Author Archives: winterSmith

The weird-ass week in sports

I might need some of my astrology expert friends to weigh in here. We began with a World Series where both teams had new managers, and one of them had never been a manager before at any level, if I understand correctly. This is unusual. Then we had a WS game end on an interference call for the first time

Read more

Cyberspace, cognitive mapping and design: some stray thoughts

I apologize in advance because this is going to ramble. And be wonky. If it helps, please know that it all makes sense in my head. Our professional development program at work – yeah, my new job has an actual interest in professional development – has us doing some reading each week and informally discussing the insights. This week we

Read more

The UNSHARE button: Can we all just step away from the propaganda?

Facebook - Unshare

Our social media activities would benefit from a dose of critical thinking. A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on. – Terry Pratchett I had an exchange with my sister earlier about something she had shared on Facebook. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the one alleging that 11 US states now have

Read more

The GOP’s highly entertaining civil war

Embarrassing defeat in government shutdown and debt ceiling face-off reveals cracks in GOP coalition. While I have retired from political blogging, there is some value in pausing, from time to time, to remind our readers about past discussions of particular relevance to the events of the moment. One such opportunity presented itself this morning, as John “The Straight Talkin’ Mavericky

Read more

Our psychopath Congress

Arts and Literature

Government shutdown, debt crisis reveal how much GOP has in common with other sociopaths… Is this to be an empathy test? Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil. Involuntary dilation of the iris? I believe Philip K. Dick had it right in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Technology had, in that not-so-distant future, created androids that were

Read more

Stewart Hoover on Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church: give it a read

Ross Douthat misses the point: the institution of the church is no longer central to the practice of religion It wasn’t long after I entered my doctoral program some 20 years ago that professors and fellow students alike noticed in me a certain proclivity for polemic and outright cage-rattling. My instinctive tendency to leaven insight with attitude was on display

Read more

Pope Francis: I can’t believe the Cardinals haven’t murdered the crazy bastard yet

Progressive reformer can’t be what the College of Cardinals expected… I don’t traditionally care for popes. The Roman Catholic Church has this really long history of promoting oppression and corruption and ignorance, and there’s the whole pedophilia thing, too. I’m hard pressed to think of an organization that done more raw damage in the entirety of recorded history, and that

Read more
« Older Entries Recent Entries »