I’m not yet ready to write about the loss of my old friend Lee, but I will soon. Learning that he died from complications of a hospital staph infection has brought back thoughts about the congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in which we both grew up – or… er… started to grow up. As much as I’ve ranted about the Witnesses on this blog, those experiences have given me so many reference points in my own experience that I can’t bring…
I’ve always been fascinated by words and phrases, and how we manage to employ textures of meaning, even when we don’t know the etymologies. The Wired blog has a great post by John Scott Lewinski that called my attention to a new book called A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare. We learn, for instance, that we use language in chunks of words–as one linguist put it, “we know words by the company that they keep.” For instance, the…
Oh, no… I completely missed this song by Heather Nova. It would have been great to have had “Virus of the Mind” for the dissertation…. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqXIhKIOcjU[/youtube] HEATHER NOVA South 2001 Virus of The Mind Well I was watching this talk show the other day And on it there was this guy and he was saying When you let other people tell you what’s right When you leave your instinct and your own truth behind he said That’s a virus of…
These videos by Roy Eidelson examine several ways that American conservatives manipulate public opinion – and how this psychological warfare can be countered and resisted. Not flashy at all – he should probably have someone else do the voiceover – but nicely argued. “Dangerous Ideas: How Conservatives Exploit Our Five Core Concerns” (above) describes how today’s conservatives have used appeals to our core concerns about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness in order to further a narrow ideological agenda that…
Chuang Tzu (Master Chuang) was a witty and profound writer – and a bit of a curmudgeon sometimes. I love his parables, and his humor, and his mystical – yet very pragmatic – approach to attunement and freedom from conventional obsessions. He lived in China sometime around the 4th century B.C.E. He’s my favorite. You may run across different spellings of his name. This is how I saw it when I first started reading, but you will also see Zhuangzi,…
A new VirusHead tradition begins here. Now. Every Saturday I will post another of Laurie Anderson’s public service announcements. She actually calls them personal service announcements. Just a few little tidbits for you to ruminate upon. (Please make more, Laurie.) The first PSA that I’ve chosen is called “National Anthem.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cE6Pg2q3lI[/youtube] The words are great though..just a lot of questions, written during a fire…. things like: Hey, do you see anything over there? I don’t know, there’s a lot of…