’ve been stuck in what C.S. Lewis calls “chronological snobbery.” I pick up an old book—most recently, Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics—and I can’t really read it without my fingers crossed. I can never shake the suspicion that the science of whatever it is I’m reading about has progressed so far by now that I am wasting my time on old arguments. I do not feel this way when reading Jonathan Edwards—or C.S. Lewis, for that matter. And I know...
International Microsoft OneNote Appreciation Month is This Month, from April 2 to April 13th!
Limerick: There once was a big dissertation Filled with fact after asseveration. But the skull of the writer Was getting much tighter: No outlets for his cogitation! Ode: Oh, OneNote, perfect system of filing! Your skills are oh so beguiling! I end all my study sessions smiling! All of my thoughts and arguments you are stockpiling! Song: OneNote, OneNote, the only program for me! Microsoft hit a home run—yes, finally! You search all my tittles and jots! You save all my screenshots! You OCR...