It was only six years ago — but it seems so much longer than that — that I wrote a book called Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters). This book emerged from a series of blog posts I was composing (under my then-pseudonym Levi Asher) called … Read the rest
I saw the Trump victory coming. I hoped with all my heart it wouldn’t happen, but I’ve known since the day he was nominated that my beloved country had fallen prey to a sickness that would not be easily cured.
I spent election night in New York City, hoping to … Read the rest
A favorite novelist of mine, Sam Savage, is entering hospice. According to the Numero Cinq article revealing the sad news of his medical condition, he has suffered for decades with a blood disease called “alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency”. It never harmed his ability to write.
Savage was born in 1940 … Read the rest
I’m going to let other people remember David Bowie for his cultural importance — his brave and liberating embrace of sexual ambiguity, his clever shape-shifting, his sophistication as an actor, his sharp sense of pop art’s relationship to rock and roll.
He was truly great in all of these ways. … Read the rest
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for? — Robert Browning
My first Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign has been an eye-opener. We aimed for $10,000 and got 57% of the way by the end of the declared 60 day interval, which is pretty good but … Read the rest
David Shields is a puckish literary critic and Litkicks favorite whose epic 2010 book Reality Hunger proposed that creative writers may as well skip the pretense of fiction and simply write the truth, since that’s what readers value most in either fiction or non-fiction anyway. His latest book examines a … Read the rest
Paris and Beirut were brutally attacked by ISIL terrorists on Friday, and people are talking about how France and the world should respond. French President Francois Hollande has declared that “this is an act of war”, which is a disturbing echo to anybody who remembers how eagerly US President George … Read the rest
How can pacifists possibly defeat ISIL, the cruel Islamic State government that has taken violence to a horrifying new level in Iraq and Syria? This is the question we’ve been asked most urgently since we launched the fundraising drive for Pacifism21 three weeks ago.
We’re glad people are asking this … Read the rest
… Read the restEarlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a
