Cyberspace, Meatspace, Meat-Eating

Four of the most interesting libertarianish types I know have blogged less this year, while a fifth admits he mostly blogs photos of his plants lately (and with DC Comics’ climactic “Final Crisis” storyline mostly over, reading about comics seems kind of pointless, too).  The Onion also seemed a bit perfunctory the first few months of the year.  I blame the dispiriting economy for this lull — and don’t think I regard my own circa-March entries as my best work, either (Helen, by contrast, will make up for the lull by writing regularly for American Spectator this summer).

I get nervous whenever Virginia Postrel goes too long without blogging, frankly (I’m not the only one, I’m sure).  I knew she was scheduled to end her year-long chemo treatments around late February, when her VPostrel.com blog posts stopped for a long time, but I see she’s done an Atlantic piece since then, posted items on her DeepGlamour blog, and is probably busily finishing writing her Glamour book as well, so things are OK on that front.

Luckily, even when cyberspace doesn’t offer enough material to foster quality procrastination (if, for instance, one is trying to avoid finishing up one’s taxes, the same weekend one has an anti-government letter on NYTimes.com), one can always resort to hearing ideas debated in meatspace.  And thanks to a generous Gerry Ohrstrom, Helen and I got to see linguist and evolutionary psychology popularizer Steven Pinker live in conversation with Tom Wolfe yesterday, a great excuse for not finishing the taxes just yet.

Pinker would also sympathize with the pro-animal position in our oft-mentioned upcoming upcoming May 6 Debate at Lolita Bar.  Wolfe, I assume, is as carnivorous as his namesake — and one of my biggest influences.