A course I’d like to teach

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Outer Limits
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I would like to teach a Freshman college course. I would name it, “Essential Tools,” and it would center around three texts:

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond.

Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter.

Guns, Germs, and Steel won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997, Gödel, Escher, Bach in 1980. Kahneman won a Nobel Prize and Thinking, Fast and Slow summarizes much of his earlier work.

The course “concept” would be “Who are we, and how did we get this way?” It’s not political, and … Read more… →

The new book

By | | It’s Nobody’s Fault
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Some progress has been made on the new book. But, oh boy, is it slow.

Some of the difficulty is what Steven Pressfield calls “Resistance,” a force field of repellant energy pushing me away from my computer, from the books I need to do research, from the task at hand. It is powerful, and incessant. And some of the difficulty is because “It’s Nobody’s Fault” is hard work. Period.

There are four parts in this book. Yesterday I roughed in key information for the third part that looks at the science of attachment disorders, from about 1940 to today. “Science” … Read more… →

Broadband Bandits

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Great journalism has finally uncovered evidence that a lack of competition for Internet access has led to price gouging by AT&T, Verizon, Qwest (dba Century Link?) Comcast (xfinity? Really, Comcast?) and the rest of the oligopolists.

This came from the New York Times? Chicago Tribune? Boston Globe? Fox News?

Please. U.S. Media was neutered a decade ago. The story was published by… the British Broadcasting  Corporation. Read it here.

But the report on which the story was based is homegrown, and was produced by the New America Foundation. See the report here. While you still can, before those who … Read more… →

Freeing the free markets

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The weird thing is, I believe in the “free market.” I believe that removing consequences for bad behavior encourages that behavior. I don’t believe “inequality” per se, is a bad thing, as long as we ensure opportunity. In short, I am a conservative.

From about 1965.

Of course government is inefficient. The sky is blue. But government’s role is not to be efficient. Government needs to be the referee, mark the playing field, protect free markets and provide services under the law that we would not entrust to our neighbors without guidelines, or that need to be done to avoid loss of … Read more… →

Scream

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Outer Limits, Uncategorized
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If ATT, Verizon, Comcast, XFinity (really, Qwest?) had the tools to “sniff” the content of emails, blog posts, news articles, as they were posted to the internet, it would be their legal obligation to minimize access to criticism. It would be a violation of their fiduciary responsibility not to do whatever is legal to preserve their reputations and protect their business plans. Whatever is legal.

But as far as the Internet goes, the law sits about ten generations behind the technology, and the social consequences, of this whole new paradigm of human interaction. Of course these companies, which collude with the National Security Agency, … Read more… →

Looking for a female voice

By | | Chalice
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I’ve decided that my reading “Chalice” in two voices is less than optimal. In fact, it makes me cringe.

So, what I would like to do in lieu of posting a Youtube video of just me reading, is find a woman who would be willing to read the female “voice.” It will take about an hour, and she won’t be paid, though she will get a credit.

We will read the abstract I prepared for the book store readings, I will find some images to “illuminate” what is being read, and that will become the video.

I invite anyone who … Read more… →

The Reading

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The reading was a bust, by standard measure. Two couples, one of whom are good friends (one are? implied plural? Lazy, lazy…), my girlfriend, some folks who dropped by. Rebecca Singer, owner of Dudley’s was so graciously apologetic: “Fall Festival, a beautiful day to be outside, hard to find parking,” etc. I wanted to apologize to her.

Somehow, I am not devastated. My reaction like that I had with the “friend of a friend who knows somebody,” who was surprised when I told him I  still believed in the value of “Chalice,” despite rejection by agents and publishers. To that, I … Read more… →

See you at Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe

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We are getting some traction on “Chalice,” and thank Dudley’s for their enthusiasm. Stop by on Sunday at 2 p.m. for the reading (look upstairs if we’re not downstairs), and 25% off on coffee. It’s a very cool book store.

Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe
“This Friday is Friday Art Walk PLUS Fall Festival. We are privileged to have Kelly Riley & The Range Benders playing their amazing set of Americana, Blues & Folk with attitude!! Originals, traditionals & a few surprises! 6.30pm. ALSO, on Sunday October 6th we will be having a signing and reading by … Read more… →

Reading canceled

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The local book store in my home town has canceled my reading. They’d received an email from a woman who said the book was about her. They got three phone calls from the woman’s friends. The owner admitted that not one of those who complained had read the book, but he just didn’t feel comfortable promoting it at this time.

Now questions will be asked. Now the book will be perceived as being about this woman, and I won’t have the chance to explain that it is a work of fiction based upon conversations with countless people over decades, woven together … Read more… →