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 (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- Trump and MAGA’s War on California
- It’s Not Even About Deportation
- Dr. Christopher Evans, CULTS OF UNREASON
- It’s Not About Law and Order
- Knowing vs. Believing
- The Insurrectionists Within
- Clooney’s Murrow; Trump Calls Out the National Guard
- Meltdown; Reign of Errors; People Trump doesn’t want to exist; Harari on humans in 1000 years
- They Said It Wouldn’t Last, and It Hasn’t
- Harvey Milk, DEI, Lysenko, Jesus
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Meta
Category Archives: Culture
Self-destruction, Mafia Politics, TACO, What Aligns the Right, Bread and Circuses
Paul Krugman on the economic damage of America’s withdrawal from the world; You can get away with anything if you donate enough to Trump; TACO: Trump Always Chickens Out; Zack Beauchamp on how the right isn’t driven by materialism, but … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, Economics, Lunacy, Politics
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GOP/conservatives and the Rich; and the Countryside; and Star Wars
The GOP tax bill will hurt lowest earners and help the rich (of course!); NYT’s Jamelle Bouie on Republican hypocrisy and the countryside; Trek v. Wars, and how Wars reveals conservatives’ authoritarian fantasies. – – – NY Times, Tony Romm, … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Culture, science fiction
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We’re Living in an Age of Regression
In Trump’s America, it’s every parent and child out for themselves; Who decides who’s Christian? The government? Fox News says the Qatari bribe to Trump is fine because FDR gave three planes to the Saudis… 80 years ago; Robert Reich … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Decline, Evolution, Human Nature, Human Progress, Music
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Tim Urban, WHAT’S OUR PROBLEM?, post 1
(Wait But Why, 2024, 584pp, including 112pp of characters, acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, and bio) I wrote about this book back in December, before deciding to buy it. Which I did despite some cautionary signs: it’s apparently self-published, it’s enormous, it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, conservatives, Culture, Human Nature, Human Progress
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Palace in the Sky, For the One
Several items today about the Trump administration’s acceptance from Qatar of a $400 million luxury 747, for Trump’s personal use; How Trump shrugs off intelligence briefings; he knows what he knows because he’s smart; How the story of a woman … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Decline, Politics
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J. Bronowksi: THE ASCENT OF MAN
(Little, Brown, 1973, 448pp, including 9pp (in tiny print) of bibliography and index) This is a substantial book that was popular in its time but is probably not really recommendable now, simply because it’s 50 years out of date in … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, History, Human Nature, Human Progress, Science
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Tribal Warpaint
How Trump doesn’t want to govern, and rejects the idea of American government as a collaboration; How the idea of consumer choice led to the idea of being gay; Trump and covid.gov rewrite the history, as authoritarians do; How Trump … Continue reading
The Cowboy Myth, Presidential Corruption, and Disingenuous Cuts to Science Research
Heather Cox Richard on the “cowboy myth” that informs the Trump presidency; How Trump et al are giving billionaires a bad name; How Trump has done the most corrupt thing any president has ever done — getting rich from anonymous … Continue reading
The War Against Intelligence
Trump’s rage against smart people; Defunding Harvard will hobble medical research that would benefit people like us; Historian Lauren Thompson compares the Gilded Age to the Trump Age; Trump and Vance praised b conservatives for lying about abortion; Hegseth purges … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Culture, Politics
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And Now We Have Linus
Why manufacturing jobs are never coming back to America; Heather Cox Richardson records Steven Inskeep’s quip; And How JD Vance is fine with abandoning due process; About Linus, our fourth cat. – – – I keep thinking: we’re living in … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Human Nature, Politics
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