Category Archives: Culture

Ls&Cs: Balancing the Left and Right

Posted on 23 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

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

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Ls&Cs: Misleading Maps

Posted on 22 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Here’s one of my favorite counter-intuitive facts: how our impressions of the sizes of countries and continents that we get from (flat) maps are wildly inaccurate.

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L&Q&Cs: Neal Stephenson on What Might Save Us

Posted on 20 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had an interview with SF writer Neal Stephenson, whose latest novel is Termination Shock. NYT Times Magazine: Neal Stephenson Thinks Greed Might Be the Thing That Saves Us

Posted in Culture, Psychology, Science | Leave a comment

E.O. Wilson: THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH (2012)

Posted on 19 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

E.O. Wilson’s THE SOCIAL CONQUEST OF EARTH, from 2012, is in my estimation one of the four most significant books by this scientist and writer. (The others are ON HUMAN NATURE, 1978; CONSILIENCE, 1998; and THE MEANING OF HUMAN EXISTENCE, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Changing One's Mind, Culture, Evolution, Morality, Religion | Leave a comment

L&C: Rationality in Language

Posted on 15 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Something a bit abstruse for today. This is via a Facebook post by David Brin on December 21st.

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Ls&Cs: Never Too Many Guns; Conservatives Against Modern Medicine

Posted on 14 January 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT, Farhad Manjoo, 13 Jan 2022: We Must Stop Showering the Military With Money

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture | Comments Off on Ls&Cs: Never Too Many Guns; Conservatives Against Modern Medicine

Ls&Cs: The Fiction Novel

Posted on 17 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

About how language changes, how some cultural assumptions are common among some but unknown by others, and how some people don’t know any of the things that anyone reading this blog know. With my own personal experiences of such matters, … Continue reading →

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Ls&Cs: Is DNA Safe to Eat? Is America Undergoing a Mass Psychosis?

Posted on 14 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Paul Krugman on Republican resistance to investments in the future; a concern about whether DNA is safe to eat; about watching Fox News every day; and about Carl Jung’s warning about mass psychosis.

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Pursuing Books During the Pandemic and Supply-Side Crisis

Posted on 7 December 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

Via book reviews and Fb posts, I’m aware of 2 or 3 new nonfiction books published every week that look interesting enough to consider reading. I restrain myself; at most I buy 2 or 3 new nonfiction books a month … Continue reading →

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America is a gun

Posted on 20 November 2021 by Mark R. Kelly

This is circulating again on Fb; it’s been around for years. This is America’s reputation in the world!

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