what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Surprise and Delight

I notice that I’m not reading other blogs as often as I once did. Of course I’ve been busy writing a lot – and also dealing with the pile of books which have arrived over the last couple of months but, somehow, the blogs which used to delight me have palled a bit. There are almost 20 such blogs on my blogroll – as well other, more cultural links – where I can access the thoughts of people such as Craig Murray, Ann Pettifor, Yanis Varoufakis, Matt Taylor, for example, but rarely do. The more intense Boffy ("theory of the crisis" part 103 for god’s sake!!), John Ward and Eva Balogh in Hungarian Spectrum no longer invite me in (how do they keep it up?) – nor do the more academic and technocratic sites – such as Fistful of Euros or Stumbling and Mumbling 

A few still retain their interest – the RSA blogs which come to me almost daily from a variety of people offering insights into aspects of the projects in which they are engaged are always fresh; and European Tribune is also a team effort bringing different angles.

Too many blogs, it seems to me, are ploughing the same furrow over and over again. 
We need more surprise and delight….In the past week, I;ve come across three such delightful blogs – the first, More than Wine, has a passion also for paintings and….motor bikes (with the latter taking up too much space for my liking)
Jost a Mon is a guy with great maverick tastes –  whether for buildings or mores….
But my favourite at the moment is Rio Wang whose raison d’etre completely escapes me but seems to have central European/Spanish/jewish provenance. But just great, eclectic stuff  wherever you go – whether it’s sketches from the  Petrograd revolution; photos of Maramuresphotographs of an early 20th century german photographer or of even more harrowing scenes from Warsaw
One of the posts called Brave Old World does offer a list if you scroll down the page.....

The delights are the painting blogs on my blogroll - and my friend Keith's photography and text about his amazing mountain walks. His snaps capture remote Scottish lochs and superb perspectives from the mountain tops ..... 

3 comments:

  1. Ron,

    You'll be glad to hear that the series of posts on Marx and Engels Theories of Crisis is nearing an end. Soon to re-appear, however, as an e-book! The project of summarising Capital continues, of course, but I hope soon also to be posting comments and analysis on Africa as I promised a couple of years ago, as well as having time for some short blog posts, as and when time from completing my novel for publication ends.

    I might also combine that with posting some of the short stories I've written, which might provide you with something a bit different to regain your interest.

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    Replies
    1. I deserved that! And thanks for being so decent and restrained in your comment! The word "rant" was simply not appropriate for your amazing posts - but I think you know what I mean.....
      I'm at fault for lacking patience,,...and I look forward to your new stuff....
      Ronald

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  2. It was intended as a riposte. Actually, I'll be glad to have finished the series on Crisis myself, because it has delayed me doing other stuff. But, given recent controversy over it, I felt the need to do some extensive excavation.

    There is a point, however, that your response touches on, which is perhaps we do need to have something of a fightback against the 140 character world, of instant opinions and superficiality that breeds short attention spans. I suspect that a lot of the heat in debates on the Internet and amongst the Left is fuelled by snap responses, to inadequately stated ideas and concepts.

    Its no wonder people like Piketty can write a best selling book in which he criticises Marx, but then admits he's never actually read him!

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