Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2025

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late satirist and blogger Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio links to them.  Have a look, and see what you think. 

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2024

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late satirist and blogger Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio links to them.  Have a look, and see what you think. 

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2023

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late satirist and blogger Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  Have a look, and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2022

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late satirist and blogger Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  Have a look, and see what you think.

I posted only once this year, and I didn't want that one post to represent me at the Roundup.  Luckily Batocchio allowed me to nominate another post from 2021, which I'd considered using last year.

I can't explain why I didn't post more this year.  I think it was a combination of frustration, and mild (though I don't think clinical) depression at the state of American politics and discourse.  I kept coming across topics that I thought somebody ought to address, but I couldn't sustain the energy to do it.  Plus, I admit, I let myself be distracted on social media, though that never really stopped me before.  Whatever: I'll try to be more productive in 2023.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2021

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2020

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2019

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2018

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2017

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Best of 2016

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Vagabond Scholar's Best of 2015

Once again, Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

Another Year Older: My Top Ten Posts of 2014

Well, well, well: it's 2015 already.  Where did the last few weeks go?

Batocchio has posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup at Vagabond Scholar, in which he allows bloggers to select what we consider our best posts of the year.  Mine's in there somewhere.

Following my own habit, I'm posting here my top ten posts of the past year, rated in terms of page views.  By a nice coincidence, they're also the posts that garnered more than 200 page views apiece.  While I posted a lot less last year, and no post was viewed more than 300 times, it also looks as though I had more 100-plus posts than usual.  (Almost half of all posts.)  Anyway, let the countdown begin.

10. On "Confrontation".  A brief look at a new collection of articles by Noam Chomsky.

9. "Why Hell?": The Collected Wisdom of Jean-Luc Picard.  Another discussion of scientific authority, in the wake of the successful landing of a space probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November.

8. Therefore Do the Virgins Love Thee.  Reflections on Paul Collins' Sixpence House: Life in a Town of Books.

7. Sermon Style.  On writers and empathy, based on an entry in May Sarton's journal Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year.

6. Pay No Attention to the Racist Under the Bedsheet.  In which I wonder why so many people want to be racist, but don't want to be labeled racist.

5. What Illegal Looks Like.  Written to explain why I wear a "I Just Look Illegal" t-shirt.

4. Reach Out and Inappropriately Touch Someone.  How Democrats react to criticism of their party is very similar to the way Republicans react to criticism of theirs: with ad hominems rather than logic or evidence.

3. Off the Old Bat.  Is marriage "conservative," "liberal," or "radical"?

2. Girls Will Be Boys and Boys Will Be Girls.  I wrote several posts on gender, sex, and sexuality near the end of 2013 and early in 2014; this one got the most attention.  But I want to point also to this one, this one, this one, this one, and (especially) this one.

1. Our Childlike, Emotional Leaders.  I've often written about elitism (and its pseudo-scientific sibling "meritocracy") and why it doesn't work.  David F. Schmitz's Thank God They're On Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships gave me more ammunition.  Schmitz showed that the business and political elites who run America and our possessions, claiming that the masses are too emotional and childlike for self-government, are themselves easily gulled by strongmen (or women, exemplified by right-wingers' adulation of Margaret Thatcher) in uniform.

Thank Cthulhu, 2014 is over.  We'll see how 2015 proceeds.

Vagabond Scholar's Best of 2013

On Friday the blogger Batocchio posted his annual Jon Swift Memorial Roundup for 2013, carrying on the good work of the late Al Weisel, alias Jon Swift.  Bloggers choose their own favorite post of the year, and Batocchio posts them.  I'm in there, of course, but so are a good many other writers you might not have heard of.  Take a look and see what you think.

I'll be putting together my own retrospective of this year at This Is So Gay, which I'll post in a few days.  Meanwhile, Happy New Year to everyone!

Forward Into the Past!

Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar has carried on the late Jon Swift's custom of an annual roundup of the best blog posts of the year, chosen by the bloggers. I'm in there, of course, but there's plenty of material worth your attention; I've already read several good ones. I'm going to put together my own retrospective, as I did last year, but for now I wanted to pass this along.

And this might be as good a time as any to mention that my 1500th post went up earlier this week.  That's 1500 in five and a half years; I enjoy feeling productive.

The End of the Year As We Know It

Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar has carried on the late Jon Swift's custom of an annual roundup of the best blog posts of the year, chosen by the bloggers. I'm in there, of course, but there's plenty of material worth your attention; I've already read several good ones. I will probably put together my own retrospective, as I did last year, but for now I wanted to pass this along.