Category Archives: Culture

Reading In and Around the Bible: Genesis, part 1

Posted on Thursday 2 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

I finished up the New Testament a couple weeks ago, and have notes and comments on those latter epistles, and Revelation. I then circled back to the beginning, to read Genesis itself, rather than merely comments about it, and since … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Reading In and Around the Bible: Genesis, part 1

Links and Comments: The Literary Canon and the Bible; Americans Compared to the Rest of the World; Rush

Posted on Wednesday 1 June 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Slate, last week: The Canon Is Sexist, Racist, Colonialist, and Totally Gross. Yes, You Have to Read It Anyway, by Katy Waldman. Specifically discussing the curriculum at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut. This addresses the efforts for some decades now … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: The Literary Canon and the Bible; Americans Compared to the Rest of the World; Rush

Links and Comments: Luck; Facebook and social bubbles; being openly secular

Posted on Thursday 26 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

One author with a new book currently making the circuit of talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages is Robert H. Frank, whose book is Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, and who turned up on KQED’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Luck; Facebook and social bubbles; being openly secular

Links and Comments: Innovation, Optimism, Conspiracy Theories, and Liberals

Posted on Thursday 26 May 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Four items from the New York Times, Sunday before last. Neil Irwin: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation? A Brief Guided Tour. What strikes me about this is not so much which era was greatest, as how much things … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Human Progress, Politics | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Innovation, Optimism, Conspiracy Theories, and Liberals

Links and Comments: Truth and Slavery

Posted on Saturday 30 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

This article in The New Yorker, After the Fact by Jill Lepore, considers the current US presidential race in light of a new book by Michael Patrick Lynch, The Internet of Us, subtitled “Knowing More and Understanding Less in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Religion, Thinking | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Truth and Slavery

Links and Comments: Irrational Voters; Republicans and Gays; Religious Liberty v Progress

Posted on Saturday 9 April 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Robert Sapolsky in last week’s Los Angeles Times: We’re rarely rational when we vote because we’re rarely rational, period. How various discoveries about mental biases and motivated thinking play out in elections. Probably the most striking thing about any of … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Human Progress, MInd, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Irrational Voters; Republicans and Gays; Religious Liberty v Progress

Links and Comments: Terrorists and Threats

Posted on Thursday 24 March 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Cartoon by Mark Fiore: Thank You. Love, ISIS. Why? A piece by Nicholas Kristof in today’s NY Times explains. It’s called Overreacting to Terrorism? online and “Terrorists, Tubs and Snakes” in the print paper. The basic problem is this: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Evolution | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Terrorists and Threats

Links and Comments: Trump; Democrats v Republicans; American exceptionalism; government regulations

Posted on Saturday 19 March 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

As Donald Trump seems to be on the path to claiming the Republican nomination for president, Republicans who are appalled by him are increasingly expressing misgivings. Salon has this fascinating article about how some Republican pundits admit that the crude … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Politics, Religion, Social Progress | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Trump; Democrats v Republicans; American exceptionalism; government regulations

Item’s from Sunday’s New York Times: Pace of Change; Criticism; Religion in Politics; Creative Children

Posted on Thursday 4 February 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

Most interesting, a review, by Paul Krugman, of a book by Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, whose thesis is that the extraordinary growth and change brought about by technology over the past century has pretty … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Human Progress, Religion | Comments Off on Item’s from Sunday’s New York Times: Pace of Change; Criticism; Religion in Politics; Creative Children

Links and Comments: Fear, Terrorism, Fear, and Religion

Posted on Tuesday 12 January 2016 by Mark R. Kelly

The New Yorker, January 2, 2016: Thinking Rationally About Terror, by Lawrence M. Krauss How people overestimate the risk of low-probability (but highly-publicized) dangers, like terrorism, and seldom worry about more mundane dangers, like gun violence and auto crashes. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Politics, Religion | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Fear, Terrorism, Fear, and Religion