A life in words

  • Folklore by Taylor Swift: well done if melancholy

    Folklore by Taylor Swift: well done if melancholy

    Folky music has a tendency toward a melancholy, rainy-day vibe which is rather superfluous for me given my temperament, not to mention living in the Pacific Northwest. (Album collaborator Bon Iver’s Wash. captures the western part of the Washington State quite nicely.) So, well done as it is, Taylor Swift’s Folklore is unlikely to be…

  • Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa: bland and divisive

    Future Nostalgia by Dua Lipa: bland and divisive

    Not my genre but I can respect some pop. This though does almost nothing for me, and worse “Boys Will Be Boys” laid down some “us vs. them” feminism, shaming anyone who dares not absolutely endorse the song, seemingly rejecting the reality that the sexes experience sexual attraction differently, while ignoring the explicit sexualization happening…

  • On “Is Genesis History?”

    On “Is Genesis History?”

    Is Genesis History? is a 2017 feature film which interviews various believing, literalist, Christian PhDs about how they reconcile their belief in a young earth with their scientific training. And by “young earth” they mean literally 6000 or so years old. Given the fact (in my worldview anyhow) that the planet is vastly older than…

The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times, it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.John Adams, Thoughts on Government, April 1776