Just got this done today.  It is the Seal of Rassilon (yes, I'm a major Dr. Who Geek :)


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Never doubt animal intelligence. 

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So, I have officially been rejected from every school I applied to as of today.  Julie has gotten into UPenn with a big scholarship, and so there is very little holding us in Boston.  So much as I love this city and my friends here, it looks like I'll be following Julie and our cats to PA.   I'll get to see my family more regularly, which will be ( Read more... )

Nationalize Art.   And Porn ( Read more... )

I have a 25 page paper due tomorrow, which is why I have been reading news sites all day.  I stumbled upon this article, and it makes me very, very, very happy ( Read more... )

The poor will not always be with us, because global poverty can be eliminated by 2025. At least that is what a study featured recently on MSNBC's front page found. If the world's richest nations double their development aid, poverty can be cut in half by 2015 and eliminated by 2025 ( Read more... )

I've really been thinking more intensely about the ways in which the human brain relies on narrative to make sense of the world. I become more and more conviced that placing experiences into the context of stories we are telling to ourselves is the fundamental way that we process our encounters with the outside world. We can't understand the ( Read more... )

So I've been waiting for satyadaimoku to post his thoughts on narrative so I could respond to them, but decided to go ahead and post some of my own here instead. I'm sure Dan's eventual post will have a markedly different emphasis (more on narrative, less on theodicy) and will likely be better articulated, but these thoughts are bouncing around in ( Read more... )

This weekend, Dan and I watched "Waking Life", twice. Waking Life is one of the most amazing films ever, ever, ever made. Wandering through a surreal world, the main character is repeatedly prompted by different characters delivering philosophical monologues which merge and flow into one another in an ever-quickening sequence, mirroring the ever- ( Read more... )