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.
» Full Profile
» Facebook profile
» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- Their Core Priority: Make Money
- Our Era of 21st Century Villains
- Does Human Morality Progress, or Not?
- The Paradox of MAGA
- ICE Thugs
- Our Outlaw Nation
- Five Years Since a Day that Will Live in Infamy
- A Return to the Original Mission: Impossible Presumption
- Where We Are, 4 Jan 2026
- Clear Thoughts About Religion
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Art
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- authoritarianism
- Bay Area
- Bible
- Book Notes
- Cars
- Changing One's Mind
- Children
- Commonplace Book
- Conservative Resistance
- conservatives
- Conventions
- Cosmology
- Culture
- Decline
- Economics
- Education
- Epistemology
- Evolution
- Family History
- Films
- Games
- Heinlein
- History
- Human Nature
- Human Progress
- Humanism
- Humor
- Isaac Asimov
- Links
- Links & Comments
- longtermism
- Lunacy
- Mathematics
- Meaning
- MInd
- Morality
- Movies
- Music
- Musings
- Narrative
- Notes For
- Paperback Sets
- Personal history
- Pet Peeves
- Philosophy
- Physics
- Politics
- progress
- Provisional Conclusions
- Psychology
- Quote at Length
- Quotes
- Ray Bradbury
- reality
- Religion
- Reviews
- Robert Silverberg
- Robert Wright
- Science
- science fiction
- Science Fiction Nonfiction
- Short Fiction
- Silverberg
- Skiffy Flix
- Social Progress
- Space
- Species Reset
- Spirituality
- Star Trek
- Statistics
- Steven Pinker
- Supernatural
- Technology
- Ten Commandments
- The Book
- The Gays
- Thinking
- Travel
- Tribalism
- TV Sci Fi
- Uncategorized
- Website Issues
- Writing
Archives
- January 2026 (12)
- December 2025 (36)
- November 2025 (38)
- October 2025 (31)
- September 2025 (37)
- August 2025 (29)
- July 2025 (34)
- June 2025 (28)
- May 2025 (35)
- April 2025 (33)
- March 2025 (34)
- February 2025 (31)
- January 2025 (36)
- December 2024 (26)
- November 2024 (30)
- October 2024 (32)
- September 2024 (29)
- August 2024 (37)
- July 2024 (33)
- June 2024 (25)
- May 2024 (31)
- April 2024 (25)
- March 2024 (36)
- February 2024 (32)
- January 2024 (32)
- December 2023 (25)
- November 2023 (31)
- October 2023 (29)
- September 2023 (29)
- August 2023 (31)
- July 2023 (31)
- June 2023 (30)
- May 2023 (28)
- April 2023 (27)
- March 2023 (33)
- February 2023 (29)
- January 2023 (30)
- December 2022 (30)
- November 2022 (29)
- October 2022 (32)
- September 2022 (30)
- August 2022 (30)
- July 2022 (32)
- June 2022 (30)
- May 2022 (33)
- April 2022 (32)
- March 2022 (31)
- February 2022 (29)
- January 2022 (31)
- December 2021 (34)
- November 2021 (32)
- October 2021 (31)
- September 2021 (20)
- August 2021 (8)
- July 2021 (13)
- June 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (8)
- March 2021 (25)
- February 2021 (16)
- January 2021 (20)
- December 2020 (10)
- November 2020 (11)
- October 2020 (15)
- September 2020 (13)
- August 2020 (23)
- July 2020 (27)
- June 2020 (11)
- May 2020 (13)
- April 2020 (10)
- March 2020 (8)
- February 2020 (3)
- January 2020 (5)
- December 2019 (3)
- November 2019 (7)
- October 2019 (12)
- September 2019 (5)
- August 2019 (4)
- July 2019 (5)
- June 2019 (9)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (2)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (16)
- January 2019 (3)
- October 2018 (4)
- September 2018 (5)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (3)
- June 2018 (7)
- May 2018 (6)
- April 2018 (11)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (6)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (8)
- November 2017 (11)
- October 2017 (8)
- September 2017 (14)
- August 2017 (12)
- July 2017 (13)
- June 2017 (15)
- May 2017 (21)
- April 2017 (24)
- March 2017 (16)
- February 2017 (22)
- January 2017 (14)
- December 2016 (3)
- November 2016 (1)
- October 2016 (9)
- September 2016 (3)
- August 2016 (4)
- July 2016 (2)
- June 2016 (18)
- May 2016 (11)
- April 2016 (12)
- March 2016 (9)
- February 2016 (9)
- January 2016 (18)
- December 2015 (21)
- November 2015 (17)
- October 2015 (14)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (16)
- July 2015 (12)
- June 2015 (14)
- May 2015 (14)
- April 2015 (7)
- March 2015 (13)
- February 2015 (19)
- January 2015 (20)
- December 2014 (11)
- November 2014 (15)
