Latest musings, analyses, and general madness

Reminders and Ruminations on Politics

Election years, war years, years of challenge, decay, and doubt — in other words, all years — condition the soil for the germination and growth of the soul’s two most attractive invasive plants, despair and hope. To fall under the spell of the former is to forget to live; to fall under the spell of the latter is to forget to die. A...

The Ides of March, Russian Style

As we are now on the eve of Russia’s latest fake election — which will, amusingly enough, be held on the Ides of March — I would like to recommend a short opinion piece written by journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, whose mentor Boris Nemtsov was murdered by Vladimir Putin in 2015, and who is himself currently in prison on a charge of treason, which...

Random Reflections: Hearing Voices

I occasionally post some thoughts here in Limbo under the title, “Random Reflections.” I am not in general an aficionado of randomness, and by “random,” when I apply the word to my written thoughts, I never mean chance or arbitrary. I mean something more like reflections that have no obvious place within ordinary discourse, or that seem to come from somewhere just beyond...

U.S. Primaries, State of the Union, and the Absent Intellect

A cursory round-up of a cursed reality, namely the current and unabated eruption of Mount St. What-the-hell-happened. Super Tuesday is a weird tradition in American politics wherein two giant corporations calling themselves “the two-party system,” along with all the major news organizations that work for them, join forces to victimize the American populace with a sinister game of “What time is it, Mr....

Things I Almost Know

On conservation of energy.— In a millennium, nothing I own today will exist in a recognizable way. In ten millennia, nothing anyone owns today will so exist. In a hundred millennia, today’s existence itself, which is to say our world, will no longer be present in any remotely identifiable form. In a thousand millennia, we will all be a wisp of a rumor;...

Establishmentarianism and Trumpism

Donald Trump is the Republican Party establishment. This is true not merely in the sense that there must always, of necessity, be an established leading force within any nation or faction. It is true in the very sense most despised by the self-described establishment-haters who comprise the Trump cult, namely that Trump, their god, is absolutely embedded within, and inseparable from, the old...

Dignity Be Damned

An article in The Hill outlines the negotiations taking place between Donald Trump’s campaign team and Mitch McConnell’s representatives, seeking to “lay the groundwork” for McConnell to officially endorse Trump’s presidential bid for the third time — Dr. Frankenstein debating over whether to support the bucket of innervated nuts and bolts that escaped from his own lunatic laboratory. The article quotes various unnamed...

Notes On A Life In Limbo

I would rather live in exile and see things as they really are, with the clarity of distance and detachment, than end up dead in a Siberian prison camp because I thought I could fight the tyranny and “free my people” from the inside. Which approach is nobler? There is undeniably something spectacular in the latter choice. But does not true nobility eschew...

Limbo More Than Ever

I have been absent from Limbo for longer than usual, due to the death of my father. Needless to say, a lot of noteworthy events have occurred in the world of public significance during my absence, but — also needless to say — nothing really substantial has changed. A brief roundup of what I have observed, unsurprisingly, upon my return to the real...

Independent Judgment In The Age of Mob Rule

A few days ago, Armond White at National Review published his retrospective assessment of Rob Reiner’s cult favorite comedy, The Princess Bride. His basic take on the movie, which as he notes with disapproval is often affectionately cited by conservatives (i.e., NR writers and readers), is that it lacks both artistic and moral coherence, and owes its enduring popularity to the fact that...