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 (2003-2013)
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Recent Posts
- A Couple Interesting Things About Reality
- False Realities
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- This Much is Reality… and This Much is Fantasy
- The Anticipation of Unintended Consequences
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- The Overton Window of Deviance
- Shocked, Just Shocked
- Continuing Our Studies of Human Nature…
- Here’s a New One: Terrain Theory
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Meta
Category Archives: Politics
LQCs: Children, Guns, and Religion
From NYT Letters, printed 21 May 2022: To the Editor: The Republican checklist after a mass shooting: Thoughts and prayers: Check. This is not the time: Check. Let’s not politicize: Check. Guns are not the problem: Check. Just enforce the … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Religion
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LQCs: Polarization; Grooming; Sacrifice; Documentary
My partner had never seen this movie, so we began it last night and will finish tonight. Meanwhile, this week’s issue of The Week has a nice summary, on its “Best columns: The U.S.” page, of this Washington Post opinion … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history, Politics
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LQCs: Moral Collapse, the Paranoid Style, Deflection
(With an endpiece.) Paul Krugman is back from vacation. NYT, Paul Krugman, 16 May 2022: From Voodoo to MAGA to Buffalo I never thought I’d say this, but I miss voodoo economics.
Posted in Personal history, Politics, Psychology
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LQCs: Fringe Conspiracy Theories Becoming Mainstream; Duplicity; Sharpening of Focus
NYT, 15 May 2022: A Fringe Conspiracy Theory, Fostered Online, Is Refashioned by the G.O.P., subtitled, “Replacement theory, espoused by the suspect in the Buffalo massacre, has been embraced by some right-wing politicians and commentators.”
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Quote at Length
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LQCs: Replacement theory, High School biology, Y2K, Macho puffery
The New Yorker, Kathleen Belew (assistant professor of history at U of Chicago) interviewed by Isaac Chotiner, 15 May 2022: Making Sense of the Racist Mass Shooting in Buffalo, subtitled, “An expert on the white-power movement and the ‘great replacement’ … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Science
Comments Off on LQCs: Replacement theory, High School biology, Y2K, Macho puffery
LQCs: We told you so
Only time for a couple quick links. We told you so.
LQCs: Sincerity, Norway, the Moral Arc
OnlySky, Hemant Mehta, 7 May 2022: The Supreme Court should stop taking religious beliefs so seriously, subtitled, “Not every ‘sincerely held religious belief’ is sincerely held. The Supreme Court should admit that.”
LQCs: KSR; Conservative History
NYT, Alexandra Alter, 11 May 2022: A Sci-Fi Writer Returns to Earth: ‘The Real Story is the One Facing Us.’, subtitled: “Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the most acclaimed living science fiction writers, is done with deep space narratives. His … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, science fiction
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LQCs: The Arc of Historical Progress vs. Religious Oppression in the US
First, my favorite print magazine The Week, for May 13th, in its “Viewpoint” box on the “Best Columns US” page, quotes Francis Fukuyama in The Wall Street Journal (a newspaper I don’t read). But unlike the similarly found David French … Continue reading
Posted in Human Progress, Morality, Politics, Religion
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LQCs: Wise Women and Men, How the Law Is Flimsy against Political Tides, and Why Conservatives Are So Anxious to Oppress Others
Several Fb friends have quoted this passage by the great Ursula K. Le Guin, originally posted at Reading Is Therapy, from her 1989 book Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places.