I have read and continue to read a lot of biographies; both formal biographies, and more journalistic accounts of people's character, actions, and lives.

And since the mid-20th century most biographies I have encountered - especially the worst ones, and the worst aspects of even the better biographies - adopt the ...

I've been reading some of Dean Radin's books on psi research, which got me to wondering once again if there might be any way of demonstrating statistically that I experience many more coincidences than I "ought" to just by chance. I think it's indisputable that I do, in some sense -- but in what sense? Do more ...

Dr. Charlton has posted some incisive observations on the topic of reaction—more specifically, on the perils of reacting to narrative peddled via the mass media, politics, and such. Bruce concludes (extra bold added):

In a nutshell; when we react to anything we know of, or think we understand, only or mainly ...

I had lunch in a cafe today, and one of the songs that played in the background was "The Moon Is Made of Gold" by Rickie Lee Jones:

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I noticed the song and looked it up because of the unusualness of the metaphor. Normally, the Sun is associated with gold, and the Moon with silver. Then I remembered ...

i didn’t even explain, for those who don’t know. synlogos.org is a blog agregator. i visit it often, now always with an eye for the subtle poetry of its feed.

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A few days ago, Anne Barnhardt posted this meme, about a Zoomer too young to understand what it means to "burn" a CD:

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Today I read a new post by Leo called "Pretti Good," referencing the names of the two latest media-martyrs in Minneapolis. He's not the first to have made the obvious play on ...

In that seminal year of 2020 we saw example of the two extremes of coordinated global media manipulation.

At the start of 2020 was the Birdemic (i.e. the international response to the supposed "emic" - the lockdowns etc.) - which was not just a big event, but the biggest event in the history of the world.

The role ...

This morning, I read Alma 3 in the Book of Mormon, which contains this passage:

And the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites.

Now the heads of ...

Much of the public space is taken up by people "reacting" - especially to news and current affairs; including a wide rage of stuff from celebrity gossip to (what are presented as) Serious Analysis of the Big Issues of our day.

I have, myself, done a lot of this - over the decades.

At the trivial end of the ...

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It strikes me that Silveszter Ördögh’s depiction of Jesus as a mortal man who sought to transform the world through the principle of loving one another as the only solution to the finality of death in mortal life amounts to little more than thinly-veiled positivism.

For all of his anti-religionism, ...

In a comment on "Alcohol, Islam, and Morpheus," I wrote, referring to an author who attempts to harmonize the world of Tolkien with that of Joseph Smith:

I guess the whole Daymon Smith thing is 'taking both pills': the Red Book of Westmarch and the blue Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon, for those who may not be ...

Going through some old computer folders, I found this draft of an ambigram idea, from back when I was doing ambigrams.

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As you can see, it's just a quick draft. I didn't even bother to make the English letterforms more rectangular to match the Chinese. It combines the Taiwan city name 台中市, ...

I patronize churches with great irregularity. I visited the local CJCLDS twice in all of 2025 and once so far this year. The last time I attended was this past November 30, and I posted about it in "Thar she blows," because most of the sacrament meeting had been devoted to a talk on the Book of Jonah, making me feel ...

In my last post, "Alcohol, Islam, and Morpheus," I posted this meme, which references Neo from The Matrix taking both pills instead of choosing one:

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I noted the sync with an image I had posted just three days before:

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I had posted that because (as Bill pointed out), it ties in ...

When we are born into this world, alone and defenceless, most of us are welcomed with love and cared for until we are able to look after ourselves. Our adjustment to the world is facilitated by older, wiser beings until we have developed the ability to negotiate its demands and challenges on our own.

It is a truism ...

He's so unhip that when you say "Dylan," he thinks you're talkin' about Dylan Thomas, whoever he was. The man ain't got no culture.-- Paul Simon

Modern education being what it is, I've lost count of the number of times I've said something about Martin Luther only to have someone assume I was talking about Martin ...

I would like to share an excerpt from a short Hungarian novel I finished reading a few days ago.

Below is my rough translation of the brief chapter called “With Your Face in the Dust” from Koponyák Hegye (Place of the Skull) by Silveszter Ördögh.

The chapter recounts Christ’s first ...

When I create vocabulary tests for my students, I often include a section where there's a paragraph with eight to 10 words blanked out, and they have to choose from a set of target words to fill in the blanks. Concocting a coherent paragraph that includes eight to 10 members of a random set of unrelated words (for I ...

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imagine someone hands you a puzzle. it's very difficult. you can at most put together small disconnected sections, and only from the corners. a sane man would conclude that he is simply not good enough at puzzles, or else that the puzzle is very difficult, or both. but he wouldn't doubt there is a complete picture ...

In the past few months, I have begun to limit my reading of blogs more and more - including those I have been reading a long time. This was not a strategy, was not intentional - but something that I realize has crept-up on me.

If I try to explain or justify this, I think the answer has to do with the continuing ...

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Gimli, afraid of the ghosts under the Dwimorberg: picture by DavidDeb

Over at my Notion Club Papers blog; I discuss the short passage, during the "Paths of the Dead" sequence, where JRR Tolkien briefly abandoned his rule of describing events from a Hobbit's point-of-view; and lets us see things ...

I was only in the past few years that I noticed that the Dwarf Gimli is (I think) the only point-of view character in The Lord of the Rings who is not a Hobbit.

For all the rest of the book, when there is direct report of the consciousness of a character, it is always Frodo, Sam, Merry or Pippin.

But for just a ...

Yesterday, I posted a clip of a doctor, Nisha Verma, testifying on the Senate floor and persistently refusing to answer the question "Can men get pregnant?"

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The thing is, there is in fact zero controversy over who can get pregnant and who can't. Despite all the comments ridiculing Dr. Verma for ...

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Ördogh's "Place of the Skull" makes the case that this image represents the death of a man and the preservation of an idea. Szilveszter Ördögh’s Koponyák Hegye (Place of the Skull; i.e., Golgotha) turned out pretty much as I expected it would.

Instead of ...

I was watching old Onion videos from back when they still had it -- classics like "Tired of Traffic? New DOT Report Urges Drivers: 'Honk'" and "Report: Most College Men Admit to Regularly Getting Stoked" -- and the algorithm cued up one I hadn't seen before, "Can men get pregnant?" I thought, "Heh, yesterday's satire ...

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"You can't have your cake and eat it too" - is a very badly phrased proverb, for two reasons.

1. Having cake is intended to mean something like "hoarding", "retaining", or "continuing to possess" your cake.

Yet having a cake usually means to eat that cake - which meaning obliterates the point ...

Continuing on the theme of death and dying; and exploring the idea that the greatly extended lifespan in The West nowadays may have a spiritual purpose.

The thing about many of the super-old (which is, approximately, anyone significantly older than the Biblical "three score years and ten") is that for most who ...

The Babylon Bee has been off its game for a few years now, but I still check it occasionally. They recently ran a story with the headline "Pentecostal Church Doesn't Notice Riot Is Occurring" and this illustration:

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The first thing to catch my eye was of course this sign:

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The ...