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Benjamin Espen

The Long View: Kingdom Coming

If you need a reminder that political swings are not the end of the world, in any figurative or literal sense, then this book, and the less histrionic American Theocracy should help vaccinate you against future outbreaks. Only twelve years ago, otherwise sane and responsible people were warning that theocracy

The Long View 2006-07-19: The Road to Perdition

I recently read that Tenochtitlán, unlike almost all other pre-modern cities, was a population source instead of a population sink. This was due to a combination of the productivitiy of the floating farms, and a lack of the nasty diseases typical in cultures that have been farming for longer periods

The Long View 2006-07-16: Bulletin Board; World War III; Progressive Realism; Spelling Reform Summer

The bulletin board that John Reilly set up in 2006 did end up being a major feature of his website. It featured lively discussion for a number of years. It was on that board that I first conceived of archiving and restoring John's writings after his death, since

The Long View 2006-07-13: Crime, Terror, The Demon Republic, and Perfume

The juxtaposition of Michael Oakeshott with Juggalos is interesting. I'm not certain it was intentional, but I'm also not certain it was unintentional. I'm not familiar with Oakeshott's work, but I am sorry to admit that I am familiar with Insane Clown

The Long View 2006-07-10: Rolling Fast; Dumb Reform; Smart Reform

This fasting protest seems pretty tame now. Rolling Fast; Dumb Reform; Smart Reform Mark Steyn is a cruel man, as we see from his account of the last word in celebrity war protesting: ...Personally, if celebrities have to ''put their bodies on the line for peace,''

The Magician's Secret Book Review

The Magician's Secret by Stuart Hyman (author) and Joe Bluhm (illustrator) Tundra Books (April 3, 2018) $17.99 hardcover; 40 pages ISBN 978-1770498945 I received this book for free from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Program. This is a very sweet book, about the adventures a little boy

The Long View 2006-07-08: Propulsion; Cars; U2; PATH Flood

A lot of popular science fiction relies on some version of faster-than-light travel. It isn't impossible to tell a good story that doesn't include it, but it is definitely harder. Unfortunately, at this point it looks like all such stories are in much the same place