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
- Or for Worse
- Human Rights, and Those Who Would Restrict Them
- What If We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know?
- Institutions, Tribes, and Faith
- Institutions and Indoctrination
- Economics vs. Intuition and Common Sense
- Advance Warnings
- Politics as Aspects of Human Nature
- Political Retributions, and Values
- People Would Rather Believe Than Know
Categories
- Aesthetics
- Arthur C. Clarke
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- 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
- December 2024 (11)
- 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: science fiction
Violence, Evolution, Climate Change, and Cory Doctorow’s THE LOST CAUSE
How Republicans increasingly advocate violence; How Tucker Carlson doesn’t understand evolution, and his several dumb objections to evolution; How 10 straight months of record-breaking temperatures won’t persuade the skeptics; And a passage from Cory Doctorow’s 2023 novel The Lost Cause … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Evolution, science fiction
Comments Off on Violence, Evolution, Climate Change, and Cory Doctorow’s THE LOST CAUSE
Obsolete Laws, Morality, and Beliefs
The world is changing, and conservatives deny this by appealing to values of a simpler past. How Republicans are resorting to obsolete laws — the Comstock laws, the 1864 Alabama ruling — to enforce their morality upon everyone; How the … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Religion, science fiction
Comments Off on Obsolete Laws, Morality, and Beliefs
Oliver Sacks, THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT
Like the Pinker and Wilson volumes I’ve covered here recently, this is another classic nonfiction book, one I first read years ago without taking notes (maybe before I began taking notes on my reading). So I skimmed through it again … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, MInd, Psychology, science fiction
Comments Off on Oliver Sacks, THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT
Putting Things Into Perspective: Science, Expertise, Liberalism
Items today are follow-ups to items from the past couple days, it turns out. Ethan Siegel at Big Think puts that dark matter claim into the perspective of how science works; Tom Nichols’ update of The Death of Expertise aligns … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Science, science fiction
Comments Off on Putting Things Into Perspective: Science, Expertise, Liberalism
Exceptionalism, and Science Fiction
A screed by Brian Karem at Salon about how “America has lost its collective mind”; How ideas of American exceptionalism have been reflected in 20th century science fiction; Examples about “don’t say gay” laws; Trump’s fascist rhetoric; Trump’s dementia; how … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Politics, science fiction
Comments Off on Exceptionalism, and Science Fiction
EO Wilson, CONSILIENCE, 11
Earlier posts: Post 1; Post 2; Post 3; Post 4; Post 5; Post 6; Post 7; Post 8; Post 9; Post 10. Chapter 12, To What End? Wilson’s final chapter ponders options for humanity’s future, and comes down on the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Human Progress, Morality, Psychology, Science, science fiction
Comments Off on EO Wilson, CONSILIENCE, 11
EO Wilson, CONSILIENCE, 7
Chapter 8, The Fitness of Human Nature This is perhaps the core chapter of the book, in that it brings together ideas about the mind, genes, and culture from the previous two chapters, and sets up a basis for the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Human Progress, MInd, Science, science fiction
Comments Off on EO Wilson, CONSILIENCE, 7
Dishonesty? Or Cognitive Decline?
About Katie Britt’s response to Joe Biden’s SOTU speech, from Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet, The New Republic, Heather Cox Richardson, Saturday Night Live, and Paul Krugman; Trump’s cognitive decline, and how ‘polarization’ in the US is due to GOP’s radicalization; And … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Psychology, science fiction
Comments Off on Dishonesty? Or Cognitive Decline?
Agents of Chaos
A piece in The Atlantic about people who embrace chaos and nihilism — and spread conspiracy theories just to alleviate boredom, or burn it all down; And an example of this: Washington Post on Libs of Tik Tok; And recalling … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Culture, science fiction
Comments Off on Agents of Chaos
Astronomy and the History of Common Knowledge
How far away are the stars? and How has the cosmic distance records progressed over time? My speculations about how people throughout history have perceived the size of the world; Veritasium’s person-on-the-street interviews reveal that many people have no clue … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, science fiction
Comments Off on Astronomy and the History of Common Knowledge