Category: Blog
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Real and Symbolic Power
In a recent group discussion at church, Pope Francis’s death came up. We seemed to agree, spoken and unspoken, that he was a good man. A different kind of pope. His papacy was one that restored and reordered the Catholic church. Perhaps the church catholic too. He emphasized those things which are commanded unto us…
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Reflections on Current Affairs
I have a tendency to over-consume and over-indulge on a subject without stopping and reflecting on why. Recently, I’ve been consuming lots of information on the Trump 2.0 tariffs and the potential fall (destruction?) of Pax Americana. In school as a kid, I didn’t pay much attention to the way things work. As an adult…
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Trying hard
I’m not someone who can maintain an effort in something I’m not interested in. I know this well about myself now. For example, there are lots of little side quests one can take with AI to money a bit of extra money. These anecdotes and “you should try this” statements are everywhere with my generation…
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The Long Now
“The Long Now is the Fiat World of reality by declaration, where we are TOLD that inflation does not exist, where we are TOLD that wealth inequality and meager productivity and negative savings rates just “happen”, where we are TOLD that we must vote for ridiculous candidates to be a good Republican or a good Democrat, where…
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Good take, things time.
I was sitting in the park this evening reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and looked across to see this little expression on the window of the yarn shop. I noticed that I read it panel to panel, rather than like words on a page. Naturally I wondered, Why? When do I ever read words top…
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What I don’t know
Most things, it feels like. I get fixated on things that have non-obvious answers and endless developments. This whole tariff episode over the last week has made absolutely no sense to me. And it’s all I can pay attention to. It all feels very Covid-y where you wake up, see which part of the sky…
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For only $5.99/month
Sometimes, to make sense of absurd things, I like to imagine an alien visiting from another planet to view that thing and while I watch his reaction to it. For example: It’s sort of absurd, and video game-like, that you could be bitten by a particular kind of snake and just die — game over.…
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Mind capture
How do you know if your mind has been captured? I think a simple health check is to ask yourself: Who do I respect? When there are issues or questions you face, these people are a good measure against those issues or questions. What do they think? What would they say? I do not mean,…
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“If it can happen to them, it can happen to you”
“Let’s be clear: without due process rights, anybody — yes, that means you — could be swept up in a raid and dumped in some hellhole and then the government could say, “Well, too late.” Citizenship is no protection if there’s not even a process in place to determine one’s legal status. One need not have any sentimental feelings about…
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Thoughts from my run, #1
Some of my best thinking happens while listening to podcasts on my runs. It is hard to remember them specifically. Often, I remember just a sense of what their substance was. So, this type of post is, now, an attempt to remember some of the specifics. The podcast I was listening to on today’s run…