Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
» Full Profile
» Facebook profile
» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- Today’s Notes on the Destruction of America
- The Future is Coal Mining? Really?
- And Now We Have Linus
- Viewpoint Diversity and Consensus
- Musk, History, Science, Education
- Perhaps Humanity Has Hit a Conceptual Ceiling
- “An arbitrary, corrupt, mendacious, and utterly incompetent king”
- We’re Becoming an Authoritarian, Theocratic, Police State
- In a Sense, It’s All About Tribal Conformity
- Daughter of Dispatches from Reality
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Art
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- authoritarianism
- Bay Area
- Bible
- Book Notes
- Cars
- Changing One's Mind
- Children
- Commonplace Book
- Conservative Resistance
- conservatives
- Conventions
- Cosmology
- Culture
- Decline
- Economics
- Education
- Epistemology
- Evolution
- Family History
- Films
- Games
- Heinlein
- History
- Human Nature
- Human Progress
- Humanism
- Humor
- Isaac Asimov
- Links
- Links & Comments
- longtermism
- Lunacy
- Mathematics
- Meaning
- MInd
- Morality
- Movies
- Music
- Musings
- Narrative
- Notes For
- Paperback Sets
- Personal history
- Pet Peeves
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Politics
- progress
- Provisional Conclusions
- Psychology
- Quote at Length
- Quotes
- Ray Bradbury
- reality
- Religion
- Reviews
- Robert Silverberg
- Robert Wright
- Science
- science fiction
- Science Fiction Nonfiction
- Short Fiction
- Silverberg
- Skiffy Flix
- Social Progress
- Space
- Species Reset
- Spirituality
- Star Trek
- Statistics
- Steven Pinker
- Supernatural
- Technology
- Ten Commandments
- The Book
- The Gays
- Thinking
- Travel
- Tribalism
- TV Sci Fi
- Uncategorized
- Website Issues
- Writing
Archives
- April 2025 (19)
- March 2025 (34)
- February 2025 (31)
- January 2025 (36)
- December 2024 (26)
- November 2024 (30)
- October 2024 (32)
- September 2024 (29)
- August 2024 (37)
- July 2024 (33)
- June 2024 (25)
- May 2024 (31)
- April 2024 (25)
- March 2024 (36)
- February 2024 (32)
- January 2024 (32)
- December 2023 (25)
- November 2023 (31)
- October 2023 (29)
- September 2023 (29)
- August 2023 (31)
- July 2023 (31)
- June 2023 (30)
- May 2023 (28)
- April 2023 (27)
- March 2023 (33)
- February 2023 (29)
- January 2023 (30)
- December 2022 (30)
- November 2022 (29)
- October 2022 (32)
- September 2022 (30)
- August 2022 (30)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (30)
- May 2022 (33)
- April 2022 (32)
- March 2022 (31)
- February 2022 (29)
- January 2022 (31)
- December 2021 (34)
- November 2021 (32)
- October 2021 (31)
- September 2021 (20)
- August 2021 (8)
- July 2021 (13)
- June 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (8)
- March 2021 (25)
- February 2021 (16)
- January 2021 (20)
- December 2020 (10)
- November 2020 (11)
- October 2020 (15)
- September 2020 (13)
- August 2020 (23)
- July 2020 (27)
- June 2020 (11)
- May 2020 (13)
- April 2020 (10)
- March 2020 (8)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (12)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (9)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (2)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (16)
- January 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (3)
- June 2018 (7)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (11)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (6)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (8)
- November 2017 (11)
- October 2017 (8)
- September 2017 (14)
- August 2017 (12)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (15)
- May 2017 (21)
- April 2017 (24)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (22)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (9)
- September 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (4)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (18)
- May 2016 (11)
- April 2016 (12)
- March 2016 (9)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (18)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (17)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (12)
- June 2015 (14)
- May 2015 (14)
- April 2015 (7)
- March 2015 (13)
- February 2015 (19)
- January 2015 (20)
- December 2014 (11)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (3)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (16)
- June 2014 (19)
- May 2014 (34)
- April 2014 (26)
- March 2014 (37)
- February 2014 (27)
- January 2014 (19)
- December 2013 (11)
- November 2013 (8)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (21)
- August 2013 (13)
- July 2013 (6)
Meta
Category Archives: Culture
A New Jack Smith Rule
The southern California wildfires, and Will Rogers Ranch; How conservatives blame people they don’t like for everything; Perhaps I should create a new “Jack Smith” rule to dismiss claims by conservatives, since they always seem to be wrong; Lagniappes about … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Culture, Psychology
Comments Off on A New Jack Smith Rule
End of Year Summaries
David Brooks’ favorite essays include one about how Trump’s people have no clue about how to fix complex problems, and one about why people believe *true* things; Two pieces from The Atlantic about 77 facts from 2024, and important breakthroughs … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Politics, Science, Social Progress, Technology
Comments Off on End of Year Summaries
The Drones! The Drones!
First let’s finish the second Robert Reich item we began yesterday. Then the drones. Robert Reich, 13 Dec 2024: America’s four stories (Part 2)
Shocked, Just Shocked
The broad trend, perhaps, is the discomfort of tribal human beings living in multicultural liberal democracies. How some people (who weren’t paying attention) are shocked that Trump is actually setting out to do what he promised to do; How Trump … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Human Nature, Human Progress, Politics, Tribalism
Comments Off on Shocked, Just Shocked
Do Trump’s Voters Know What They’ve Done?
Jamelle Bouie asks if Trump Voters know what he has planned for them; Heather Cox Richardson observes how on social media Trump voters are alarmed by the implications of Trump’s polices, which somehow they hadn’t noticed before; Two more lists … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Human Nature, Politics
Comments Off on Do Trump’s Voters Know What They’ve Done?
Prothero: WHY LIBERALS WIN THE CULTURE WARS…
(EVEN WHEN THEY LOSE ELECTIONS), subtitled “The Battles That Define America from Jefferson’s Heresies to Gay Marriage” (HarperOne, Oct 2016, 326pp, including 62p acknowledgements, notes, and index.) I’ve mentioned this book a few times, the first time even before it … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, conservatives, Culture, Human Progress
Comments Off on Prothero: WHY LIBERALS WIN THE CULTURE WARS…
And So Here We Are
Trump’s closing argument is vulgarity; How Trump is unable to produce evidence of voter fraud; Similarly, how a far-right social media personality is unable to substantiate his calumny against James Carville; Shorter items: How Trump pardons only those loyal to … Continue reading
The Myths Americans Live By
A person’s history affects how he views the world; so too does a nation’s history affects its perceived position in the world, and its place in history. And every nation, or at least most nations, think it is very special, … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Human Nature, Politics
Comments Off on The Myths Americans Live By
Further Notes from Our Report on the Third Planet
What would alien spectators taking notes on modern American society observe? Society is unsettled, and political compromises are fragile; yet those advocating actual violence are a minority (Adam Lee) Society has developed high principles to overcome tribal conflicts, but while … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Human Nature, Social Progress
Comments Off on Further Notes from Our Report on the Third Planet
Alarmism About Culture
A disgruntled French intellectual on “deculturation” sounds a lot like MAGA; Shorter items about how a mother died due to Georgia’s abortion ban; how conservatives see everything they don’t like is a judgement from their God; how Trump supporters are … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Economics, Politics
Comments Off on Alarmism About Culture
