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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Meta
Monthly Archives: April 2014
The Range of Human Perception
Alternet, Chris Mooney: Why Right-Wingers Think the Way They Do: The Fascinating Psychological Origins of Political Ideology These experiments suggest that conservatives actually do live in a world that is more scary and threatening, at least as they perceive it. … Continue reading
Posted in Cosmology, Culture, Psychology, Science
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American Christianity and Conservatism
Andrew Sullivan strikes at Sarah Palin’s glib, despicable remark that “Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists” — to which her audience cheered — with this post: Sarah Palin: Anti-Christian It reveals that vast swathes of American Christianity are objectively anti-Christian, … Continue reading
Dignity of our Lives: “I burst into tears”
There was so much coverage of the right-wing outrage and vitriol over passing depictions of gay families in a couple TV commercials earlier this year, from Coke and then Nabisco, which I saw reported on some of the news sites … Continue reading
Cosmos So Far
I should update my thoughts about the new version of the TV series Cosmos, since earlier I posted a mild critique about it needing to explain the background of scientific discovery – presenting not just the grandiose conclusions humanity has … Continue reading
Posted in Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Philosophy, Physics
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Today’s Classic Song – Mercy Street
A soul with no leaks at the seams. It’s about the poet Anne Sexton. Wait for the last lines: Anne, with her father is out in the boat Riding the water Riding the waves on the sea
Posted in Uncategorized
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Christian boycotts
From Joe.My.God, about numerous recent events. REMINDER: When major national Christian groups with millions of followers call for boycotts, that is a righteous use of the free market in order to preserve morality, marriage, family, and the American way. But … Continue reading
Kalam Cosmological Argument
The Kalam Cosmological Argument is one of the traditional, philosophical, arguments for the existence of God. The idea is that everything must have a beginning; therefore the universe must have a beginning, therefore God. (Which those who use this argument … Continue reading
Posted in Atheism, Cosmology, Psychology, Science, Thinking
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The Reality of Sexuality
From a few days ago, this post by Andrew Sullivan, on his blog, about a recent discovery of a particularly weird animal sexuality. The more we learn about nature, the more the notion that the universe reflects a cosmic version … Continue reading
Bunnies, Eggs, Spring
Everyone’s posting about Easter today, so I’ll acknowledge two or three of those posts, that capture better than I have time to do myself why I find the whole Easter tradition fascinating as a cultural development, but implausible and uninteresting … Continue reading
There Is Only One Where This One Was
Saturday night’s concert: LA Philharmonic, Disney Hall, Philip Glass’s “CIVIL warS”, as discussed in an earlier post. Fabulous concert, with noticeable and intriguing differences in dynamic balance and tempo in the performance compared to the two recordings I have, and … Continue reading
Posted in Music
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