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Reading Jack Gilbert’s ‘In Dispraise of Poetry’ in jail.
We can be haunted by our differences, our gifts. At times, we haunt others for theirs.
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On Jenn Shapland’s ‘The Meaning of Life’ and boundary conditions.
As we live, we must fine a way to greet the world with delight & joy.
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On trust and money.
In economics textbooks, the origin of money is often described as a replacement for barter. Silly examples are given: if you raise cows and need a hammer, you have to find someone who has an extra hammer and specifically wants cows. You might travel all across town with a cow in tow, searching for someone…
addiction, barter, Braiding Sweetgrass, Buterin, community, consumption, cryptocurrency, currency, Ethereum, Frank Bidard, gift economics, Hernan Diaz, hoarding, late fees, Magic the Gathering, monetary exchange, money, money versus barter, non-disclosure agreement, origin of money, overconsumption, Price of Crypto, promise, reparations, resource transfer, Robin Wall Kimmerer, social contract, social network, Third Hour of the Night, tragedy of the commons, Trevor Jackson, trust, Trust novel, vampire bats, wealth, Windigo, Windigo economics
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On love and history.
Of all my children’s toys, I imagine that the rainbow unicorn appears most unlovable. Its fur is tattered, some patches nearly bare and others clumped or crusty with goo. Its horn is a broken nub flaking bits of plastic. The eyes are scratched. The wings are pocked. The once-bright colors have faded. This unicorn is…
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On islands of care.
Good policies can be undermined by uncooperative neighbors.
aggregation of people in need, Bloomington, Bloomington Indiana, Bret Stephens, concentration of people in need, cooperation, Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, drug use, drugs, Eric Westervelt, global policy, housing policy, incarceration, Indiana, jail, local governance, local policy, mass incarceration, misuse of data, New York Times editorial, Oregon, War on Drugs, wealth tax
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On ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars.’
I went to the jail last Sunday afternoon to host our weekly poetry class. A corrections officer escorted me to the fourth floor and then down a hallway toward the room that they let me use for classes. The officer and I had briefly chatted in the elevator, but after we reached the fourth floor,…
Adjei-Brenyah, book review, Chain Gang All Stars, Chain Gang All Stars review, Correction, crime, Department of Corrections, incarceration, isolation, jail, Juan Mendez, mass incarceration, mental health, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, poetry, prison, public safety, safety, seg, segregation, solitary, solitary confinement, teaching in jail, torture, Where Life Is Precious Life Is Precious
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On the National Portrait Gallery, Thomas Jefferson, and haunting.
Jefferson looks haunted, although not haunted enough …
David Hockney, Edward Baptist, Eleannor Roosevelt portrait, Eleanor Roosevelt, How to Excavate a Heart, Jenny Odell, measurement, National Portrait Gallery, portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt, productivity, quantification, queer art, racial injustice, Saving Time, slavery, Smithsonian Art Gallery, Snail Space, spreadsheets and slavery, The Half Has Never Been Told, Thomas Jefferson
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On emptiness, ruin, and spirits.
We might see empty ruins. Someone else might see a place full of their ancestors’ spirits.
ancestor worship, ancestors, ancient civilizations, ancient cultures, ancient people, archaeology, Cahokia, Calusa, colonialism, high rise, Indigenous civilizations, luxury condos, Miami, oral tradition, prehistoric American civilizations, prehistoric civilizations, prehistoric ruins, prehistory of the Americas, real estate developers, real estate development, Rio Viejo, ruin, ruins, ruins as a home for spirits, spirits, spirituality, storytelling, Tequesta, Ucanal, worship
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On Gabrielle Zevin’s ‘Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow’ and video games as art.
For better & for ill, games can welcome us into another world and show us the choices we would make.
art, bee swarm, Braid, children, computer games, emergent behavior, emergent gameplay, first-person shooters, Gabrielle Zevin, game design, game save files, games, Grand Theft Auto, GTA, Hiron Ennes, jail, jail classes, Jonathan Blow, Leech, Limbo, linear narratives, memory, Minecraft, parenting, Peleg, poetry in jail, Psalmist, Psalmist game, psychological effect of gaming, psychological effect of video games, rumination, Sara Levine, save files, save game files, school, swarming behavior, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Treasure Island!!!, video game, video game analysis, video game design
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On scientific misconceptions, Eurocentrism, and the evolution of skin color.
We shouldn’t consider the pressures faced by one group of people to be the default against which all others are measured.
A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Adam Rutherford, Against the Grain, anti-racism, Bruce Degen, cow milk, Crawford, dairy, dark skin, David Graeber, David Wengrow, dietary vitamins, Eurocentric, Eurocentrism, Europe, evolution, evolution of human skin color, evolution of lactase persistence, evolution of skin color, famine, farming, folate, Gail McCormick, Genome-Wide Patterns of Selection in 230 Ancient Eurasians, George Chaplin, human evolution, human migration, human skin color, hunter-gatherer, impact of farming on human evolution, influence of diet on human evolution, Jablonski & Chaplin, Jablonski and Chaplin, James Scott, Joanne Cole, lactase persistence, lactose intolerance, lactose tolerance, light skin, Loci Associated with Skin Pigmentation, Mathieson, melanin, migration, natural selection, Nina Jablonski, nutrition, nutrition in human evolution, racism, racism in science, scientific racism, skin color, sun screen, The Dawn of Everything, The Evolution of Skin Color, The Evolution of Skin Coloration, The Magic School Bus, The Magic School Bus Explores Human Evolution, uv light, uv penetration, Vitamin D, when did light skin evolve, why did light skin evolve, why did skin color evolve, why do we have different color skin, why do we have different skin color
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Frank Brown Cloud 