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June 2023 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
Category Archives: Sociocultural
Poverty Memes
In the United States we are conflicted about poverty. When referring to poor people there are two over-generalizations that we use. On one side we have what might be called the concept of the “noble poor” such as the hero-protagonists … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Sociocultural
Tagged family, Great Society, New Deal, poverty, TANF
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Community Aid
The system of local irrigation in New Mexico contains a lengthy network of canals, most of them small and dirt-lined, maintained annually in a system that was developed over many centuries. In a few places there are larger government-maintained diversion … Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Sociocultural
Tagged acequia, agriculture, economy, government, irrigation, labor, mayordomo, volunteer, water
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Pragmatic States
The United States has a lengthy history of pragmatism in both philosophy and action, a long tradition that may have helped the nation grow but may also have inspired, or at least prefigured, the serious political conflicts of the second … Continue reading
Posted in Sociocultural
Tagged de Toqueville, Franklin, John Dewey, philosophy, pragmatism, Republican, riots, tea party, Trump, United States, war, William James
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Change Le Même
One of the most common tropes around the beginning of the twenty-first century is a phrase that has been used to describe virtually every major event from the attack on the world trade center to the election of Donald Trump … Continue reading
Posted in Media, Sociocultural
Tagged behavior, change, focus, future, joy, observation, reality, significance
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Ban Books and More
As I write this we are in the midst of a national effort to ban ideas. This isn’t anything new; our politicians and pundits have been involved in what has become known as the “culture wars” for years, and previous … Continue reading
Real Magic
Arthur had come to the conclusion that even after years of dedicated effort, after all of those hours and hours of lonely practice, staring at himself in front of a mirror, watching attentively to micro-adjust his movements and his statements, … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Sociocultural
Tagged magic, religion, sorcery, witchcraft
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Supreme Ego
In June this year the Supreme Court vacated Roe v. Wade with an extreme, repetitive, and oddly argued opinion that will, despite assurances to the contrary, threaten a constellation of basic rights that have been built up over the past … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Sociocultural
Tagged abortion, Casey, Christian, Dobbs, Eisenstadt, Federalist, Griswold, LGBTQ, Loving, marriage, Obergefell, originalist, religion, Roe, Supreme Court
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No Such Thing
One simple economic principle that is all-too often ignored is the one represented by the acronym TANSTAAFL. Never mind that in order to create an easily pronounced phonetic entity the short instructive declaration behind TANSTAAFL has been often expressed as … Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Sociocultural
Tagged brokerage, cost, economics, exchange, free, free lunch, investment, PFOF, services, stock market, TANSTAAFL
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Big Boy Pants?
In recent decades we, as a society, have made progress in removing many of the vestiges of sexist behavior and thought from our society. For many of us it’s not enough progress, to be certain, just as for those groups … Continue reading
Posted in Sociocultural
Tagged anti-social, balls, domineering, masculinity, negative, progress, sexism
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Imperial Failure
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine should not have been a surprise. Not to anyone. It was, in large part, a result of the imperial imperative; the desire of an egotistical leader with dictatorial powers to reconstruct the global prestige and … Continue reading
Posted in Sociocultural
Tagged expansion, Imperial, invasion, military, occupation, propaganda, Putin, Russia, Ukraine, war
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