* “The Unsafe Feminist: Rebecca West and the ‘Bitter Rapture’ of Truth.” A good intro: “In an era when indulgent university administrators and professors treat students like spoiled children, one longs for intellectuals who address their audience as adults.”

* Law schools are bad for democracy. And many other things.

* The Corruption of the Republican Party.

* “How Hermann Hesse became a hero of the Sixties counterculture.” I read this as comedy.

* Columbus is doing really well, but if it doesn’t develop a rail system it will choke on its own traffic—like Nashville.

* The U.S. Appetite for Sugar Has Skyrocketed, with bad consequences.

* The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini.

* Techies miss what Facebook actually is. See also me, “Is there an actual Facebook crisis, or media narrative about Facebook crisis?”

* 2018 Was the Year of the Scooter? In other news, did you know the electric Vespa is supposed to be published in 2019?

* How meritocracy and populism reinforce each other’s faults.

* “Number of babies born in Japan is the lowest since records began.” Pretty distressing, if you think about it.

* Middle school in 2008 vs 2018.

* “Direct Instruction: A Half Century of Research Shows Superior Results.” Yet it may implicitly lower the status of teachers, so guess how much uptake of this method has occurred?

* The gap between the very good and the truly great.

* True Things About Me by Kay Davies, a book you should read.