Dispatches

Adult Education in the Pandemic

Screen shot of photographer Greg Williams at work.     There are online classes or sessions of all kinds these days, such as The Great Courses (“Learn at your own pace with no schedule, while exercising, commuting, or just relaxing. Just you and the world’s greatest professors!”); TED…

Baring Pixar’s Soul

Soul may be a children’s movie, but two weeks later, I am still trying to figure it out. Granted, I overthink everything. But I like director (and Pixar creative chief) Pete Docter’s willingness to tackle abstract concepts (Up, Inside Out) so I want to know what he is saying.

What Julius Caesar, Gertrude Stein, Donald Trump, Marilyn Monroe, Miss Manners, and Jesus Have in Common

Distancing the Self by addressing it in the second or third person is calming, neuropsychiatrists now tell us. It reduces “overwhelm,” a feeling so common these days that it has become a noun. Emotional distress drops quickly—within one second, in fact—when someone shifts to third person, seeing themselves as others might, or as they see others.

The Ad Hoc Tribes of Violence

  Image capture of video on social media, showing a concerted group climbing the Capitol stairs. As law enforcement and amateur Internet sleuths continue to identify those who stormed Congress on Wednesday, some are poring over video of a “disciplined” group in tactical gear, who walk single-file, hand on…

A Less Than Civil War

Is there enough rage to launch a civil war? “Is there a way to avoid one?” counters the newly cynical voice inside my head. Because we cannot talk this through, operating as we are from entirely different assumptions about truth, facts, and the Constitution.

Why Did the Morons Cross the Threshold?

Photo by Jose M. via Unsplash Because they could. And because there was precedent. No, not the British, who burned the US Capitol Building along with most of official Washington, DC, in 1814. This comparison is pertinent mostly only because yesterday’s event was “the first time a malicious group…

Slow the Roll

As he tooled along, his car turned over 100,000 miles. He was a guy who had a car with a 100,000 miles on it. He had a lot of miles on him too. He wondered how many that would be, briefly tried to do the math.

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