Scripturient

Poems That Make You Cry

I cannot read Dylan Thomas’ poem, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night‘ without a lump in my throat. I read it at my father’s funeral, several years ago, so for me it has a personal context that retains its emotional impact. Many poems move me or touch my heartstrings, however, that have no such personal context, although I cannot recall the last time one moved me to tears. When I got Anthony and Ben Holden’s book, “Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them,” I expected to be deeply and powerfully moved by the ……… click below for more ↓

Comets, Aliens and Conspiracy Wingnuts

2014-11-13 2014-11-13 Astronomy & Cosmology / Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Science & Technology / Technology & GadgetsOne Comment

The European Space Agency has accomplished one of the greatest engineering and scientific achievements in human history this past week. Not only did it get a space vehicle into orbit around a comet travelling at more than 55,000 km/hr (34,000 mph), it landed a probe on the very rough surface of that comet. Outstanding, brilliant, superb… the superlatives fail me when trying to describe this event. The Rosetta spacecraft chased Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for ten years (since March, 2004) travelling almost four billion miles (6.4 b km) to rendezvous with the small chunk of icy rock, currently about 510 million kilometres away ……… click below for more ↓

Camping’s madness carries on

2014-11-10 2014-11-10 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / FaithLeave a comment

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6zEUCiyFqg&feature=youtu.be] Harold Camping has been dead for almost a year, but his legacy lives on. Not just in the broken dreams of his deluded followers, but in the many lives he destroyed through his madness. You would have thought that, having predicted the end of the world several times, and been wrong each one, because of the general embarrassment of anyone who gave him even the slightest credence, he would be buried and forgotten, except as a caricature of religious nuttiness. And a scam artist. But no, Camping continues his malice, even after death, like a modern-day Jacob Marley dragging his chains with ……… click below for more ↓

Banished: Sandbox Gaming at Its Best

2014-11-09 2014-11-09 Computers & Programming / Games & GamingOne Comment

Banished is a medieval-style city building game, along the lines of SimCity, but with several significant differences. While not as slick or comprehensive as SimCity, it still provides a compelling, addictive gameplay.* It’s slow and cerebral, true, not your basic action-filled RPG or FPS, but it’s one of those games that demand ‘just another fifteen minutes’ that easily stretch into the wee hours. And with infinitely variable maps and a wide range of community-made mods that enhance and change the dynamics, it promises a lot of repeat play for fans of the genre. First difference between the two city-building sims ……… click below for more ↓

The Theology of The Fly

2014-11-07 2014-11-07 Books & Reviews / Film & Reviews / Philosophy / Pop CultureOne Comment

While watching the 1958 film of The Fly last night, I was struck by its similarities to Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein. And in the similarity of the underpinning morality of both. I recently picked up the DVD collection with all three movies (The Fly, Return of The Fly and Curse of the Fly, plus a collection of special features).* I saw the original film back in the late 1950s at the drive-in with my parents, and I’ve seen it on TV since, but not for many years. It’s not quite the “terror topping supershock thrill sensation” promised on the box ……… click below for more ↓

Crazy Cats and Brain Parasites

2014-11-06 2014-11-06 Animals & BIology / Science & TechnologyOne Comment

It reads like a script for a scary movie: an alien parasite invading our brains, taking control of our minds, changing our behaviour silently, secretly; making us do what it wants. And it’s happening now, in homes across Canada and the USA. Alien puppet masters over-running the nation, one household at a time. But it’s not fiction, although my scenario is a trifle exaggerated. They’re not some right-wing aliens from outer space subverting our natural goodness and compassion; not some cyber-bullying bloggers dripping political poison into the gullible minds of their readers.They are microscopic, found worldwide, on land and in ……… click below for more ↓

Debunking Homeopathy. Again.

