social
Bread and Circuses
(Originally posted Oct. 24, 2020) Somewhere around the second century CE, the Roman satirist Juvenal coined the phrase ‘bread and circuses’ which has come to mean placating one’s populace with cheap bribes to distract them from their political grievances. Here’s… Read More ›
What, if anything, is wrong with MSNBC, CNN, and FOX? (Part 1 of 2)
My other half habitually surfs through a number of national and international news channels in the evenings. Our house is small, so I’m captive to whatever noise emanates from these rotating broadcasts. Sometimes this noise really gets under my skin…. Read More ›
Small house in a big world. The power of perspective.
I don’t know how old I was when I first heard I live in a very small house, but my windows look out on a very big world. But as one of my dad’s favourite quotes, I’ve known it as… Read More ›
Thoughtlets. XLVI. Observing patterns of human behaviour.
Some find Tacitus’ Annals tedious. Some of it is. But his work keeps me riveted. I’m not so interested in history, per se. Rather I’m interested in identifying patterns of human behaviour, events that repeat over millennia, and asking why… Read More ›
The Lesser Known Logical Fallacies.
If you’ve ever taken a logic and critical thinking course, you’ll have learned about logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are patterns of bad reasoning that occur so often they’re given their own special names. Ad hominem arguments are directed at the… Read More ›