Category Archives: Culture

Loyalty vs. Principles

Posted on Friday 21 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Three threads today, all related. Considering whistle-blowing as an example of wrestling loyalty vs. principles, and how this applies to Trump and his followers; Related items about how Trump supporters vow to “lie, cheat, and steal”; how Donald Trump knows … Continue reading →

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The Ten Commandments as the Distillation of Tribal Morality

Posted on Thursday 20 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

What to make of the continued efforts by the religious conservatives to impose the Ten Commandments onto schoolchildren and passerby in America’s courtrooms? Which part of the First Amendment don’t they understand? Some part presumption and some part ignorance and … Continue reading →

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Beware Intuition and Common Sense

Posted on Tuesday 18 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Three tracks today: Steven Pinker on how democracy and enlightenment values are not intuitive (even though they’ve led to the betterment of humanity); Items about conservative meanings of ‘truth’ and ‘facts’; how evangelicals think sex is only for purposes of … Continue reading →

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Small Town Thinking, Climate Change, and Smoking Cigars

Posted on Monday 17 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

What people in small-town Oklahoma think; Today’s headlines about the effects of climate change; A lagniappe about Republicans who need to smoke their cigars; and recalling the assumptions of 1940s science fiction by Isaac Asimov. We coastal elites are sensitive … Continue reading →

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Change Control

Posted on Saturday 15 June 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

How even modest measures to ameliorate problems in NYC face resistance; How religious certitudes from Alito and others will not end well. Still under the weather, but let’s try a couple items from today’s NYT, about perhaps the broadest issue … Continue reading →

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A Table of Moral Polarities, Initial Take

Posted on Saturday 11 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve been making notes over the past month for a table of moral polarities, in order to align and summarize some of the concepts and the many news examples I’ve compiled lately. Recall how I’ve mentioned that certain attitudes, especially … Continue reading →

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Can Education Account for Evolutionary Change?

Posted on Wednesday 8 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Steven Pinker on education, and how it might prioritize overcoming base intuitions that don’t apply in the modern world; The naturalistic fallacy and DeSantis’ and Fetterman’s objections to lab-grown meat. This month I’m working my way through the last ‘big’ … Continue reading →

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How Art and Education are Not about Making People Feel Comfortable

Posted on Friday 3 May 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Today’s reading is about art and education and how they’re not intended to make students feel comfortable, but rather to challenge their parochial assumptions and expand their worldviews; And a bunch of everyday items, today mostly about the right’s conspiracy … Continue reading →

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Slouching

Posted on Sunday 14 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Fascinating piece about a new book Slouch, about the curious preoccupation with posture, at least in America; Short items about Trump’s dumb attorneys; Christian rallies against the LGBTQs; why Trump’s “Christian Visibility Day” illustrates Christians’ persecution complex; and that traffic … Continue reading →

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Yuval Noah Harari, UNSTOPPABLE US, Vol. 2

Posted on Thursday 4 April 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “Why the World Isn’t Fair.” (Bright Matter Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House; March 2024. xv + 189pp. With copious illustrations by Ricard Zaplana Ruiz.) This is the second volume in … Continue reading →

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