Archive for January 2021
The death-wish naiveté of the digimaniac kid
by David Benjamin “A car doesn’t understand why it’s driving anywhere.” — Bart Selman, computer science professor, Cornell University MADISON, Wis. — My mom drove a ’61 Fairlane until the day it more or less exploded in the left lane of Interstate 90 just north of Wisconsin Dells. I was driving, both hands on the…
Read MoreOn writing: A few random rules
by David Benjamin “The good writer seems to be writing about himself (but never is) but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself, and all things.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson MADISON, Wis. — No writer who feels secure is likely to be very good at what he or…
Read MoreThe Idiosyncratic Words of the Year
by David Benjamin “As our Word of the Year process started and this data was opened up, it quickly became apparent that 2020 is not a year that could neatly be accommodated in one single ‘word of the year’…” — Oxford English Dictionary MADISON, Wis. — Really? The Oxford English Dictionary chickened out on Word…
Read MoreA vast eggshell of iron and glass
by David Benjamin “I shall always identify Washington with that huge… towering bulge of pure white… [that] vast eggshell, built of iron and glass… a beauty and genuine success.” — Walt Whitman MADISON, Wis. — This week, on the feast of the Epiphany, we learned perhaps why Walt Whitman described the Capitol Dome as an…
Read MoreTrusting our way to a truce
by David Benjamin “When trust was in the room, whatever room that was — the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room — good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.” — Former Secretary of State George P.…
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