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Benjamin Espen

The Cockroach: Disgusting Critters by Elise Gravel Book Review

The Cockroach: Disgusting Critters by Elise Gravel [Amazon link] is a cutesy science fact book done in a picture book style. It is brief, thankfully. I prefer the kind of science books I give my kids to have a little more substance to them. This book is directed at early

Linkfest 2021-08-06: Twilight of Democracy

The Long View: The Twilight of Democracy John J. Reilly’s 1997 review of Patrick E. Kennon’s The Twilight of Democracy is a fascinating read twenty four years later. Some version of Kennon’s point of view is still hugely important in how the United States is run, and

The Long View 2008-09-20: Parastatals

This is another spectacular essay from John J. Reilly. Here, he uses the term of art “parastatal enterprise” to describe the parts of the economy that are widely seen, by opponents and proponents alike, as market enterprises, but which are in fact extensions of the state and its policies. There

The Long View 2008-09-07: Some Notes on the American Political Major-Party Conventions of 2008

John J. Reilly gives us some solid grounding here in the foundations of cyclical theories of history, and also provides his assessment of why neither American party has been able to create a durable governing order akin to the New Deal. This essay is highly recommended. Some Notes on the

Duel Visions by Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen Book Review

Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen team up to create a collection of strange and horrifying short stories, Duel Visions. [Amazon link] The two authors alternate contributions to this slim volume of the weird and macabre. As a short story collection, I’ll do each story individually, then give my impressions

The Long View 2008-09-01: Louisiana With Snow

John J. Reilly here paints an extremely [some might say overly] sympathetic portrait of Sarah Palin. Since the McCain-Palin ticket lost, such portrayals are likely to lose out compared to parodies like the 2012 movie, Iron Sky. [Amazon link] This is a good example of how you might do the

The Long View 2008-08-24: A Week before Labor Day

I find this satirical blog post by John J. Reilly pretty apt for the mood of our times. If you want a little context of what he was getting at, try this longer story “After the Eighth Day” for how the universal apocalyptic module in the human mind can transform