Category Archives: Culture

Yuval Noah Harari, 21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY (post #1)

Posted on Thursday 3 February 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This 2018 book is Harari’s third, of the three he’s published so far. It follows in ways from his second, HOMO DEUS (see here), in exploring some of its themes, but differs in being not a narrative, but a set … Continue reading →

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L&Cs: More Misleading Maps; Piedmont Park

Posted on Sunday 30 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

More interesting juxtapositions showing how flat maps, especially Mercator projections, give misleading impressions of the relative sizes of areas on Earth. Plus, an endpiece, about Piedmont Park.

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Ls&Cs: Facebook quotes; More about book banning; The crazies

Posted on Saturday 29 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Jesse Bering; Adam Grant; Rod Serling; Dr. Seuss and cancel culture; crazies Sherri T and Candace O.

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LQCs: Covid, human sacrifice, religious faith

Posted on Friday 28 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Kurt Andersen on human sacrifice; Matthew Rozsa on Covid-19 and religious faith; headlines.

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Ls&Cs: Breyer, Maus, Panic and Alarm

Posted on Thursday 27 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A bunch of links, several of which I think make their points by their headlines. Concerning conservative hypocrisy about Supreme Court nominees, banning books, and other matters.

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Ls&Cs: Harari on Climate Change

Posted on Wednesday 26 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Yuval Noah Harari has an essay in the current issue of Time Magazine about the cost of tackling climate change.

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Ls&Cs: Balancing the Left and Right

Posted on Sunday 23 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT, Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner, posted 20 Jan 2022: What’s Happening on the Left Is No Excuse for What’s Happening on the Right

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Ls&Cs: Misleading Maps

Posted on Saturday 22 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one of my favorite counter-intuitive facts: how our impressions of the sizes of countries and continents that we get from (flat) maps are wildly inaccurate.

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L&Q&Cs: Neal Stephenson on What Might Save Us

Posted on Thursday 20 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had an interview with SF writer Neal Stephenson, whose latest novel is Termination Shock. NYT Times Magazine: Neal Stephenson Thinks Greed Might Be the Thing That Saves Us

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E.O. Wilson: THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH (2012)

Posted on Wednesday 19 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

E.O. Wilson’s THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH, from 2012, is in my estimation one of the four most significant books by this scientist and writer. (The others are ON HUMAN NATURE, 1978; CONSILIENCE, 1998; and THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, … Continue reading →

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