Well, any activity that prevents people from playing, watching, or coaching soccer has to be regarded on the whole as a tremendous boon to humanity. If these are the by-products of a long commute, then I say, MAKE THE COMMUTES EVEN LONGER!!

Commuting makes people unhappy, or so many studies have shown. Recently, the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and the economist Alan Krueger asked nine hundred working women in Texas to rate their daily activities, according to how much they enjoyed them. Commuting came in last. (Sex came in first.) The source of the unhappiness is not so much the commute itself as what it deprives you of. When you are commuting by car, you are not hanging out with the kids, sleeping with your spouse (or anyone else), playing soccer, watching soccer, coaching soccer, arguing about politics, praying in a church, or drinking in a bar. In short, you are not spending time with other people. The two hours or more of leisure time granted by the introduction, in the early twentieth century, of the eight-hour workday are now passed in solitude. You have cup holders for company.

Seven pages long.

STILL LIFE A YEAR ON [1.]

A year ago I posted a poem called Still Life. It was about my mother at 92, infirm & in a nursing home. Contemplating her tenacity – or rather the prevalence of a strong heart over an enfeebled consciousness – I reflected briefly on my own presentiments of great age.

Posts of this quality make me want to keep blogging.

Caleb Crain’s post about the specific form of empathy elicited by novel-reading, torture, and human rights: this post is in part about a new book of literary criticism that argues the rise of the novel helped create the idea that opther people’s inner lives are as real as our own and thus other people are entitled to freedom from abuse. It was posted before the shootings but it goes right to the heart of the discussion that’s been going on about liberal arts education and sociopathic behaviour.

Crain is one of the best bloggers going, I think. He makes me both envious and grateful.

Pharyngula: We aim to misbehave – the timidity of atheists in the public sphere compared with suffragettes. I don’t always agree with PZ on the need for public atheism, but it’s an interesting look at debunking ahistorical arguments nonetheless.

The post, April 21 ” A New Dark Age”. by Len Hart

2) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20073

Shakespeare and the Uses of Power by Spephen Greenblatt

And this one.

Anti-ob at For Battle!: Mardi Gras Mishap