Month: June 2024

Cogito, ergo blog

That image to the left there is a visualisation of the “blogosphere.” There are several such constructions on the web, and even a site that offers an interactive “map” of the blogosphere. Totally fascinating. So, yeah, I intend to keep this little dot in the blogosphere going. That will probably be the one New Year’s…

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Just Ask, Part 1: Home

So, I’m kicking off the Just Ask Challenge with a query from the very inventor of the game, Petya. She asks: What is home like? Great question, Petya. Not only do I like the vagueness of your question, but also its form. You don’t ask what home IS, but what it’s LIKE. For me, the…

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Just Ask, Part 3: What Bernadette Should Do With Her Life

It doesn’t really matter whether or not you know who bernadette is, because she poses a great question for the next installment of the Just Ask Challenge. She asks: What should I do with my life? Now, it just so happens that I DO know who bernadette is and I could, theoretically, provide an answer…

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How Does This Happen?

Every semester… and I mean every semester… I find that on the second or third day, I already feel behind. How does this happen? I work hard. I prepare. I don’t lounge around on my “breaks.” Where does the time go? Let me hazard an answer to my own question. I think the academic life,…

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Nanophilosophy

What is “nanophilosophy”? Nanophilosophy is the search for and study of very, very small philosophical questions. It was begun by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo in an attempt to drag our age-old discipline kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. The Century of Very Small Things. I think this is a…

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Do you have an iPod?

Then why aren’t you listening to my radio show? Go to the podcast home for “Americana the Beautiful” and download all the episodes. Come on, is there anything more purely noble than supporting college radio? I can’t think of anything off-hand, except for maybe rescuing abused puppies (cute ones) or helping one-legged children achieve their…

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“Fishing” and The Art of Misdirection

My oh my! I am seriously impressed with the flurry of activity on my friends’ blogs in the week that I’ve been away from this one. (Especially nice posts by Ideas Man on what’s really wrong with Mormonism, and by chet on the death of the author/artist.) As chet rightly pointed out to me, I…

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Just Ask, Part 2: The “Steakburger”

Today is a two-fer in the Just Ask Challenge! In response to my ealier post about Burger Friday, I received another Just Ask query from Ideas Man (who also wrote an entire post about this on his blog). Leave it to Ideas Man to skip the whole romantic story there and instead ask: How does…

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I couldn’t make this up…

Last night, just before going to bed, I logged in to my computer to check my email. Imagine my surprise when one of the headlines on the msn.com homepage read: “Liberia’s Gen Butt Naked admits killing thousands” First, this is not a practical joke. The news sites did not get hacked. There really is a…

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The Most Photographed Barn in America

I read Don DeLillo’s 1985 masterpiece White Noise as an undergraduate in an American Lit course at the University of Memphis about ten years ago now. I was still developing my postmodern muscles at the time, and I loved DeLillo’s novel, despite its overly stylized and sometimes too-precious prose. In particular, I loved the very…

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