I’ve had some wireless issues for quite some time now. There are dead spots in the house – a central wall has metal ducts and a gas fireplace, which are beside the laundry room with its metal-enclosed washer and dryer. About 5-6m of metal interfere with the wireless signal. The
Continue readingAuthor: Ian Chadwick
Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: Re-reading Heraclitus
I started to re-read Haxton’s 2001 translation of Heraclitus last night. I came across references to him when reading introductory material on Montaigne recently and I wanted to flesh out my knowledge and understanding. Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived during the transformational Axial Age, roughly contemporary with other philosophers like
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Soviet Machiavelli
I’ve written a new piece for my Municipal Machiavelli blog about the late (1982) Mikhail Suslov, the “Soviet Machiavelli.” You can read it here: www.ianchadwick.com/machiavelli/the-soviet-machiavelli/ Suslov was the power behind the Soviet throne; in fact behind several thrones. From joining the Party in 1921, he rose to the top echelon. He
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Montaigne and Machiavelli
Michel de Montaigne mentioned Machiavelli only twice in his Essays, both in Book Two. This tells us he was aware of the latter, but not whether he was intimately familiar with his works. Nor does it tell us which of Machiavelli’s writings he is referring to (by this date, all
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Chasing storms on Saturn
There’s a beautiful video about the Cassini mission and its images of the storms on Saturn at the New York Times website. It’s amazing to see what images and information science has given us about a planet 886 billion miles (1.4 billion kms) away and its odd collection of rings and 60 moons.
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Montaigne’s words on anger
“There is no passion that so shakes the clarity of our judgment as anger,” Montaigne wrote in Book II of his Essays (Chapter 31). “It is a passion that takes pleasure in itself and flatters itself.” That strikes me a very Buddhist statement, a comment lifted from the Dhammapada, although
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Dave Clark Five
We’re sitting on the front deck listening to British Sixties Radio, an internet radio station we like and listen to a lot, and they just played the Dave Clark Five doing Glad All Over. That song came out on the UK charts in January, 1964, reaching North America a bit
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Shock Top beers
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: 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,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Finding my muse in Montaigne
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Fools
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Another fad bites the dust
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,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Two new books
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: My Grandfathers’ War
One hundred years ago World War I began, a war that started as a clash in a tiny, almost unknown Balkan state and blossomed into a violent, gruesome war that spread across Europe, the Middle East and reached into Africa and Asia. Within a few years, tens of millions would
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: New post on the Municipal Machiavelli
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: What’s in a (Popular) Name?
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” Juliet, in Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) A recent article in The Atlantic about how our names impact our lives got me to thinking about how and why we name our
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Neolithic site dig uncovers sophisticated structures
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Ruthful, funct and doleless
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Six years ago…
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
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Gangs of Feathered T-Rex
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
Continue reading