cognitive dissident

The third issue of Lapham's Quarterly, "Book of Nature," has the expected environmentalist voices (Emerson and Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, Rachel Carson and Edward Abbey, and--of course--Al Gore) along with a few surprises: Pliny the Younger's description of his famous uncle's death in Pompeii (pp. 36-7, Letter LXV to Tacitus, online here), Jack London's reportage from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (pp. 47-8; the full article is online here), passages from Frankenstein and The Island of Dr. Moreau, and extracts from Lucretius and Newton. It is in the breadth of its selections that Lapham's Quarterly truly shines; I know of no comparable magazine.

This section of Montaigne's "On Cannibals" (p. 52, online here) is my Quote of the Day:

"...every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason, than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things."