2014-11-02 2014-11-02 Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Health & Medicine / Pseudoscience & QuackeryOne Comment

Homeopathy. It’s absolute bunk. But you already know that. All those forms of ‘magic medicine‘* are bunk, of course, but homeopathy has a special place reserved for it in the kingdom of codswallop. Codswallop is dangerous to the mind, and often to your wallet, but homeopathy compounds that by being dangerous to your health, too, even fatal, as Penelope Dingle discovered. Yes, homeopathy can kill you, if you take it’s fake cures instead of actual medicine or treatment.** But, you ask, if a placebo works (in some cases), what’s wrong with it? As Joel Gottsegen wrote in the Stanford Daily ……… click below for more ↓

Words, Your Brain and Sex

2014-10-30 2014-10-30 Behaviour & Psychology / Books & Reviews / Language & GrammarLeave a comment

One of the reasons I’m a dedicated librocubularist* can be found in a story on IFL Science that is headlined, “Learning New Words Activates The Same Brain Regions As Sex And Drugs.” It opens: While it doesn’t get much better than sex and drugs for many out there, new research has found that simply learning a new word can spark up the same reward circuits in the brain that are activated during pleasurable activities such as these. No wonder there are so many bookworms and scrabble addicts out there. So nothing like a good, brisk read through the Compact English ……… click below for more ↓

Larry & Jerry’s Inferno

2014-10-29 2014-10-30 Books & Reviews / Poetry & Lyrics / Religion / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

I had forgotten about this book until recently when I came across a reprint. I read it originally in the late 1970s when I was reading a lot more sci-fi than I do today. (Many years ago, I ran a Toronto computer convention where I invited the authors to be the keynote speakers. I got to spend many hours and a memorable dinner with them.) I finished the reprint only a few days ago and started the sequel, Escape From Hell, shortly after. I was researching Dante of late for something I’ve been slogging at for the past couple of years, when ……… click below for more ↓

Thank you for your support

2014-10-28 2014-10-28 Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

Thank you everyone who voted for me this election. I am delighted and honoured that you once again gave me your confidence and trust to represent you for another term in office. Unfortunately, although there were a lot of you, it wasn’t quite enough. I will not be returning for the upcoming term, but perhaps I will run again in 2018. I promised this term, as I always have done, that I would keep the interests of all of Collingwood in the forefront; to make decisions I believe are in the best interests of everyone to be fully open and transparent in my decision making, ……… click below for more ↓

A Modern Take on Gorgias

2014-10-24 2014-10-24 Municipal Politics / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

Plato’s dialogue Gorgias is mostly about the difference between content and form. Or rather it’s about how Socrates saw the difference between philosophy – content and truth – and rhetoric – form and words. Both of which are practiced and studied today in much different forms from what they were in ancient Greece. But the essential core of his argument is still there for us. Socrates felt rhetoric – oratory – was shallow; merely using words for persuasion, for effect, for emotion: it lacked the validity, the meaning and depth of philosophy. It lacked truth and knowledge. If you look at ……… click below for more ↓

Crito: Doing What’s Right

2014-10-23 2014-10-23 Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

In his dialogue, Crito, Plato has Socrates gently admonish his friend, Crito, for his concern over what the uneducated public might think, or might spread by rumour and gossip, and encourages him instead to focus his attention on those ‘reasonable people’ who know the facts and in doing what is right: “Why, my dear Crito, should we pay so much attention to what ‘most people’ think? The really reasonable people, who have much more claim to be considered, will believe that the facts are exactly as they are.” (Trans. Hugh Tedennick, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, 14th ……… click below for more ↓

Logical Fallacies

2014-10-21 2017-06-06 Collingwood / Critical Thinking / Logic and reason / Philosophy / Politics6 Comments

Last night at council I referred to seeing what I believed was a >post hoc fallacy in a report, or more properly a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Yeah, I probably annoyed some folks in the audience because I used Latin words and that confused them. But hey, they already think I’m a jerk because I can spell words like egregious and nefarious without using spellcheck, so I doubt I lost any votes over it. It means an error in assigning a causal relationship between two or more coincidental events. For example: I combed my hair a different way and ……… click below for more ↓