I’ve just read a good book about genetics. The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution by Sean B. Carroll. There is much food for thought in this book. One reviewer called it “A Primer of Evolutionary Theory for Beginners”, and this is accurate. One doesn’t need to know chemistry [...]
The state of Missouri has never had an official poet laureate. Like many people, I didn’t know that, although unlike many of those many people, I should have. One of the hats I wear (besides the one in the cool profile photo above) is the president of the Missouri Center for the Book.
What, you may [...]
I just finished reading the October 2007 issue of National Geographic. I’ve been subscribing to the National Geographic for more than ten years. As I read the October issue, it struck me what an incredibly informative magazine it is. Truly, in a single issue of that one magazine there must have been 50 photo spreads [...]
One of the things that sends me straight up a wall to paw helplessly and violently at ceilings comprised of crushed glass, old nails, and asbestos fibers is when I hear a young woman blithely claim that she isn’t a Feminist and, in fact, “wouldn’t want to be one.” They make this claim with all [...]
According to this article, Barry Goldwater’s book, The Conscience of a Conservative, is being reissued. Timely reading? Depends on what audience at which this is aimed.
I seriously doubt conservatives of the Rove/Norquist stripe will have much sympathy with Goldwater, who now seems admirable and even iconic compared to the dunces dancing to the tune of [...]
In a recent poll, reading in America is revealed to be, well, less than appreciated by large swaths of the population. This ought come as no surprise. We live in a time of stupendous ignorance, which allows for the expression of epic stupidity. The Founding Fathers were suspicious of democracy (I learned this by reading [...]
There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.TANSTAAFL.
Anybody recognize that? Where it comes from? What it refers to?
This past weekend was the 100th birthday of Robert A. Heinlein. I was not there, though I’d wanted to be. You see, Robert A. Heinlein was one of the greatest science fiction writers in the world, and [...]
As human animals, we are condemned to live with great ignorance in an unpredictably violent world. To compensate, most of us work hard to develop an extraordinary expertise to protect ourselves from considering our precarious existence. We work hard to pre-screen toxic thoughts. We rarely contemplate our own inevitable deaths, for example. We are often [...]
Summary: A scathing, informative chronicle of the Bush administration’s failures in Iraq, yet one that speaks with compelling plausibility of all the missed opportunities to turn things around.
Former U.S. diplomat and ambassador Peter Galbraith has been deeply and personally involved with the affairs of Iraq for over twenty years. In his new book The End [...]
I was recently provided with a copy of Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sells Wars, Spend Election’s, and Destroy Democracy, by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney. Written in 2005, this book is a great way to get an historical perspective on the state of journalism in America. “How bad have things gotten?” [...]
Here’s a good way to save yourself $23.95: Don’t buy The Secret. It’s not that I’m against secrets in general, it’s just that I want to spare you from wasting your money on a hot new book called “The Secret,” a book that has hit a new low in shallow, self-absorbed and insipid hype. There [...]
Shermer and Chopra traded articles at Skeptic Magazine, but they really didn’t communicate.
Shermer got me on board with comments like this:
Here is the reality. It has been estimated that in the last 50,000 years about 106 billion humans were born. Of the 100 billion people born before the six billion living today, every one of [...]
