Loosely Speaking

By Ciel - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Everything Else

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion

The hotel where we went for the COSine convention last weekend has changed ownership. We could not unload at the front door because workers were moving out a monolith of The Ten Commandments that the previous owners had placed there. Then I read of a case the Supreme Court is considering regarding whether or not the City of Boston could decline to fly a Christian flag alongside the US flag and the Massachusetts flag in front of the Boston city hall. The thing is, if a public display of religious... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Covid again

A good friend of mine here in the Springs has had it this past week, and her two teen girls have it, though lesser symptoms. She and they were vaccinated, so likely it will be miserably inconvenient, but not deadly. Another member of the local theater community died of it last week. He was not vaccinated. My feelings are mixed, seeing so many people I respect mourning his passing, and yet, I also am seeing it as a kind of suicide, to go about in the world full of risks, without taking the... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, December 13, 2021

Borrowed from a writers group chat

"What qualifies a story as a novella vs short story vs novel and other things?" Someone by the name of Jayson Charlesford responded: "I'm gonna risk saying it has little to do with word count. A novel is a story with a theme, a main plotline, and subplots that support both of those things. A novella is like a novel but has no subplots. A short story is, to my mind, the hardest to define, but has a tendency towards being a flash in time, the tightest possible focus around the resolution of an... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, December 10, 2021

Consequences.

I went to a show that required masks and vaccination or a recent covid test. A middle-aged person in line ahead of me sounded indignant and a little defensive when confronted with the query, maybe proud of being neither vaccinated nor tested. This put the box office folk in a very uncomfortable situation. Happily, there were tests on hand and the theater didn't have to deny her seating. If that had not been an option, no one would have been happy, everyone would have been uncomfortable with the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Pandemic fears

I fear the virus more than I could possibly fear the shots! For one thing, I barely felt the shots--the booster, not at all! And it's free: no financial after-effects! And it does not significantly interrupt one's life. I fear much more the chance of weeks of hospitalization, months maybe years, maybe a lifetime of after-effects, if I don't die of it. Covid will be over once people who, for whatever reasons or excuses, don't get the shot, finally do get it, and quit giving the virus legs, quit... Sign in to see full entry.

Musical Shenanigans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNgkxyMMfiE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXwpGCn2KQ Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Happy Thanksgiving from across the Pond...

"Americans are a very modern people of course. "They are a very open people too. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. They don't stand on ceremony. They take people as they are. They make no distinction about a man's background, his parentage, his education. They say what they mean and there is a vivid muscularity about the way they say it. They admire everything about them without reserve or scholarship. They are always the first to put their hands in their pockets. They press you to visit... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, November 21, 2021

From 'voir-dire' to 'verdict'

Voir-dire: To speak truth. Verdict: Ver-dict: to speak truth. Everyone sees truth through their own eyes, their own perceptual filters. Our eyes, our filters. We so often see what we want to see, what is expedient to see, what answers our personal needs to see. Does a jury speak truth? I suppose they do sometimes. But our adversarial system of justice, derived from the Magna Carta and the system of justice it established centuries ago in Great Britain, that we inherited, is not the only nor... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, November 19, 2021

Embracing

Primates... The Ones That Hug: With our whole bodies, we hug for joy, to give and get comfort, to express feelings we simply must share! We hug hello and goodbye... Dogs put up with our hugging; cats, sometimes, if they feel like it, seem to appreciate a good cuddle. Elephants hug with their trunks. Many animals make contact, but no one hugs like the primates! https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/rescued-chimp-hugs-jane-goodall-video/... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Civilization: We should try it!

Since humankind began building and living in cities, we have claimed as our own the term 'civilized.' It describes the next stage of humanity, following from 'savage' to 'barbaric' to 'civic.' It follows from 'family' to 'clan' to 'tribe' and implies something beyond the stacking of bricks, the building of close housing and monumental edifices to community uses. But all those earlier social stages of development were added to, not replaced by 'civilization.' Most of us, whether we live in cities... Sign in to see full entry.

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