Being a Liberal is an act of will

No, facts really do not explain themselves. And there is no such thing as a "self-evident" system of ethics, there just isn't. It is an existential, passionate choice to choose to believe in christian-humanist values, to believe in reason and logic and individual freedom and responsibility. In fair weather you can follow painlessly, not think about anything. But this is a wild, amoral world, fair weather, mild warm winds are brutally temporary. 

The last of Europe's Stone Age races: Finland and Ireland

Life takes us to unpredictable places - it took me to studying ancient Irish history in dusty libraries and archives of Helsinki. And then to Dublin 15 (god) and then to Phibsboro, for a pretty brief time after all, but for enough time to get an actual sense of the place besides all the books and archives. There is a real connection there, the extremes of Europe: two small nations grimly fighting for their existence with eccentric histories and cultures.

These thoughts inspired coming fresh from a Lankum gig in Helsinki, there so is a connection there...

In praise of Kevin Drum

 If there is an antithesis to this feverish, irrational, fastly regressing era - it is this man:

Kevin Drum

Rational, measured, judicious, empirical, data based. Something we as a species seem never able to achieve: animal passions, animal reflexes of terror and hatred and unreason for us.