LQCs: The Self-Righteousness of “Authentic” Americans

Posted on Tuesday 22 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

And: Republican victim-hood and their desire to discriminate against people they don’t like. And why the Supreme courts keeps discovering “new” rights.

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LQCs: Happiest Nations; Social Constructs; Salesforce Park

Posted on Monday 21 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday we visited Salesforce Park, in the city.

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LQCs: Grievances, Envy, Government & Technology, Sleeping at Night

Posted on Sunday 20 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

What I discussed yesterday is in today’s NYT.

NYT, Charles Homans, 19 March 2022: Trucker Protest Moved by More Than Opposition to Covid Mandates, “The demonstrators camped outside Washington are rallying against Covid restrictions, but are fueled by a far broader set of right-wing grievances.”

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LQCs: Contrarians, Conspiracy Theories, and Talking Points

Posted on Saturday 19 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

The Atlantic, David French, 18 March 2022: What the Russia Invasion Teaches Us About the Right, subtitled, “Contrarians aren’t critical thinkers. They’re gullible reactionaries, vulnerable to conspiracy theories.”

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LQCs: Ideology First, and Never Mind Facts

Posted on Friday 18 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Republicans pulled a fast one for DST. And according to them, everything wrong in the world is the Democrats’ or Biden’s fault.

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LQCs: More about DST and the effects on US states

Posted on Thursday 17 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Maps of how DST would affect US states, and commentaries.

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Musings

Posted on Wednesday 16 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

I have several more links about the DST initiative, but for the moment…

I’ve created a page on this site called Musings, which is now up there on the top menu bar, where I’m compiling links and summaries to various essays on this site, from over the years, that are generally philosophical in nature, without being comments to links, as most of my posts here are.

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LQCs: Legislating Reality: Redefining “Noon”

Posted on Tuesday 15 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

A bill passed the Senate today to make Daylight Saving [not Savings] Time permanent. This, in effect, would redefine noon, in the US, to be the time of day indicated by 1pm on the clock.

This is, in effect, changing each state’s time zone to be the one next over to the east. So California will be in Mountain Time, Colorado will be in Central Time, Texas will be in the Eastern Time, and Georgia will be in Atlantic Time. (Some countries do this kind of thing.) Perhaps this is even more easily done than worrying about “daylight saving time.” Think how time zone maps of the world will look.

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LQ&Cs: Russia, Putin, gas prices, the open society

Posted on Monday 14 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

Russia and fake news, how current gas prices reflect actions untaken and short-term memories, Paul Krugman on Putin vs. the open society, and where Republicans might go with Ukraine conspiracy theories.

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Arthur C. Clarke, RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA (1973)

Posted on Sunday 13 March 2022 by Mark R. Kelly

This was Clarke’s first novel after “returning” to writing novels following the break of nearly a decade collaborating with Stanley Kubrick on the book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey. (His previous major novel had been A Fall of Moondust in 1961.) In the fact success of 2001 facilitated a major 3-book deal for a record sum of money; Rama was the first, and was followed by Imperial Earth in 1975 and The Fountains of Paradise in 1979. And these three were his last substantial novels, followed only by 2001 sequels and three relatively short novels in the late ‘80s and early ’90.

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