• The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion. Richard Feynman
    "The Making of a Scientist", What Do You Care What Other People Think?

Other Blogs

  • Someday I Will Be Doing Research Again
    Until that point apparently I will just pop in once a year or so and remind people that it is the Opet season, a time when we show civic support for our broader communities here at Peaceful Awakenings’ Take On Kemetic Social Values. If anyone wants to join me, The Emboatening Crew on Kiva is […]
  • Opet Again
    Just popping in to remind everyone that with the Opet season upon us again, the Emboatening Crew is still rolling to support Kiva loans. (My office renovations are going well if slowly, so who knows if that means I’ll get more work done when they’re done.)
  • CowOfGold Moving
    An update on my previous post: Cow of Gold will have a new home here when the maintainer has a chance to put up the site again (with some revisions, apparently).
  • Hills of the Horizon: The Past is Another Country
    The problem with extrapolation from history is that nothing is testable. The evolution of a religion over time is not a predictable and easily comprehensible thing, where we can look at a point in time and say, "It was like this then, so it would be like that now." The process of deciding what needs […]

Bread and Roses

Let’s just stick to this image:

A tall woman comes up to the front of the chapel, pink hat over steel hair and freckled brown skin. When she begins to sing her voice is uneven, imperfect, strained:

“Put on your face….”

She makes it through the verse, takes a breath.

The congregation starts in, unevenly, […]

Start in the Landscape

Imagine, if you would, the landscape of Egypt-of-old.

Think of the sharp divides that the dry air leave between day and night. Think of the sudden line between the desert and the fertile land, and the way the flood presses back the sand, and the sand presses back the flood. Think of the river flowing […]

Everything Reflects on Everything

So earlier I happened to follow a link to a person commenting about the SCA and social dynamics therein. Specifically, they commented on the tension between the people who are seeking authenticity, and the people who are looking to have fun.

They touched on a number of places each of these people cause trouble for […]

“Go in peace and give ’em hell.”

We were late getting to church today – we got up to the balcony to sit down just as the guest preacher was finishing up the Tolkien quote of the everything lately (from The Fellowship of the Ring):

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, […]