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.
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» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
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Recent Posts
- Sea Change: Living in History, and Most People Not Noticing
- A Continual Stream of Lies and Gaslighting
- How Soon Will This Madness End?
- Mark Lilla, IGNORANCE AND BLISS
- Today’s Political Readings from Facebook and Substack
- What They Mean By Traditional
- Richard Dawkins: THE MAGIC OF REALITY
- And They’re Doing It All In Plain Sight
- Diversity is Out, Racism is In
- Not-a-Surprises
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Meta
Category Archives: Music
Once You See It
How issues in politics 100 years ago resemble those of today; How Republicans and Democrats live in radically different universes; What the “genius” of the American Founders were thinking; Zbigniew Preisner’s film score for Damage Once you see it, or … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Morality, Music, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on Once You See It
Steven Pinker: THE BLANK SLATE, post 3
Summaries and comments about three more chapters of Steven Pinker’s THE BLANK SLATE; And YouTube tracks from one of my favorite film scores: Richard Robbins’ for The Remains of the Day. I’ll try to get through the rest of book … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, MInd, Music, Science, Steven Pinker
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Beware Intuition and Common Sense
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
Politics as Fantasy, as Competing Stories
Three topics for today. The Hunter Biden verdict this morning, and how conservatives explain it to fit their conspiracy theories; Religious dimwittery about installing the Ten Commandments into schools; and Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito’s presumptuous allegiance to Christian godliness … Continue reading
Guilty Guilty Guilty; Over and Over and Over
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
Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Music, Politics, Psychology
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Floating
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
Most Humans Live by Stories, Not Reality
Books by Gottschall and Rosenberg, and how history is just a bunch of stories; A couple notes from the fringe; Beck’s “We Live Again”. I’ve mentioned more than once the truism that “history is written by the winners.” I just … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Narrative
Comments Off on Most Humans Live by Stories, Not Reality
Keeping Things In Perspective
How Biden is less unpopular than leaders of other major nations; How 17% of voters blame Biden for the end of Roe (that is, many voters are not paying attention); and how I think many voters select a presidential candidate … Continue reading
Third Essay of the Weekend
An Elizabeth Kolbert essay about the debate about the term “Anthropocene”; And Neil Finn’s beautiful lullaby “Faster than Light”. * This is Elizabeth Kolbert (author of The Sixth Extinction, one of the best nonfiction books of the 21st century; review … Continue reading
The Awe of the Solar Eclipse
Three items today. Addressing a piece that claims that the awe of the solar eclipse, tomorrow, will somehow unite humanity (I think not; it hasn’t before); Another appreciation of Daniel Kahneman, who explained how humans think, and established the idea … Continue reading
