Category Archives: Current Events
Muddled Muggles
Excerpted from the New York Times article “Why Your Brain Feels Broken” by Jessica Grose:’ “For many of us, life has changed from being divided in well-defined areas of work, kids, activities, to a situation where everything is a mix,” Dr. (Marie) Eckerström said, and that muddling puts a strain on our cognitive abilities. This …
Attention!
“Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.” ~Howard Rheingold, quoted in the New York Times piece I Talked to the Cassandra of the Internet Age by Michael Goldhaber, available online HERE.
Local Boy Does Good
Superbowl quarterback Patrick Mahomes grew up not far from where I live, and a lot of the yards have signs in them that read “We Love Our Patrick!” with a Chiefs’ logo. I was thinking that would have to be a real morale boost– not just for Mr. Mahomes, but for anybody named “Patrick.” 🙂
Call It Kindness
Every time someone tries to do something to help somebody else, some grinning gargoyle of a conservative jumps up and shouts “SOCIALISM!” and everybody runs away in horror at the bogeyman they just created. It’s absurd. I want to live in a country where hungry people are fed, sick people are healed, and everyone has …
Mitch
When Wall Street wanted trillions of dollars to cover their bad investments, Mitch McConnell came running. When rich people wanted a tax break to make themselves even richer, he was happy to oblige. When corporations realized they could make even more money by compromising worker safety and destroying the environment, he rushed to get his …
“The Science Of?”
“The left will have to understand the science of ‘meet you in the middle.’” ~Matthew McConaughey (source) I’m going to need some details before I take this line as anything but condescending. How do I meet racism “in the middle?” How do I meet science denial in the middle? How do I meet homophobia in …
Burn It Down
From Chris Rock: I had my father get sick when I was 22. And I was poor, alright. And my father had an ulcer, and it exploded and you know all these toxins get in your blood. And basically, my father died, whatever, 50 days after his ulcer. So I had a father get sick …
Encouraged to Discover
From the article “The Moral Contortions of the New University” by Justin Smith, in The Chronicle of Higher Education: I believe that students, for the sake of their own thriving as human beings, should be required to study at university only things that have nothing to do with their own life up until that point. …
Sorry, Abe.
I think it’s time for America to amicably dissolve the union. Our differences are simply too great, and it will be impossible to hold this thing together without violence.
As Written
There are over a thousand recognized Christian sects, and every one of them believes they are interpreting their bible “as written.” So when new Supreme Court Justice Amy Barrett promised to interpret the Constitution “as written,” I wasn’t blown away by her impartiality and objectivity. I’ve heard the phrase before. All it means is that …
And Also
“Facebook’s goal of showing people only what they were interested in seeing resulted, within a decade, in the effective end of shared civic reality… Today we mostly consume news that corresponds with our ideological alignment, which has been fine-tuned to make us feel self-righteous and also mad.” ~Jia Tolentino
