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.
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Meta
Category Archives: Narrative
Narrative Bias and Control
Another take on why conspiracy theories have become so popular; How home-schoolers who decided to send their kids to public schools exposed the three lies about home-schooling that convinced them to do so; The Week on the state of book … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Narrative, Religion
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Fox News Admits They Were Wrong; Reviews by Michael Dirda
First, a follow up to my Media Literacy post three days ago. Stop the Presses! Something amazing has happened! Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 23 May 2023: Fox News falls for another hoax, as the Dominion defamation settlement pays off, subtitled “The … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Narrative, Science, science fiction
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Math, Literature, and Maps
Today’s topics: A curious new geometric shape; The connections between math and literature; A new perhaps better map projection of the world NY Times, Siobhan Roberts, 28 Mar 2023: Elusive ‘Einstein’ Solves a Longstanding Math Problem, subtitled “And it all … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Narrative
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The Gaps Between Beliefs and Reality
Items today about how Americans treat Presidents’ Day and other holidays; about more Republicans lying on their resumes; why Fox News viewers don’t care the network is lying to them; and why Putin’s fabulations about his war in Ukraine appeal … Continue reading
Posted in Lunacy, Narrative, Philosophy, Politics
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Narrative as Denialism
Today’s reading is yet another example of how narratives — stories that simplify the world and make it more understandable, even if they’re completely fictional — dominate so many people’s beliefs, especially in politics, that they amount to a denial … Continue reading
More About Stories v. Reality
Yet another item about that anthology of historical essays. Plus items about pandemics, bestseller lists, wokeness in the military, the attraction of conspiracy theories, and violence on TV.
Posted in Book Notes, Conservative Resistance, Narrative
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Myth America
Today in the papers, both an op-ed about and a review of a new book called Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, published by … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Narrative
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Mysteries, Stories, and Science
I like mysteries, once in a while, but I don’t trust them. They are too often contrived, “too clever by half” as the saying goes. Their narratives double back and re-interpret, like lawyers who revisit a set of testimony and … Continue reading
Christmas Stories
Over Friday and Saturday evenings we watched Miracle on 34th Street for the first time in a couple decades. (I’m not sure if Y had ever seen it.) After such time goes by, you see things in a film or … Continue reading
Posted in Narrative, Personal history
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Stories People Tell
Why pecan pie is quintessentially American; how Thanksgiving is supposedly about free enterprise vs. communism; why people don’t believe crime rates are down in big cities; how the TV show Yellowstone appeals to the conservative narrative about big government; why … Continue reading