- October 2014 (9)
- September 2014 (3)
- August 2014 (2)
- July 2014 (16)
- June 2014 (19)
- May 2014 (34)
- April 2014 (26)
- March 2014 (37)
- February 2014 (27)
- January 2014 (19)
- December 2013 (11)
- November 2013 (8)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (21)
- August 2013 (13)
- July 2013 (6)
Meta
Category Archives: Religion
ICE Thugs
Today’s posts are about the Minnesota ICE killing and the responses, from Trump and Vance to Jesse Bering, Jonathan V. Last, and others. An essay by Elay Shech about why we should trust science even though it keeps changing. (Because … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Psychology, Religion, Science
Leave a comment
Clear Thoughts About Religion
A couple items on religion today. As I’ve said, there is someone who signs themselves AMV posting in a FB newgroup I’m following who has been tackling religious talking points with great clarity and insight. Here’s one from this morning, … Continue reading
Posted in Religion
Comments Off on Clear Thoughts About Religion
Good News, Two Ways
Progress, and Christmas songs. First, let’s note this. Vox, Bryan Walsh, 22 Dec 2025: 2025 felt like a disaster — but the numbers tell a very different story, subtitled “From a CRISPR baby to a closing ozone hole, 5 actually … Continue reading
Steady Encroachment
Quick takes today. Robert Reich, 22 Dec 2025: Farewell to “60 Minutes”, subtitled “It just went the way of the Washington Post’s editorial page” Once you begin surrendering to Trump, he always wants more. You can’t appease a tyrant. David … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Lunacy, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on Steady Encroachment
An Antebellum Constitution, Christianity, and Christmas
Adam Serwer on how conservatives want an Antebellum Constitution; David French on why Christianity is a dangerous faith; Nicholas Kristof and Bart Ehrman on what Jesus would think of Christmas 2025. – – – Undoing progress and dragging us back … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Religion
Comments Off on An Antebellum Constitution, Christianity, and Christmas
Frogs, Religion, the Ballroom, Bigotry, and Dictators
Trump’s relative isolationism: big frog in a small pond. The obvious reasons people are walking away from organized religion; Short takes on the White House ballroom, surging bigotry on the right, and Trump’s alignment with history’s worst dictators. – – … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, History, Human Nature, Religion
Comments Off on Frogs, Religion, the Ballroom, Bigotry, and Dictators
Kindergarten Anthropology, and Ordering Things Into Existence
A Facebook response to the question of where morality comes from; Franklin Graham admits that God is a God of War; Trump thinks he can order nuclear fusion into existence, and order a Moon landing in 2028. – – – … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Morality, Religion
Comments Off on Kindergarten Anthropology, and Ordering Things Into Existence
Detached from Reality
Would conservatives insist that student papers defending creationism or flat eartherism qualify in science classes, if citing the Bible as evidence? More about Trump’s white supremacist policies; Brief items about Russia, Masculine public hangings, Trump’s “library,” and AI sermons. – … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on Detached from Reality
The Fog of War, Hurricanes, and Cave Man Mentality
JD Vance’s caveman rage against a lesbian stepmom; Heather Cox Richardson about Trump’s decline in mental acuity, and Sen. Mark Kelly on Pete Hegseth; Zack Beauchamp on how Trump is advancing the white nationalist worldview; Hegseth’s misunderstanding of the metaphor … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Politics, Religion
Comments Off on The Fog of War, Hurricanes, and Cave Man Mentality
Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
Subtitled “How Religion Poisons Everything” (Twelve, May 2007, 307pp, including 24pp of acknowledgements, references, and index) Here is the fourth, and last-published, of the four books by the so-called “new atheists” published in the mid-2000s. While Sam Harris was an … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Religion
Comments Off on Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great



