I remember Jiffy Pop a product of my childhood. Popcorn kernels are contained in a lightweight, disposable aluminum pan, a wire handle, with a slightly twisted piece of aluminum foil serving as a cover. The pan-container is placed upon a stove burner. As the kernels begin to pop, — the attached aluminum foil cover…
A lively discussion last night, about “rules,” the many uses of rules, the origin of all rules, and considerations upon breaking rules. The discussion was wide ranging and sometimes passionate. Passion is natural, rising from a variety of motivations. Let’s be honest that fear often motivates many an impassioned soliloquy. When I suspect that…
The rumination about freedom vs determinism, the conundrum presented by cause and effect runs its course. It is time to move on to another stop on our journey. After all, change in scenery, variety is what we are looking for. Life is more than one topic, a single discussion. I took a short walk…
Lately I’ve been thinking about determinism… WTF you might think! Perhaps one of the most enduring conundrums of philosophy is the ongoing debate, the wrangle over whether freedom is possible, whether the word refers to anything at all, — in a rigorous cause and effect universe. Speculation about the topic can be traced as…
Neither divine punishment nor the nemesis of history. It is difficult not the see the pandemic as the consequence of our devastating, short-sighted choices regarding the environment. We have treated planet Earth as a dumping ground, a warehouse for dross and garbage, a heap of ruins. Yet it is impossible to save the planet…
Language is a marvelous thing. Words, symbols referencing things, events, and concepts give birth to efficient mental states, causing substantive change, influencing human actions. I noticed this in my iphone news feed this morning. A highly unusual weather pattern is setting up over the Pacific Northwest, with a record-strong high-pressure area aloft — known…
The rain falls steadily non-stop, then in sheets. Weeks of mounting drought, then today flood warnings. Nature is a condition of extremes. After all, is not “the mean” a quantity that humans judge to be “just right” for the purposes of life? Nature, being “blind,” the feedback of cause and effect, “knows” nothing of…
We are no longer alienated and passive spectators but interactive extras; we are the meek lyophilized members of this huge “reality show.” It is no longer a spectacular logic of alienation but a spectral logic of dis-incarnation, no longer a fantastic logic of diversion, but a corpuscular logic of transfusion and transubstantiation of all…
A friend who practices walking about town for fitness, for interest, suggested that I consider the activity for my own benefit. The advice came as we walked together to the Starbucks on Randall Road and back. On a hot, sunny summer’s day the conversation, passing scenery, and natural exercise made the experience pleasing. “The…
Biopoliticsbecoming immunopolitics…The latent catastrophecoursing through and troubling the early decades of the century. The catastrophe is ungovernableand brings to light all the limitsof neoliberal governance. It has the tone of the irreversibleand the timbre of the irreparable.Nothing will be like it was before. Yesterday’s world appearsas a remote, collapsed worldthat has now slipped away.In…
