Category Archives: Culture

The Lottery and Jim and Mary G

Posted on Sunday 9 August 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I reread Shirley Jackson famous/infamous short story “The Lottery” this morning (you can find the full text here) and was struck by this passage, about 2/3 the way through: “They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Morality, science fiction, Short Fiction | Comments Off on The Lottery and Jim and Mary G

The Irish Need Not Apply

Posted on Wednesday 15 July 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

» New York Times, Timothy Egan: Not Like Us Donald Trump is attracting quite a following with his comments about Mexican immigrants: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Criminal Justice; Evangelicals and Divorce; Vaccine Narratives; Anthony Doerr’s favorite science books; Jeffrey Tayler’s latest; social trends and arcs of history

Posted on Wednesday 8 July 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Monday 6 July: Today’s episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air” has an interview with Adam Benforado, author of new book Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Justice, which applies the developments of the past decade or two in human psychology to … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Human Progress, Morality, Science | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Criminal Justice; Evangelicals and Divorce; Vaccine Narratives; Anthony Doerr’s favorite science books; Jeffrey Tayler’s latest; social trends and arcs of history

A Just Ended (perhaps) Arc of History

Posted on Sunday 5 July 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

History happens, and historians establish dates, sometimes retroactively, about when history happened even though people at the time might not have noticed. Here’s a nice perspective about how one 150-year-old arc of history may have just closed, in The New … Continue reading →

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Lewis Thomas, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony

Posted on Thursday 2 July 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

This was the third collection, published in 1983, of Lewis Thomas’s elegant, mostly short, essays, following The Lives of a Cell (which I blogged about last week) and The Medusa and the Snail. I read (or reread, I’m not sure) … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Music, Science | Comments Off on Lewis Thomas, Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony

Links and Comments: Lucky Numbers; Paleo diet; Narratives about Charleston; Pinker on violence, and the news media

Posted on Wednesday 24 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

First, keying off my earlier post today about the Alan Lightman book, here’s an essay by George Johnson in the New York Times about Humankind’s Existentially Lucky Numbers. Four fundamental forces rule reality, but why is the number not three … Continue reading →

Posted in Cosmology, Culture, Evolution, Narrative | Comments Off on Links and Comments: Lucky Numbers; Paleo diet; Narratives about Charleston; Pinker on violence, and the news media

James Morrow: We’re not tourists on this planet, we’re citizens

Posted on Wednesday 24 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Many thoughts resonate with me in the James Morrow interview in the June issue of Locus, which I excerpted here. E.g., That’s the great gift of the 18th-century Enlightenment, that insistence on a conversation that must never stop, a conversation … Continue reading →

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The Sixth Extinction and the Pope’s Encyclical

Posted on Monday 22 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

Weekend Facebook post, amended: The Sixth Extinction: Curious this topic is in the news suddenly, all over the past couple days, since the idea has been recognized for years and the latest Pulitzer Prize winning nonfiction book, by Elizabeth Kolbert, … Continue reading →

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Upon Returning from a Wedding

Posted on Tuesday 2 June 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve tweaked a few passages in my Provisional Conclusions today, in light of attending a family wedding in a socially conservative state and observing first-hand a community that obviously thrives in the context of a traditional religious narrative. What my … Continue reading →

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A Month’s Worth of Links and Comments

Posted on Friday 1 May 2015 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times, March 20: In the Age of Information, Specializing to Survive The Internet makes it easy to learn almost anything. And yet And yet, even as the highbrow holy grail — the acquisition of complete knowledge — seems … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, Culture, Economics, Evolution, MInd, Morality, Narrative, Psychology, Religion, Science, The Gays | Comments Off on A Month’s Worth of Links and Comments