Category: personal
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What explains the waning influence of research blaming black poverty on black culture
Vox has an article purporting to explore “The real reason research blaming black poverty on black culture has fallen out of favor”. And it’s fine so far as it goes, but it still dances around the reality. Why has “blaming black poverty on black culture has fallen out of favor”? Because the same dire straits and…
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Review: Doctor Who Season 8 Episode 8: Mummy on the Orient Express
Meh. Haven’t we been here before?
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Review: Doctor Who Season 8 Episode 1 “Deep Breath”
I finally got around to watching Season 8 Episode 1 (“Deep Breath”) of the revived Doctor Who. It’s the first one with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. (What do we call him, anyway? Is he the 12th Doctor, even though we know that Matt Smith‘s 11 was really the twelfth?) So it’s probably worth a…
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What is a library?
I am far from the first to ask this question in an increasingly-electronic age, and I am sure that my answer will be far from unique. But my wife and I have batted the question around a couple of times and I wanted to get my thoughts down. The proximate cause of our discussion was…
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The persistence of “factory”-style schools
Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute asks “Why Do ‘Anti-Corporatists’ Defend Factory-Style Leadership?” There’s a lot in there I’d like to respond to; here’s my first swing at it. It’s easy to blame hidebound educators for educational malaise, and some of the blame lands justly. But you cannot begin to understand the problem until…
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All good things may come to an end, but you can sometimes revisit them
Today (2014 May 23) is the 20th anniversary of the airing of “All Good Things…”, the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It cannot be denied that this series is directly responsible for the resurgence of American sci-fi on television – without the Enterprise-D, there would have been no Babylon 5, no Stargate,…
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Happy Tax Day!
And I mean that non-ironically. I don’t like paying taxes, but I am proud to do it. Taxes are not only necessary to maintain the way of life we value. They are a direct investment in the very concept of civilization. Taxes are the explicit statement that we are a community and we have…
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Lunacon 2014 (2e): Magic and Religion
Saturday 3 PM. Panelists: Carole Ann Moleti; Michael F. Flynn, Raymond Feist, Jane Sibley Interesting tidbit: religion = re+ligio = a rebinding of society (to join again). Religion has always had a social purpose, to increase community and tie society together. The panelists offered a definition of magic as “a belief that mundane objects have…
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Lunacon 2014 (2c): Reading by Merav Hoffman
Saturday 12 Noon Panelist: Merav Hoffman (duh) I don’t attend a lot of readings, because I generally prefer reading things at my own pace. I don’t find the timbre of the author all that engaging. On the other hand, Merav was a very welcoming presence at my first Lunacon and I wanted to make sure…
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Lunacon 2014 (2a): Altering Time and Perception
Saturday 11 AM Odelle Panelists: Walter Hunt, David Sklar This was not especially well-attended: at first, just the panelists and me. By the end, another 6 or so people had shown up. First panel on a Saturday is probably a dead zone. There were really two topics to be discussed: How is a story paced?…