Just a few.  I've been busy, sorry about not dumping stuff on you guys!  I suppose you should be happy not to be dumped on, however.

An interview with Ariel Sabar about his new book Veritas, on the whole “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” scandal.  

Did changing monsoon patterns do in the Indus valley civilization of Mohenjo-Daro?  Maybe.  

“Intimacy is great, but democracy requires something more demanding: a willingness to tolerate, and even cooperate with, people with whom we share a purpose, but not much else.”  Good political advice from Francesca Polletta, the author of Freedom is an Endless Meeting.

A good, thick, review of Daniel Mendelson’s new book, which I have the privilege of hearing delivered orally as lectures, here last year at UVA.  Well, I should say the review is more thick than good; it spends too much of its time in a fairly pedestrian recounting of stuff in the book; and the summary of Auerbach that suggests the Old Testament is “pessimistic” while the Greeks are “optimistic,” manages to be simultaneously both egregious and stupid.  But the book is going to be terrific.

Hmm.  Take away students’ laptops and phones, and they learn better.  Wow—go figure.  

La Jetée and 12 Monkeys and the pandemic.  

The evidence is clear: we could have stopped the virus by a good regime of quarantining and contact tracing back in February.

Well, hopefully we'll have a chance to stop the virus this November.  Wash your hands, everybody.  Wear a mask.  Be safe.