Daniel DiGriz
AN EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
New York City (again)
Went all over NYC again - well, lower Manhattan - everything below Central Park. This time went to Queens… [more]
Portland, Oregon 2010
I love Portland. I like Chicago, as a friend. New York City is enthralling and wonderful - center of… [more]
San Francisco
We scouted San Francisco as a possible place to live. For us, it's about a lot of things - the mass transit,… [more]
Legal Dramas
Point One: I think David E. Kelley's tongue-in-cheek legal (and educational) dramas (like Boston Legal & Boston Public) set the same brilliant standard that John Hughes did with the teen dramedy (Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink). Hughes seemed to make real … [Read More...]
The Fixed Star of Authentic American Thought
"West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette: In a 6-to-3 decision, the Court overruled its decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis and held that compelling public schoolchildren to salute the flag was unconstitutional. The Court found that salutes of the type mandated by the West Virginia State Board … [Read More...]
11-22-63 Stephen King
Normally, I'd wait until the end before posting about a book. But I'm reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I intended to ditch it as soon as I realized it would be first person. But I got stuck in its world. It starts out a bit YAD feeling, with what seems like it'll be a frame story. What King is actually doing is … [Read More...]
Moonlit Mind
Of course I had to read this one. Child fleeing abusive home. They're hunting him, and he has to learn to make a life on his own. It's a novella, and maybe another of Koontz's recent teasers. But I'm willing to be teased with this. There's a teaser for 77 Shadow Street at the end, but I found it bleh. Just horror. I'll … [Read More...]
Education and Paying My Way
I've never undertstood people being willing to pay for training, college courses, a degree, certification, education, but who treat the money they've spent trying things out in life (experimentally) as money "lost" when they later choose another direction. Money spent on a house, and then you decide you don't want a … [Read More...]
Oklahoma – An Experiment That Paid Off
Oklahoma was an experiment that lasted half my life. I lived in Oklahoma when I was 12, again when I was 15, from 17-23 (the rest of my boyhood) & 24-28 (the beginning of adulthood) and again from 30-31 (my experiment with on-campus grad school). I returned in 2000 as a married man and stayed for more than 10 years … [Read More...]
Brief Note to Those We No Longer Know
To those who left us, who abandoned me or my wife or the both of us, throughout our lives, because we weren't finished yet, or we fell short, or because in some ways the world had shattered us like glass and we were looking up in pieces with sharp edges. You were foolish and impatient. You lacked integrity and were … [Read More...]
Epistemology, Judgement, and Identity
For me, epistemology, judgment, and identity are the core variables that determine whether I engage people seriously or merely humour them. How do you deal with motivations and behaviors you don't understand? Do you superimpose meaning over them, thereby substituting an illusion for understanding, an assumption for … [Read More...]
Political Self-Testing – Are You an Idiot or a Liar?
I break politically minded people down into two categories - liars and idiots. I'm not talking about politicians, which are either paid, professional liars or ideologically sponsored fools. I mean ordinary people who consume political news and either believe what they hear or see it as the arena for their ideological … [Read More...]
Fundamentalism is to Christianity what Top 40 Country is to Folk Music
It's Thistle & Shamrock night, and Folk Salad night. I'm always surprised that people seem surprised, sometimes, because I listen to Celtic or Appalachian folk. Likewise, I have a straw hat I wore when I ran a company based on working outdoors. Normally I come off as either a bit Breaking Benjamin or just Wagner, … [Read More...]
Zoos and Animal Procurement
When I was younger, I bought into the sales pitch that zoos are rescuing animals from the jungles where, otherwise, they might be wiped out. Later, when we had more information about animal procurement, they changed their pitch. It became about 'raising awareness' so that people would care about protecting animals in … [Read More...]
Conversion as Time Travel
When some people ask about my religion and, and I mention our traditions, they express surprise because I wasn't raised in it. Their point is that, if you didn't grow up in the Faith, speaking of "my people" or "our tradition" seems false or contrived. It has taken me some years to realize that, because they are … [Read More...]
The Executive Principle, Politics, and the Spirit of Antichrist
We live in an age of AntiChrist. I don't mean a fundamentalist theory that plays "who's the devil". I mean in principle, politically, and ethically, it's one of the ages of AntiChrist, of which there have been many - perhaps (as is my attitude) all of them. There are several core principles of AntiChrist or of an … [Read More...]
Soft Atheists – the New Gentle Antagonist
I've always thought atheists should be consistent. Don't bow your head when someone says grace. Don't close your eyes and pretend to go along. Don't go through the motions in your parents' church. Just be what you are. It's really impossible for atheism to be fully consistent - nihilism is the theoretical outcome, but … [Read More...]
We Are a Pack
It's never right to look at the family pet as 'just' an animal. It reflect a certain absence within the human being to do that - a missing component in the man, not the animal. It is the fundamental alienation from nature that Francis Schaeffer wrote about in Pollution and the Death of Man. "Dog" is often a derogatory … [Read More...]
The Dark Ages
1. A fictional period that current Mediaeval historians (e.g. Cantor, Strayer, et al) reject, but which is useful for history teachers to justify spending only one chapter on an entire millennium. 2. A means of ensuring students have no significant understanding (beyond parroted platitudes) of the religious precedents … [Read More...]
Power, Ideology, and the Western Epistemology
Every movement driven by ideology of any kind will eventually massacre, maim, murder, torture, and terrorize in the name of its ideals, if it can get the means, acquire enough support, and evade eradication. It could be a movement for peace and lollipops led by Bambi and Mother Theresa, and it would shoot your family … [Read More...]
10 Years Ago I Began This Experiment
On New Years Day in 2002 I dumped a corporate job in the sales department of a national office supply chain. Leaving shocked my boss and one of my colleagues. I remember having the discussion with my coworker. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Anything but this," I said. "But for now I plan to go back to running … [Read More...]
Academic Fashionistas vs. Being Educated
Those for whom education consists of conversance in other people's ideas have missed the point that that familiarity is merely a jumping off place not an end goal. Education, rightly, cannot be a hobby - that's trivial pursuit. Education delivers tools for developing something new, something with one's own brand on it, … [Read More...]
Tidbits
The Clock
The symbol for Ayn Rand's life was a cigarette (one of attitude). The symbol for her characters was a dollar sign (one of value). I've decided the symbol for my life is a clock … [Read More...]
