Category: philosophy
-
Week of 2025-0720
Sunday 2025 July 20 Monday 2025 July 21 Wednesday 2025 July 23 Thursday 2025 July 24 Friday 2025 July 25 Saturday 2025 July 26
-
Week of 2025-0713
Sunday 2025 July 13 Wednesday 2025 July 16 Friday 2025 July 18 Saturday 2025 July 19
-
Family Values
{Editor’s note: Whoof, this is an oldie that’s just sat in my Drafts for — seven(!) years, for no good reason.} As predictable as the rising of the Sun, a figure on the right has assailed same-sex marriage equality as an “assault on families”. I am so tired of this. You know what undermines families?…
-
America is a Choice
It’s been two years since I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize, and I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with what that means. I suspect that won’t be ending any time soon. Over the course of this administration, my social media feeds have been peppered with reactions to outrages that were virtually…
-
The best thing about The Last Jedi
I finally got to see The Last Jedi (after two previous failed attempts, both amazingly sold out afternoon shows, a month after the premier). I liked it a lot. My personal rankings of the “main” Star Wars movies is now something like The Empire Strikes Back Star Wars (A New Hope) The Force Awakens The Last Jedi…
-
Facetious blueprint
An AI researcher (Kai-Fu Lee) has written an article (“A Blueprint for Coexistence with Artificial Intelligence“) that fails at its own goal, spectacularly. He assures us we need not end up in the dystopias so common in movies and literature. And I wanted to his assurances to be convincing, because I happen to feel the…
-
Unintended ironies
A GOP Congressman (Clay Higgins, LA) decided to film a selfie movie in the gas chamber at Auschwitz (no, really), in which he tells constituents that the horrors really spoke to him: “A great sense of dread comes over you in this place,” Higgins says, leading the viewer on a five-minute, nine-second tour of the…
-
I woke up to a country I didn’t recognize
I am stunned. Although I spent the last week cautioning people from assuming a Clinton victory, although I told myself it’s never over until the ballots are cast, I realize now that I never actually entertained the possibility of a Trump victory. I had too much faith in the basic decency of the American people,…
-
Subverting Stereotypes on the Fury Road
I just finished rewatching Mad Max: Fury Road. I have to say, I can understand why the film earned the online ire of the so-called men’s rights activists (MRAs). It takes all the high-octane testosterone-drenched tropes of the typical action flick, ramps them up to 11 and, in so doing, exposes the madness that lies at…