2020 archive
QOTD 0
Mandy Patinkin (in the voice of Jason Gideon):
In my experience, evil not a cultural phenomenon. It’s a human one.
Blind Eyes 0
In a timely post at Psychology Today Blogs, Melissa Burkley explores why persons can recognize racist acts in others, but not in themselves. Here’s a bit from her introduction.
Determined to find an answer to this question, my graduate student Angela Bell and I designed a series of experiments.
Follow the link to learn more about the experiments and the conclusions the researchers drew from them.
The Epidemiologist’s Epic Exercise in Ineffectuality 0
In the midst of a long, detailed article tracking the course of COVID-19 in the United States, Jonathan Lemire and Calvin Woodward succinctly summarize why Donald Trump has failed to halt, nay, to slow the spread of the pandemic.
His conventional weapons failed him. The virus doesn’t have a Twitter account.
Over-Rated 0
Electrons are cheap, and email is easy, but Iskra Fileva has had it with “customer service” surveys (and so too I suspect have many of us). A nugget:
QOTD 0
Kerry Greenwood, in the voice the poet, Tadeusz Lodz.
There is something macabre about the gramophone. It preserves the voices of the dead, as cherries are preserved in confiture.
Greenwood, Kerry, Urn Burial (Scottsdale, Arizona: Poisoned Pen Press, 2007), p. 91.
The Endless War on a Common Noun 0
David and his guest. Phil Gurski, a Canadian intelligence veteran, explore the origins of terrorism.
Facebook Frolics, Still Rising Again after All These Years Dept. 0
They just can’t help revealing themselves, now, can they?
Afterthought:
I concluded some years ago that, so as to legitimize slavery and their treatment of slaves and to convince themselves that they were somehow members of a noble class, American slaveholders (and their dupes, symps, and fellow travelers, plus the descendants thereof), view(ed) slaves and their descendants as less than people, perhaps even as livestock.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Demonstrate politeness when in heavily trafficked areas.
Plus Ca Change 0
At the Hartford Courant, Stephen Kendrick remembers a July 5th from a long time ago.
Afterthought:
If you have not read Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, I commend it to your attention. It is a short read, but a powerful one.