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Monthly Archives: August 2017

Massive media failure, now documented

“Attempts by the Clinton campaign to define her campaign on competence, experience, and policy positions were drowned out by coverage of alleged improprieties associated with the Clinton Foundation and emails. Coverage of Trump associated with immigrations, jobs and trade was greater than that on his personal scandals.” — Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society […]

Preserving culture

Foxfire students interviewing Aunt Arie — photo by Foxfire Fund, Inc. There are some strange ideas kicking around these days about what it means to preserve culture. But preserving culture is hard work and a labor of love. Many, many people are doing this work. It involves books, books, and more books. It is being […]

Total eclipse

I saw the eclipse inside the zone of totality at Franklin, North Carolina. Franklin is in the Great Smoky Mountains and is inside the Nantahala National Forest. I was with two friends, and we turned it into a tailgate party followed by dinner in Asheville. This was my second total eclipse, so I knew what […]

Twitter

Library of Congress I have never used Twitter. I never will. If I take off my snark cap and put on my nice cap, and if I try to come up with a reason to justify Twitter’s existence, then this is the best I can do: Twitter is like texting, but it’s a broadcast rather […]

A big backfire of right-wing propaganda

I try to limit my posts on politics to the times when I have something to say that others aren’t saying. The commentary in the mainstream media on Saturday’s events in Charlottesville has mostly been very good. But I do want to point out here how a propaganda stunt by an ugly minority has backfired […]

Game of Thrones

In looking through the blog logs yesterday, I noticed that someone searched for “Game of Thrones.” It seems odd in retrospect that I haven’t really blogged about the greatest achievement in fantasy since Tolkien, both in literature and in television. (I’m open to the argument that George R.R. Martin’s achievement has surpassed Tolkien’s.) The reason, […]

How to win: Torture the language and muddle the story

I pay very little attention to the science fiction and fantasy publishing industry anymore. Almost every book I try to read, I end up flinging away in frustration after the first few pages. Almost no one knows how to write, and almost no one knows how to tell a story. Instead, what passes for “good […]

The new girls come on line

The easiest time of year to acquire chickens — at least in these parts — comes in the weeks before Easter. That’s when the local mills and Tractor Supply have chicks for sale. Spring chickens can be counted on to start laying in August. The new girls are right on time — maybe even a […]

Conversion to SSL

The change should be transparent, but this blog has switched over to SSL, or “secure sockets layer,” protocol. You might have noticed that your URL window now says “https:” rather than “http:”. Depending on the browser you use, you may also see a padlock icon with the URL. SSL uses encryption to improve the security […]

Not quite canary

For the past few months, I’ve been rereading Winston Graham’s Poldark novels. I’m now on book 8. I would rate Winston Graham as one of the best novelists of the 20th Century, but that’s a post for another day. This post is about wine — dessert wine in particular. In the Poldark novels, the poor […]