A Long-Overdue Review of Reviews: Le Guin, Said, Howey, St. Clair, Herbert/Anderson, and Shea/Wilson

 

Dear reader, I have been somewhat remiss in recent months about posting book reviews. To be completely honest, I have been a bit remiss in writing them at all. I mark them "read" intending to write reviews later and then... just sort of run out of steam or get busy or whatever. I've had Goodreads tabs open for months... At last the time has come to remedy this self-inflicted promise to myself. So here are some short-ish reviews of Almost Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin, Orientalism by Edward Said, Wool by Hugh Howey, A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair, The Machine Crusade by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, and The Golden Apple by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.

Thoughts on Our Fifth Pandemiversary

The masks I carry with me everywhere, even though I rarely wear them these days.

 

Five years ago today, the world changed with one press conference. The World Health Organization declared that the COVID-19 health crisis was officially a pandemic. I was traveling at the time. I cut my trip short and rented a car to drive home instead of flying. And everything changed.

Or did it?

I've been writing these pandemiversary posts since 2021. I often use it as a chance to reflect on how this experience has changed myself and others--and whether any of us have learned anything through our collective trauma.

Random Thoughts, Part 26: Being a Weirdo, Dune, Billionaires, Leaf Blowers, Diversity, Mustard, etc.

Welcome to Part 26 of my Random Thoughts series! Life keeps on happening, and the random thoughts keep on coming. With this entry, I'm up to 751 random thoughts, so maybe I'll hit 1000 random thoughts at some random point in the next couple years. This also continues to be an excuse to share memes and things that I liked. Enjoy! Happy Black History Month!

MLK Day 2025: We Do We Go From Here?

 

MLK Day Parade, Chattanooga, TN, Jan. 20, 2025

Today the United States simultaneously observes two things: 1. A holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. and, 2. The inauguration of Donald Trump for his second, non-consecutive term as US President. This coincidence offers as succinct a summary of where my country is morally and politically as anything I could imagine: many of my fellow Americans both claim to admire Martin Luther King, Jr. and voted for Donald Trump. 

How did we get here? And drawing on the title of King’ s most challenging book, where do we go from here?

MLK Day Parade Photos 2025

The Chattanooga MLK Day Parade wraps up with the Howard High School Marching Band near the mural at the corner of MLK Blvd. and Peeples St. (Jan. 20, 2025)

 

It's a chilly afternoon here in Chattanooga, TN, and I went down to watch our local MLK Day Parade. It's in the low 20's Fahrenheit (around -5 Celsius), which is considerably colder than usual for this part of the world, so the turnout was lower than usual. In the past, I've participated in the parade with my local chapter of United Campus Workers, but we didn't get organized in time this year. Since MLK Day is my favorite holiday and there's a weirdness this year as it coincides with a Presidential Inauguration, I figured I'd just go down by myself.

I took some pictures! And here they are, along with a bit of commentary. I will have a lot more commentary on the day and the state of US politics in another post, coming soon.

It has often amused me that we have a King and King intersection along the parade route.

Lookout Mountain (mentioned in the "I Have a Dream" speech from the parking lot of the church that did not hire King as pastor in the mid-1950's. Don't worry, he went down to Montgomery and down in history afterwards.

The Bessie Smith Center (the parade goes right by it)

The parade begins!

A good MLK quote for the parade

Another mural on the parade route

Obligatory selfie (I only break out the warm hat and scarf a couple days around these parts, but today was one of those days)

I also took a video of the Howard High School Marching Band's performance, but apparently Blogger is not cooperating with video uploads today. Oh, well.

So there you have it! Happy MLK Day!

Conference Panel: Building a Network of Scholars in Indian Philosophy: The Indian Philosophy Blog and Beyond

One of my favorite New York landmarks: The Empire State Building

Happy New Year!

After a nice, but all-too-short winter break, I'm hitting the ground running this week with a start to my spring semester as well as travel to the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Conference in New York City! I'll be chairing a panel called "Building a Network of Scholars in Indian Philosophy: The Indian Philosophy Blog and Beyond" on Thurs. Jan. 9. I've been part of The Indian Philosophy Blog since 2015, so this will be a nice time to celebrate the blog as well as a chance to meet some fellow scholars and think about the present and future of our little sub-discipline.

Holiday Horror 2024

I'm getting to my Holiday Horror post a little later than last year's post, but it's New Year's Eve and it's still Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, all of which I include under the banner of "the holidays," so it's not actually late (although I seem to have watched mostly Christmas-specific movies this year). What better way to deal with my conflicted feelings about this Most Wonderful Time of the year than lots of blood and guts and tinsel?