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 (2003-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- A Couple Interesting Things About Reality
- False Realities
- Political Extremes and Instability
- This Much is Reality… and This Much is Fantasy
- The Anticipation of Unintended Consequences
- Dispatches from the Real World
- The Overton Window of Deviance
- Shocked, Just Shocked
- Continuing Our Studies of Human Nature…
- Here’s a New One: Terrain Theory
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- 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
- November 2024 (28)
- 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: Politics
L&Qs&Cs: Separation of Church and State
Pleasant day today, warm and sunny. We did a half-hour walk along Robinson to Skyline and back to Crestmont. I read 150 pages of the popular Mary Robinette Kowal novel, the one that won the big awards. Of my collected … Continue reading
Posted in Links & Comments, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on L&Qs&Cs: Separation of Church and State
Ls&Qs&Cs: Rights and Responsibilities; Authoritarian News Filters
Quotes and comments about an essay by Thomas L. Friedman about rights and responsibilities, and an article about what Fox News doesn’t cover.
Posted in Culture, Links & Comments, Politics
Comments Off on Ls&Qs&Cs: Rights and Responsibilities; Authoritarian News Filters
Ls&Cs: How Big Lies are more easily believed than small ones; Supreme Court predictions
Two pieces about politics, but not for their political content, exactly. Plus an endpiece.
Posted in Links & Comments, Personal history, Politics
Comments Off on Ls&Cs: How Big Lies are more easily believed than small ones; Supreme Court predictions
L&Qs&Cs: Tribal Loyalty and Other Atavisms
This is fascinating *not* because it’s political, but because it’s evidence that however much some of us think the world “progresses,” there will always be atavisms. With a Randall Munroe namecheck at the end. NYT, Jon A. Shields, 3 Feb … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Psychology
Comments Off on L&Qs&Cs: Tribal Loyalty and Other Atavisms
Ls&Cs: Breyer, Maus, Panic and Alarm
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.
Posted in Culture, Links & Comments, Politics
Comments Off on Ls&Cs: Breyer, Maus, Panic and Alarm
Ls&Cs: Threats and Exaggerations
First, because the general subject fascinates me, here’s a response, by Samuel Goldman in The Week, to the Rauch/Wehner essay in NYT I posted about two days ago about what it is about the left that makes conservatives tolerate Trump.
Ls&Cs: Balancing the Left and Right
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
L&Qs&Cs: Wearing Us Down
We are weary of this, as I alluded a few posts ago, but that’s what they count on, I think, that the events of the past year, or past five years, will become the new normal. (I refuse to link … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Personal history, Politics
Comments Off on L&Qs&Cs: Wearing Us Down
Links and Comments: January 6th
I’ll post just the three or four items that struck me the most today, the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrectionist attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol of the United States.
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on Links and Comments: January 6th
L&Qs&Cs: The Unfortunate Built-In Trend of American Politics
Vox, Ian Millhiser, 14 Feb 2022: Why Democrats can’t get a fair shake in the Supreme Court, in one chart, subtitled, “Republicans get their dream nominees, while Democrats struggle to confirm moderates.” The core issue is the familiar one that … Continue reading →