“There is still much that is fair…”
In The Lord of the Rings, Haldir gives advice to anyone who seeks hope or consolation in a world that can sometimes feel unwelcoming.
Misc
The Terrible Toll of a Low-Information Society
We went from the Information Age to the Misinformation Age some time ago, and it’s apparent that hoards of people have no substantive sense of how to distinguish which pieces of information are credible from those that aren’t.
What is Spanish? A linguist’s perspective
Linguist John McWhorter explaining why trying to create “tidy categories” of languages isn’t a good way of understanding how they work in reality. He uses Spanish and its many variants and related languages as an example.
Antonio Banderas Speaks Out on the Need for Latino Unity and How the U.S. Facilitates It
Antonio Banderas received a Platino Award last year in a ceremony in Marbella, Spain. The actor took the chance to call for more Latino unity across Spanish-speaking countries as well as to recognize that the United States is where he has ironically seen the Latino best come together.
Reading Analysis for 2015
I thought it would be interesting to do some basic analyses on what books I read in 2015. Because #nerd.
Lane Merging: You’re Doing It Wrong
Who doesn’t love a good old-fashioned lane merge and the accompanying traffic backup? There are usually a number of different personality types that can be observed at every merger: The early mergers. The ones who drive as cautiously and defensively as possible. Late mergers are their arch enemies. The late mergers. They often fly down that … Read more
Can a Slave Owner Be a Good Man?
Solomon Northup documented his experience being kidnapped into slavery in his memoir Twelve Years a Slave. Here I consider the unusually charitable words he wrote about his first owner, a man who he said was simply “looking through the same medium with his fathers before him”.
Virginia Woolf: Had Shakespeare Had a Sister…
An excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s feminist classic “A Room of One’s Own”, in which she imagines what it would have been like if William Shakespeare had an equally gifted sister.
The Paralysis of Knowledge
Is knowledge really that dangerous? Are the little worlds that each one of our mortal brains have constructed really that fragile?
Don’t You Dare Bury Me
When I die, I’ve often thought that I’d love to be involved in a grand display of some kind. We spend so much money on funerals, so why do they have to be so boring and uninventive? With that much money, I’d hope for something unique and spectacular. But isn’t that ultimately a waste?