Category Archives: Personal history

LA Weekend Trip, and Certain Types of Principles

Posted on Monday 1 September 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

We drove from Oakland to LA (Santa Monica area) Friday, and returned home today, avoiding all the predicted holiday weekend traffic by leaving early each time, around 9am. We celebrated my birthday and my partner saw his new granddaughter for … Continue reading →

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Music as Language

Posted on Tuesday 12 August 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

John McWhorter on Bruce Springsteen, and my own takes; About modern music. I mentioned that I had a couple thoughts about music recently. The first is inspired by this piece: NY Times, John McWhorter, 7 Aug 2025: Springsteen Isn’t Who … Continue reading →

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Incompetence, Greed, or Sabotage?

Posted on Thursday 17 July 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Elizabeth Kolbert on the Texas floods and the administration’s undermining of climate research; How the Trump administration wants to discourage wind and solar projects; Recalling the Scopes trial, 100 years ago this month, and America’s continued antipathy toward science and … Continue reading →

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Locus Awards and Being Busy

Posted on Sunday 22 June 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Locus Awards; publisher prospects; recent reading. \ It’s a truism that the busier one is, the less time one has to jot notes in one’s journal, or write posts on one’s blog. The past few days have been busy, but … Continue reading →

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Four Years; and Primitive, Atavistic Tendencies

Posted on Thursday 29 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Four years since my heart transplant; David Brooks on loyalty to home vs loyalty to abstractions; human nature; and how Trumpism is an attempt “to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.”; Thus: Trump fired the historians whose job … Continue reading →

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Current Politics as Reflections of Human Nature

Posted on Wednesday 14 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

My daily routine; How Trump would be king and end the rule of law in America, and how this is understandable given base human nature; Paul Krugman on the existential threat of climate change, that conservatives deny or simply do … Continue reading →

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A Continual Stream of Lies and Gaslighting

Posted on Wednesday 19 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump claims Ukraine started the war; Zelensky accuses him of living in “disinformation space”; Musk, corrected about the lie that 150-year-old people are still receiving Social Security, keeps spreading that lie; Tom Nichols on Trump and Musk and Hannity, who … Continue reading →

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Consolidations and Resolutions

Posted on Wednesday 1 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

More discussion today of what I got done in 2024, and about my ongoing project that will extend into 2025. This is to start consolidating all my writing ideas from the past decade into some overall framework. I’ve been doing … Continue reading →

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End of Year 2024

Posted on Tuesday 31 December 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

I don’t do this every year, but today I’m inclined to write about what’s gone on this past year, what if anything I’ve “accomplished,” and what if any “progress” I’ve made toward long-term goals. About books read, settling Larry’s estate, … Continue reading →

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Driving the I5, and Varieties of Dining Experience

Posted on Saturday 28 December 2024 by Mark R. Kelly

Another quick trip from the Bay Area to LA over the past few days of the Christmas Holiday, constrained as usual by work schedules. It’s a 370 mile trip, from our place in Oakland to the West LA area where … Continue reading →

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