Loggity Blog

Telling Tails

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:07:52 -0500

I’ve spent my summer working with high school students on their college applications. My forte...

Someone Else's Dangerous Idea #1

Sun, 02 May 2010 13:26:00 -0500

JAMES O’DONNELLClassicist; Cultural Historian; Provost, Georgetown University; Author, Avatars...

EVE aint even so bad

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 14:51:11 -0600

Working on a paper on Milton’s Paradise Lost— on the fall of Adam and Eve. Trying to...

The Riddle of Consciousness (New York Times)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:23:00 -0600

The Riddle of Consciousness (New York Times): What is life? Or, to reject the simple black and white...

The Neon Zee

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:00:00 -0600

The Neon Zee: Back on the CC campus, my good friend Ali Abraham is doing great things with a TypePad...

My brother Connor just sent me the link for this. KAWAIIIIIII My...

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:23:00 -0600

My brother Connor just sent me the link for this.

KAWAIIIIIII

My bro is also starting to learn how to play the ukelele himself.

And he’s going to start practicing for the Portland Center Stage production of Snow Falling On Cedars, which will start running in Jan.

Talented guy, my bro…

CC rugby represent.

Back in only a week…

Race

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0600

The last part of the paper I wrote for my Media, Race, and Politics class. You can find the first...

Basil Fawlty beats his car out of rage, retribution, and...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0600

Basil Fawlty beats his car out of rage, retribution, and ridiculousness. We laugh, because Basil is acting so looney— we laugh at him, we laugh at his irrationality. Why not just figure out the problem with the car and fix it? Thats the sensible thing to do.

This video does a good job of summing up how I feel about the Death Penalty. This is the only way I can explain its continued existence in our society: that it is irrational, overly emotional, and ridiculous.

I got the idea for this post from an article written by Richard Dawkins, in response to an Edge Magazine survey asking for Dangerous Ideas. Here’s an excerpt:

Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn’t surprise me).

But doesn’t a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused’s physiology, heredity and environment. Don’t judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?

You can get the whole article here. And scroll around the rest of that page— I spent over an hour myself trying to absorb some of dangerous ideas there… make sure you’re sitting down when reading them…

Race

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:24:00 -0600

This is the third part of a paper I wrote for my Media, Race and Politics seminar. You can see the...

Happy Monday everyone! Wooo hooo happy Monday! My Monday present...

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:34:22 -0600

Happy Monday everyone! Wooo hooo happy Monday!

My Monday present for you: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes. Try and watch this and not crack a smile. Impossible to keep a poor mood. Good morning everybody!

My Internship-- Dress Code

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:42:41 -0600

It was interesting trying to figure out the dress code in LCBH during my first few weeks. I noticed...

Race

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:38:00 -0600

This is the second part of a paper on the topic of race that I had for my Media, Race and Politics...

Time Lapse of Unemployment in America

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:20:00 -0600

Woah… Sure is nice to be in college right now… (Click on picture for link) What’s...

What art is, how art is, why art is--

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0600

Excerpt from “The Sparrow”, by Mary Doria Russell: “And so he turned his aesthetic...

Eat Pray Live!

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:34:00 -0600

I am thankful for the opportunity I get each day, by the possibility of each day… simply given...

a sumptuous Destitution-

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:00:00 -0600

I might have just passed through a slump. I’m only able to write about it presently, as I have...

More muppets: Kermit’s beginning as an blackmailing mafia...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:22:00 -0600

More muppets: Kermit’s beginning as an blackmailing mafia coffee salesman. He’s nasty. About 7:35 is my fave.

About the race paper, I’ve been using the Racial Justice part of my brain on a new paper due Tuesday. So, after that’s done… hopefully over the THXgiving break?

I giggle. Jim Henson: one of those people I know that, if paths...

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:37:59 -0600

I giggle.

Jim Henson: one of those people I know that, if paths had somehow crossed, would have completely changed the course of my life.

So why is my life heading in the direction it is now, on the path its headed now? In other words… why don’t I just DO whatever it is I wish it is I wish I could DO?

I dunno. Why not?

I had been secretly hoping this would turn into a love poem.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0600

I’ve been reading a good amount of poetry this semester. I only get little breaks in my day,...

Race

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:19:04 -0600

This is the first part of a paper on the topic of race that I had for my Media, Race and Politics...