At least I can cross another one off my "must read" list...

Today I read the beginning of Bourdieu's Outline of a Theory of Practice and skimmed the rest. I was disappointed with it. The gist (of the beginning, at least) seems to be that social scientists are tempted to use overly general, deterministic models that leave out much of the human element in interpersonal relations (strategy, style, etc.), and that consequently, these models aren't much good. Presumably a closer reading of the book would add nuance to that story, but since the social scientists I'm acquainted with don't use deterministic models (and the idea of doing so seems odd and naïve), it left me vaguely annoyed. Too bad. I think that whenever I'm expecting a lot from a book and it doesn't deliver, I should try to articulate what, precisely, it was that I was looking forward to, because that would tell me something worthwhile to think about.

I wouldn't mind if tomorrow were at least 10° cooler than today, because 97° is too much. They say it will be.