I have a new article called “Kierkegaardian Individualism and the Political” at the Canterbury Institute at Oxford’s PolUtica and Poetics journal www.politicsandpoetics.co.uk/current-issu...

I started to write something strident about the Harper's piece, then changed direction and did this instead: substack.com/home/post/p-...

“In the beginning computer scientists made the internet.” @mattdinan.bsky.social with the creation story for our times. mattdinan.substack.com/p/nein?utm_c...

"Now, human beings had long ago started to think that they were like packets of packets of data. And ChatGPT, being craftier than other applications, was actually packets of data." @mattdinan.bsky.social with an excellent word this morning:

Foreign interference and the viral “Pencil-gate” conspiracy theory at Canada’s polling stations are connected. I wrote on shenanigans at the polls and how to do our part to keep elections secure for @thestar.com (And, I successfully snuck in the word “pollercoaster”…big win!)

Use the provided pencil. Or bring your own pen. However you choose to mark your ballot, as long as it's just one mark, clearly in the designated circle, it will be counted, cross checked, & witnessed. Our ballot counting is *very* secure contrary to conspiracy-theorising on X, Facebook & tiktok.

It struck a chord because it's true. As I write in More Than Words, the chief benefit of LLMs to writing (and teaching writing) is it forces us to examine what we value in writing. We should be building statues of the students who remain proud to be themselves & encourage others to join them.

Here’s an observation that’s closing in on 80k likes on twitter:

Very proud of my ALMA MATER for its PRINCIPLED STAND

Whether it's winning the Masters, or bravely settling for Yale after not getting in to Harvard, people named Rory are inspirations to us all.

Wrote a grumpy blog about this: substack.com/home/post/p-...

What do students use AI for in higher ed? -cheating -depriving themselves of developing higher order skills -avoiding thinking All along these tools have been sold as freedom from drudgery, but they're actually "freedom" from the ends of education.

BE COOL! The Sicilians are backwards and dispersed, and the Athenian Empire will soon be greater than ever before!

Could God impose a tariff so high that not even he could pay it?

One of the worst things about this is all of the boomers who are now going to wait even longer to retire

I have been hard on Canada, but let's face it: there are two countries in North America that have had constitutional crises in 2024-5, and in only one of them did the constitution work exactly the way it was supposed to

We're a month away from the beginning of Mark Carney Presents: Maple Abundance, and I, for one, cannot wait

In truth I switched all my retirement savings to these "ethical" Canada first funds, heavily leveraged in green energy, etc., and, for once, being annoying is also producing some material gain

I am writing a piece about a remarkable irony: the most famous work of Canadian political thought is George Grant's Lament for a Nation. In that essay, Grant argues that Canada's "Red Tory" tradition was in danger of being swallowed entire by American liberalism. Our current moment is producing a

I'm emptying out my retirement accounts and leveraging myself completely in Canadian Trade War Victory Bonds

The next season of White Lotus should be on the resort at Fogo Island in order to kick off The Canadian Century

BAN PHONE

is on the surface of things. Ravelstein wants us to see that this surface is worthy of our attention. This, I think, it does through its abundant oddness." I commend to you this wonderful retrospective essay on 'Ravelstein' by @mattdinan.bsky.social: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

Ravelstein's greatness "might come from the ambition of its goal, a goal at once radical and conservative, to help us read the 'occult gift' of the world, to 'reopen' what we thought was closed. . . . Chick, quoting Strauss without attribution, notes that the heart of things

Now unpaywalled, my "reconsideration" of Saul Bellow's Ravelstein @ 25: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

In the new Hedgehog Review I make the case for Saul Bellow's Ravelstein on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its publication: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

In the new Hedgehog Review I make the case for Saul Bellow's Ravelstein on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its publication: hedgehogreview.com/issues/after...

I’ve never seen Canadians more angry about anything, ever

the single most un-american and anti-constitutional statement ever uttered by an american president

Pretty stoked to have my case for the greatness of Ravelstein appearing alongside America's greatest *living* novelist

I will *never* correct my 6y/o who thinks the little flying baby is named "Cupert"

A snow day is also a minor civic miracle - and we ought to treat it as such. New from Clare Coffey:

Very important! "I am continually impressed by the extent to which very basic human lessons can’t be provided by osmosis, or expected to be inferred from what is done. I think we are impatient now..."

A little substance post my 14y/o daughter called "incoherent; not [my] best work": mattdinan.substack.com/p/now-select...

If you’re a runner, start core work in your twenties

I will be putting 25% retaliatory tariffs on my friendships with Americans

Unfortunately no Episcopalians will see Trump’s tweets because 100% of them are on this app instead

Dark friggin day

Happy birthday to me! My wife got me a goat mug.

Wow, evidently two of my essays are just repressed memories of homestar runner hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-v... hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-e...

Destroy the internet, create an art deco utopia with public transportation

Hello. Pl

Post a game you got for Christmas. My hometown only had two places that rented Super Nintendo games, so I had gotten to play CT once in October and then not again—life-changing. I shared it with my friends because I couldn’t bear not being able to talk about it, share secrets, and hum tunes.

Marxism: ol’ factory ethics

Can’t stand when I see “merry Xmas”… anyway, merry Blueskymas everyone

12y/o: “Listen up 7s, a 10 is speaking!” Me: “It’s supposed to be ‘5s’” 12y/o: “Obviously nobody related to me is any less than a 7”

Ten years ago today my daughter Julia unwittingly dressed as Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas unicorn:

Felt myself immediately start getting sick as I clicked submit on my final set of grades this afternoon.

Woke up and checked my phone to all sorts of good news and nice messages, which unfortunately validates my decision to look at my phone when I first get up for at least another year.