Friedrich --

I remember liking the hotwired early books of Richard Price -- "The Wanderers," "Ladies' Man," etc. But, though I've enjoyed some of the movies based on Price's screenplays, I've lost track of his work as a novelist. Aaron Haspel writes a convincing appreciation of Price's recent books here.

Steve Sailer has written a couple of articles about golf and race that are as satisfying and substantial as one of those New Yorker magazine reporting epics of yore -- but without the excess length and all the fussy writin'. Part one is here. Part two is here.

A lot of wonderfully strange music and bizarre instruments can be listened to here.

Nat Henthoff wrestles with some of the more bizarre consequences of affirmative-action law here.

You'll probably enjoy exploring these two sites devoted to your namesake Friedrich Hayek, here and here. I don't think you've ever told me, by the way, when you first ran across Hayek's work. How did it strike you? And how did you discover it? It wasn't as though the profs back at our Lousy Ivy College were eager to tell us about Hayek.

The good mystery novelist and screenwriter Roger Simon recently started a blog here, and he's a looser and more engaging blogger than most professional writers are. (Most of them can't seem to understand that blogging is as much about holding a conversation and being a party host as it is about traditional writing.) Here's a good short posting on why movie stars tend to be so antiwar.

A study at the University of Rochester (here) has found that meditation seems to make people happier.

John Ray (here) points out that while the world's been fixated on the war in Iraq, millions of Africans have been dying in a war in the Congo. Millions! And he asks, Why aren't the do-gooders carrying on at least as much about this as they have been about the Iraq war? He points to this article about the mess, here.

I enjoyed many of the games at this site here.

Best,

Michael

In reference to the question, "why aren't the do-gooders carrying on" about the war in the Congo may I add this: I believe that effectively helping people needs to be done from a position of strength. If I bend over to pull up a friend who has stumbled (wise old saying), but then fall down in the process, what good is that? We both need help. The question then appears in my mind, "How much suffering can be effectively allayed at one time?" I dunno.

I do see the incredible worldwide unrest about what is being done to free the Iraqis. I figure that if people have a hard time with THIS, clearly knowing of Saddam's brutality, then geez, how much "do-gooding" will the world accept at one time? Let's take care of Iraq, allow the outcry to settle down, and then maybe try to help someone else in a large way.

This self proclaimed do-gooder, as are most Americans I've met, has wondered since I was a child why we don't go trotting around the world continually helping everybody. No I don't picket in the town square with this message of "Why not?". However, I do think it's a natural human impulse: when you know people are hurting and you live in a strong country, sure, why not go on nonstop altuistic crusades? But I'm not a child anymore. I figure that effective solutions don't come easy and should be approached slowly, with a bit of caution. But just the same, they should be approached.

Hey, why couldn't I find John Ray's entry on this? I did like his reference to Samizdata who called France, Germany and Russia the axis of feeble.

Posted by: laurel on April 15, 2003 08:21 AM

How's your meditation coming along?

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on April 15, 2003 12:08 PM






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