Scripturient

Shock Top beers

2014-08-10 2021-05-15 Food & Drink / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

Just tried two American beers from St. Louis: a Belgian White and Raspberry White, both in cans. The former has coriander, lime and lemon peel, the latter has, of course, raspberry flavour. I personally prefer the former, Susan the latter. I haven’t tried either with the slice of lime I put in most beers, but will next time. The lime will help cut the sweetness of the raspberry. I am impressed: they are delightful, fruity and refreshing beers for a Sunday afternoon in the fading sun, on our new front deck. Got them from the LCBO today, new things to ……… click below for more ↓

Montaigne’s library

I read yesterday that Montaigne had a library of 1,000 books, of which he was very proud. It was his retreat – the room he went to where he wanted to get away from things and write. Machiavelli, too, had a study with a small collection of books he treasured, albeit a much smaller selection. Both, however, treasured the classic Greek and Roman authors, the wisdom of the ages. One thousand books is a remarkable collection, given that printing was barely a century old, and books were still quite expensive. He would have treasured every volume and known each title ……… click below for more ↓

Finding my muse in Montaigne

2014-08-09 2014-08-09 Blog & Blogging / Books & Reviews / Culture / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

Muse: a source of inspiration; especially a guiding genius; the imaginary force thought to provide inspiration to poets, writers, artists, etc. A muse, for modern writers, is that indefinable force that drives us to write. It’s part imagination, part inspiration. I suspect there’s a heady brew of psychology and biology at work, too. Why write instead of, say, paint? Or sculpt? Or compose? I don’t know. It just is, for me, the thing my muse – however you define that – compels me to pursue. It compels others, though in different ways, and many in much more creative and innovative ……… click below for more ↓

Fools

2014-08-09 2021-05-15 Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Even though for all his life, A fool attends upon a wise man, He no more knows wisdom Than a spoon knows the flavours of soup. The Dhammapada, Chapter 5, verse 64

Another fad bites the dust

2014-08-08 2021-05-15 Bread & Baking / Food & DrinkOne Comment

The gluten-free fad took another major hit to its already weakened credibility this week when researchers who had first diagnosed “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” found out that, oops, they were wrong. It doesn’t exist. A story in Business Insider tells the tale. In one of the best examples of science working, a researcher who provided key evidence of (non-celiac disease) gluten sensitivity recently published follow-up papers that show the opposite…It seems to be a “nocebo” effect — the self-diagnosed gluten sensitive patients expected to feel worse on the study diets, so they did. They were also likely more attentive to their ……… click below for more ↓

Two new books

2014-08-08 2021-05-15 Books & Reviews / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Yesterday I received two new books from Amazon: The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne translated by Donald Frame, and How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell. Montaigne lived and wrote in the 16th century, shortly after Machiavelli, and like the latter developed a new way of writing and seeing things. He might be described as the West’s first blogger in that he wrote about himself in a way that presaged today’s online bloggers. I look forward to reading his works and Bakewell’s biography and critique. I know little ……… click below for more ↓

New post on the Municipal Machiavelli

2014-08-05 2021-05-15 Books & Reviews / Municipal Politics / PoliticsLeave a comment

I’ve written a short post that I trust will serve as an introduction to a longer piece I plan to write. It’s on the letter of Quintus Tullius Cicero to his brother on how to win an election (written circa 64 BCE). You can read it here: ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/quintus-ciceros-letter-on-elections/ I will be working on a more in-depth analysis of Cicero’s letter and a comparison with Machiavelli’s works and other political pieces in the near future.

Neolithic site dig uncovers sophisticated structures

2014-08-01 2014-08-01 Critical Thinking / Culture / England and Britain / History & Biography / Media Issues / Places & Geography / Science & TechnologyLeave a comment

A Neolithic site in the Orkney Islands shows our ancestors had sophisticated building skills more than 5,000 years ago. According to a story in The Scotsman, A groundbreaking excavation of a 5,000-year-old temple complex in Orkney has uncovered evidence to suggest that prehistoric people were a great deal more sophisticated than previously thought. The archaeological dig at the Ness of Brodgar, which is still in its early stages, has already thrown up discoveries that archaeologists say will force us to re-evaluate our understanding of how our ancestors lived. The picture that has emerged so far points to a complex and ……… click below for more ↓

Ruthful, funct and doleless

2014-07-30 2014-07-30 Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Style & usage / Words & etymologyLeave a comment

Why can’t someone be clueful, only clueless? Hapful, not simply hapless? Aweless instead of just awful? Ruthful not merely ruthless? Doleless, not just doleful? Gormful, not just gormless? We can be thoughtful or thoughtless, careful or careless, mindful and mindless. Why not ruthful and gormful? Why not the qualities of ruthiness, gormliness and doleliness? Can we be kempt or just unkempt? Couth or just uncouth? Gruntled or just disgruntled? Shevelled or just dishevelled?* Maculate or just immaculate? Domitable, or just indomitable? Ruly or just unruly? Can we come ravelled instead of just unravelled? Can we member a corpse instead of just ……… click below for more ↓

Six years ago…

2014-07-26 2014-07-28 Blog & Blogging / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

I received a notification last week from WordPress noting that I registered with them six years ago. Six years with their blogging platform… happy anniversary to me… what, no flowers? Party favours? Is this my modern life: email reminders from software companies? That got me thinking about dates and anniversaries. And in trying to recall them all, keep the dates straight. Pull the weave apart and follow the threads backwards. Why are we humans fixated with numbers that are easily divisible by five and ten? Is there any more relevance, more importance to an anniversary of 5, 10 or 20 years than ……… click below for more ↓

Gangs of Feathered T-Rex

2014-07-25 2014-07-25 Animals & BIology / Evolution & Paleontology / Science & TechnologyLeave a comment

Imagine, if you will, an early morning scene in the late Cretaceous. The air is quiet as the day warms. At the edge of a large forest a plain of ferns ripples in the light breeze (grass would not evolve for another 20 or so million years). Under the canopy of the ancient beeches and maples, there is movement. Nothing fast, just a hint. A flash of mottled colour against the background. A glint of light off an eye. A soft snuffling. A feather falls silently to the forest floor. Among the nearby ferns, a pack of ceratopsians grazes, adults watching the ……… click below for more ↓

Those Crazy Creationists

2014-07-23 2014-07-23 Conspiracy Theories / Creationism / Critical Thinking / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

I know, I know, it’s the proverbial fish in a barrel when you critique creationists. They are just so easy to mock. But how can you help yourself when someone like Ken Ham opens his mouth in public? The media just love to pounce all over him. He must take his lessons in PR from Ann Coulter. And like with Ann, the controversy probably helps sell his books. (And, from what I see, selling books is really what Ken is all about. But that’s not the point of this post.)* Ken’s latest foray into looniness – a territory he has already explored well ……… click below for more ↓

Chemtrails: yet more conspiracy claptrap

2014-07-21 2014-07-21 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Pseudoscience & Quackery5 Comments

A bit of simple math was used to debunk the chemtrail nonsense conspiracy recently. Over at the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry’s website there’s a great piece explaining why there simply aren’t enough pilots, planes or chemicals for the chemtrail silliness to be true: A typical crop duster might use seven ounces of agent diluted in seven gallons of water to cover one acre of land. Chemtrail “people dusters” would use a similar concentration to cover the entire United States, just to be safe. For 2.38 billion acres of land, the pilots would then need—for just one week of spraying—120 billion ……… click below for more ↓