Reading

Black White Human Like Me

How can that be? he asked. This tells what it is like to be black and you're white!

The Omega Point

The day will come, they aver, when we will hit upon the Magic Algorithm that will allow computers to think and act with the depth of human beings.

The Truth Behind Iraq

It's because of our secret alliance with aliens that we're in Iraq and we gotta be there to keep the Stargate from opening.

The Eyes of the Nation Should Be On Texas

Those who scream most for war don't serve?

Pig Fish

This is why we yell at people who drive Hummers. They are the pig fish in the mixed tank who will cause us all to perish.

Coercion as a Way of Life

An article by Marilynne Robinson entitled "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion" caught my eye as especially relevant to some of my life experience of late.

The Big Why

I am glad that the New Agers didn't invade the conversation about The Art of Happiness last night.

The "For the Sake of Argument" Argument

Straussian discourse must continually engage us in argument about things already proved so that the interests of the chosen elite will not be threatened.

The Use and Abuse of Scott Speicher

The campaign to free Scott Speicher strikes me as magical thinking in the spirit of the WMDs that repeated American searches have failed to find.

Don Bushote?

George W. Bush's antics seem comic when we read about them in blogs but they are grimmer than satire when we remember that this is no fictional character but a fool with a great deal of power in his hands.

Homo Omnivorous

...our nearest relatives among the apes, such as the chimpanzees, have problems digesting meat without resorting to a lot of physical activity.

Haitian Proverbs

Conspiracy is stronger than witchcraft.

The Lesson of Tito

Ours is not to eradicate but to compromise and aid them in compensating.

The Politics of Fat and Exercise

It had nothing to do with staying healthy, everything to do with eugenics.

Fundamentalism is Overpermissive about Fat

"Oh, I eat very little," you hear them say. Then you see them, with their plates piled high at a smorgabord and you know that most of them are liars.

Post-Modernism vs. Democracy

I agree that the motives of post-modernists are admirable, that they do rightly perceive biases that white male scientists often bring to the study of human behavior (in particular), and that there are other ways to knowledge; however, I do not like the way that they have opened the door to sloppy thinking and some very wrong takes on the nature of human life and the Universe that threaten to undermine and destroy all that our parents and grandparents struggled to establish for the good of all the children of this country of ours.

Focus on the Family

Family is the beginning of compassion, not the limit.

Choice and Depression

We dwell on what we don't have or we become monsters who press to have all the choices available to them so that a "mistake" can be easily rectified by a different purchase.

Low Expectations from the College Board

Why did the College Board choose A Tale of Two Cities over Great Expectations?

The Inconvenience Posed by Sufis

This Catholic woman insisted that Sufism was part of a long established Islamic plot to create fellow travelers.

Lunatic Nation

Of course, Kansas is a metaphor for the entire nation, a country where people jump for the opportunity to seize the red winding sheet and eagerly spread the grain upon which the Four Horses of the Apocalypse will dine.

Intimacy

A common trend among the blogs I like is that the people who write them don't just spew off about politics.

Cures and Paintpots

I'm looking at my disease in a new way.

Sex and Hair -- Mostly Hair

Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer is the first novel that I chose as my reward for finishing the last notebook.

The International Protestant Conspiracy

Will someone please tell the Bush Administration Jews to get on the schtick?

Hannah Arendt on Eichmann

What mattered in the case of Eichmann is that he wanted to please his superiors.

Politics vs. What is Important 2

Politics must be seen in perspective. To make rational decisions, we must calm our anxieties.

No Exit

What I've found most interesting is how other people interpret the door.

The Golden Rule and Getting Laid

"Hey, I like people coming up to me and saying 'Do you want to have sex with me?' So it's OK for me to ask, right?"

Caligula Now?

Do you see what I see?

The Klansman Gravity Problem

They can type, they can write a snazzy opening paragraph, they can look good for the camera, but God help us: they can't think!

The First Liberals

This bizarre history helps to explain the strange events of the Twentieth and early Twenty First centuries.

Morlocks and Eloi

The Morlock's underground exists today, in the full light of the sun.

More Latin for George W. Bush's America

quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt -- what good are laws when there are no morals?

Caroling

This is the attitude we should allow birth in our hearts in the season of the light that shines in the darkness, a light that the darkness cannot grasp.

More Latin for Chat

I got the urge to look up more Latin for chat.

My Christmas Reading

I've haven't read any good junk in a long time, so last week I picked up Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory MacGuire.

Latinisms for IRC

A few phrases that seem apt for IRC discussion from More Latin for the Illiterati

Intimacy
This is from Thunder and Lightning : Cracking Open the Writer's Craft by Natalie Goldberg: We need to build our...

Shaving a Fluffy Bunny Saint

The word is out: you do not tarnish the legend of St. Francis of Assisi, you do not apply a depilatory to a man who gives most people the warm fuzzies.

On fucking up

I return to this passage whenever I feel I irretrievably blew it.

Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau wrote: The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their...

A Personal Booklist
Ever wonder how I became the guy that I did? Books help make a mind. Here is a list of...

Which Do You Choose?

We will be an egalitarian, race-blind society when the son of the President of the United States gets the job he deserves pumping gas instead of getting pushed up because of his connections.

Class Warfare

Talk about serving up a lie a'brochette!

Supply Side Jesus

Word is that the National Review has referred to it as "low, stinking satire", a chorus that I will undoubtably hear when our current affair discussion group meets next month.

Real Men Don't Use Tin Cans

I bet Denis Boyle has never eaten acorn gruel! That's a real food of the land.

Mothering and Work Among the Futurists

What a future! Can't we think of another?

Not for Getting Laid

It feels good just to see the characters appearing out of the cursor, evidencing that you are alive.

Selections from My Red Cloth Book

Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was! -- Brenda Ueland

In A Blank Book, Red

I mark passages in the books I read for copying later in a bound red book.

Twenty-One Gifts of the Magi for the New Year

Sila ersinarsinivdluge.