This disturbing photo was taken by an acquaintance about a week ago. While this is, of course, a true statement, the disturbing part is that they seem to think reason is a bad thing.
I love to read. I love books and the written word in general. One of the greatest pleasures of my life is to curl up on my couch or stretch out on my bed with a good book‒a real book, with a binding and pages made of paper‒no batteries required. I like having good books on my shelves, and when invited into someone else's home, the presence or absence of tangible, physical reading material, and when present, the subject(s) of the reading material can often, fairly or unfairly, inform my opinion of those whose home it is. I am not rich, or even well-off, by any measure, but I am proud of the depth and breadth of the works in my library of bound books. As long as there are at least some people that like to collect things like stamps, baseball cards, music and motion pictures recorded on a physical medium (i.e. CDs and DVDs/Blu-rays), I suspect there will also be those that will enjoy, and continue to purchase physical, bound books. From a marketing standpoint, if book publishing w
Over the last 12 years or so my writing has changed, and not necessarily for the better. As I recuperated following seven weeks of radiation treatments for tonsil cancer, I happened to come across a printout of an assigned essay I wrote as an undergrad in 2008. At the risk of sounding immodest, I was surprised by how much clearer and cleaner my earlier prose was than much of my later writing. So what the heck happened? As I reread some of my other undergrad writing, what struck me was my focus on sharing the joy, pleasure, and satisfaction of learning about the world around us. Around 2010, the focus and tenor of my writing morphed into an outlet for my frustration and annoyance at—to be blunt—the stupidity of large numbers of my fellow human beings. As a result, my writing became denser and more detailed, increasing the likelihood og my flying off on a tangent—my favorite trig function—but also took much of the joy and pleasure out of the writing process. Though
I’ve written elsewhere of one annoying downside to being a military veteran is when people, knowing nothing else about me other than I’m a veteran—and the obvious demographic data points like probable age, ethnicity, birth sex/gender, etc.—then go on to make totally unwarranted assumptions about my political, religious, or ideological leanings. This genesis of this particular essay was in a conversation with a client at my desk several years ago. Out the blue, my interlocutor told me in utter earnestness how much he “hates it when liberals call conservatives [presumably upstanding, white, male, veterans like himself] Nazis, because everyone knows Nazis were the real socialists.” Overall find my job rewarding and worthwhile, but I’ve also had a great deal of practice keeping a straight face when confronted by such daft assertions. To see how pervasive this particular misconception is, one merely need look at this web page . Debunking baloney takes far longer than spewing it, and
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