Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
History
Those Were the Days
Listening to a Sinatra tape on my portable tape recorder—there are some of ‘em still around!—and thinking some smug thoughts! No doubt folks who liked songs before the 1920s and after the 1980s have a nice repertoire and good memories—I think—but the mid-20th century was blessed with evocative and poetic songs. Oh, of course, some […]
Thoughts on Oppression
I have mixed feelings about this term. I just gave a talk on “oppression” and emphasized the milder forms. The term is evocative. I certainly concede that “oppression” is an apt word when it comes to a wide variety of political policies or social norm enforced by mobs or the police who are willing to […]
Time Passes, Fashions Change
There was a comic strip for a while titled Mother Goose and Grimm, in 1995 or so—and the title of the strip in question is Vampire Coffee Houses, and it shows a vampire is singing on a guitar, “Sunshine on my shoulder makes me shrivel up and blow away; Sunshine on my eyes burns […]
Types and the Power of Folly
How much insight can we expect people to develop in our time? I am wary about this, because it seems to me that very few people value or expect to experience true creative breakthroughs. That expectation is a rare “meme”—a term for an idea that catches on. In contrast, a meme that has widely caught […]
Uncovering the More
In the last half century humanity as extended itself tenfold (at least) in many directions: We now know there are many galaxies orders of magnitude in numbers and distance beyond what we knew before (thanks to Hubble-like telescopes); and realms of atomic interactions more subtle and complex than we knew before, with theories involving orders […]
Wacko
Wacko (i.e., without a h) is useful. Whacko seems to imply violence, while wacko is charmingly fey. Anyway, seeing myths everywhere? Indeed, there are some new books about the God myth. I believe in a God of mystics, but it is quite undefinable. After all, myth is only a word, an abstraction, a story. "There" […]
Why History is Interesting
…and fun! Two reasons: First, it is an aesthetic and meaning-making function. We are a part of this stream of events and feel “rooted” in being for this and against that, and there are many roots, some thick and strong, others thin, wispy. Second, there is an accelerating process off communication and innovation, each building […]
Why I Think Attacking Iraq is a Baaaad Idea
1. It’s not a pre-emptive strike–that’s an euphemism, a nice way to put what is really naked aggression. The claim is that they’re going to attack us or someone pretty soon, as soon as they get their armamentarium established. The appeal of the “hawks” is to that point in history before Hitler attacked, perhaps that […]
Why We Should Get Out of Iraq Now
A couple of years ago I posted on my website a paper, Why invading iraq is a baaaad idea. Turns out I was right in ways that I hadn’t even anticipated. Mixed emotions: I confess to being slightly triumphantly satisfied, but mainly I’m very sad, worried and indignant, enough to be losing sleep over it. So […]
Word Meanings Change
The word, “mysticism” has changed over time, from something weird and magical and ultimately superstitious to an underlying set of assumptions woven into story form, the way Joseph Campbell has re-worked the word and the field in the mid-late 20th Century. The word “gay” has similarly changed meaning, from carefree to homosexual. Yet many people […]