Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

Visiting the Profound

Posted on Sunday 2 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Brian Greene on understanding reality as a collection of nested stories; Recalling analogous thoughts by Sean Carroll and others; Big Think’s Ethan Siegel on the success of modern fundamental science. Perhaps today we can step back from the paranoid, delusional … Continue reading →

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When They Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them

Posted on Saturday 1 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Actually it was Maya Angelou who said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,”, which I looked up after typing the title above. Today’s post is another summary of political items, in this case about … Continue reading →

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Busy Busy Busy; the Duties of an Executor

Posted on Friday 31 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

This week has been busy with medical procedures and doctor’s appointments, all part of that ‘third birthday’ I discussed two days ago. Tuesday: draws for extensive blood-work, at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center on Ashby in Berkeley (photo above), followed … Continue reading →

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Guilty Guilty Guilty; Over and Over and Over

Posted on Thursday 30 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump found guilty today on 34 charges; we oldsters remember the Doonsbury cartoon about Nixon: “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!”, which is apropos here; With a comment from David Brin, who has been saying the same things about Republicans, over and over … Continue reading →

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Third Birthday

Posted on Wednesday 29 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Third ‘birthday’; Why American Christians support Israel; More polarities and correlations for my chart; Examples, just from recent days, about Republican ambitions to turn back history; More examples of Christian indoctrination. This week is the third anniversary of my heart … Continue reading →

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Floating

Posted on Tuesday 28 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

After three days summarizing recently read nonfiction books, today let’s capture recent items from the news. A conservative blames the unpopularity of an ice cream flavor on Biden; Conservatives are eager to impose Christian indoctrination in Florida and Texas; Paul … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Gottschall, THE STORY PARADOX

Posted on Monday 27 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s a nonfiction book from 2021 that I read just a couple weeks ago. It’s similar in heft to the two books just discussed, in terms of length and conceptual depth, perhaps somewhere in the middle below Wilson and above … Continue reading →

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Woo-Kyoung Ahn, THINKING 101

Posted on Sunday 26 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “How to Reason Better and Live Better” (Flatiron Books, Sept 2022, 276pp, including 21p of acknowledgements, notes, and index) Here’s another short book, read the same month as yesterday’s Robert Charles Wilson book though it was published a year … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Psychology | Comments Off on Woo-Kyoung Ahn, THINKING 101

Robert Charles Wilson, OWNING THE UNKNOWN

Posted on Saturday 25 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

This is a book about theology, atheism and the idea of God, from the perspective of a science fiction writer. Wilson is a significant contemporary SF writer whose fiction output has slowed in recent years; I reviewed his 2015 novel … Continue reading →

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More Panic, Projection, Nonsense, and Superstition

Posted on Friday 24 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Takes on the “Biden assassination plot” fantasy, and projection; Why would DeSantis think the Founding Fathers would hate sociology? Tribal mentality from Royce White and Bryce Mitchell; And Christian rejection of the nature of the real world. First for today, … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy | Comments Off on More Panic, Projection, Nonsense, and Superstition