Archives

THE QUARANTINE FILES

Written while sheltering in place

Imagining a Revolution: sci-fi and a story of social change (2020.5.2)

Escape the Echo Chamber: a journey through the political spectrum (2020.4.45)

NERD TRAVEL GURU

Travel-inspired essays

The Appeal of the Genteel: Ben Franklin beyond work (2020.5.9)

THE MEANINGFULNESS PROJECT

An essay project devoted to exploring a sense of purpose through long-term commitment to core values

Social Media and the Creative Life (2017.10.19)

Mastery: Scrutinizing a new passion for permaculture (2017.9.26)

Meditation for People Who Hate It (2017.9.4)

Write your values (A daily ritual) (2017.9.1)

Living the Good Life (2017.7.18)

The Meaningfulness Project: A personalized curriculum for a meaningful life (2017.4.27)

EXTENDED BOOK REVIEWS

A balanced life: Appropriate technology and community development in den Ouden’s ‘Are Freedom and Dignity Possible?’ (2015.8.22)

Sex, Love, Morality: Everything you need to know about Bertrand Russell’s ‘Marriage and Morals’ (2015.7.31)

Spiritual safety from romance and Banana Yoshimoto’s ‘N.P.’ (2014.01.17)

My Doubt Is My Innocence: Moral Laziness and Milan Kundera’s Farewell Waltz (2013.9.17)

Imagining Educational Utopias: the Calm Before the Storm in Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End (2013.2.19)

Pessimism and Redemption?  Thoughts about Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad (2013.2.26)

EDITORIALS

As the entries get more up-to-date, I get much less esoteric 

An Education in Suffering (2018.1.14)

Getting Sick: A hero’s journey? (2018.1.6)

People’s history and Sanders’ presidential run (2015.10.22)

Ideal industry: Steel and Cradle to Cradle ‘nutrient’ cycles (2014.10.19)

Success and the alienation of self-mastery (2014.6.3)

Method acting, personality and identity: You are what you do (2014.05.12)

Enlightened assistance: Exploring the limits of charity (2014.05.02) 

The enlightened versus the opinionated?: A Defense of Conviction (2014.03.30)

A psychological perspective on gun violence in the United States (2014.03.03)

Alienation: A path to and from enlightenment? (2014.02.20)

The environmental humanities and species extinction shed light on our alienation with nature (2014.2.10)

Georgia Senate candidate’s hypocrisy exposed (2014.1.14)

Congress considers new regulation on chemicals in consumer products (2013.12.21)

Canada, Denmark, and Russia compete for North Pole (2013.12.10)

Trust and alienation: Online media giants protest NSA surveillance (2013.12.10)

Crocodiles use tools, so what? (2013.12.9)

Guanxi and a Typhoon: The art of the interview in Taiwan (2013.09.02)

Beating a Path through Your Intellectual Ambition: A Social Science Approach to Learning (2013.04.07)

Revenue and Environmentalism: Can a Carbon Tax Help the Environment and Fund Social Programs? (2013.1.2)

Some Problems with Pension (2012.12.18)

Co-opting Stakeholders in Democratic Social Policy Making (2012.11.27)

Efficiency Concerns and the Pursuit of Expansive Knowledge (2012.10.24)

Neoliberalism and Social Policy: A Problematic Combination during Economic Recessions (2012.6.15)

Interdisciplinarity and the Search for Collective Self-Actualization (2012.6.14)

Social Policy and Soft Power: How Domestic Institutional Development Can Impact A Nation’s Status in the International Community (2012.6.8)

Beyond Rationalism: Hypothesizing a Moral Dimension to State Motivation (2012.5.20)

The Comparative Institutionalist Approach: the Best Method for Understanding International Political Economy and Social Policies? (2012.5.12)

Conflating Social and Economic Policy (2012.4.27)

Markets as Institutions and Market Reform as a Constructive Process (2012.4.24)

Necessary Knowledge, Part 2 (2012.4.19)

Challenging the dichotomy of capitalist and socialist institutions and the implications for social policy-making (2012.4.18)

Political Parties and the Welfare State (2012.4.15)

What “New Institutional Economics” might have to say about Social Policy (2012.4.12)

Social Policy & International Development Aid (2012.4.9)

Necessary Knowledge, Part 1 (2012.04.8)

Isaiah Berlin’s Karl Marx and a Marxist-Materialist Argument for Regulation of Industry (2012.4.7)

NEWS DIGESTS

Summaries of environmental and other topics from various online sources.

Some insight into the life cycle of electronics (2014.8.24)

Bad news for au naturel transhumanists (2014.8.24)

Coca-Cola teams up with USDA to repair watersheds (2014.2.7)

US drugstore chain prioritizes values over profits (2014.2.7)

Study says materialism decreases well-being (2013.12.17)

Repeat environmental regulations offender faces steep consequences after wastewater scandal (2013.12.16)

Study shows companies more likely to do bad after doing good (2013.12.9)

Palm oil trader pressured to end deforestation (2013.12.9)

More evidence for social norms affecting behavior (2013.12.9)

Environmental optimism increases eco-friendly behavior (2013.12.9)

UK solves social policy problems with human nature insights (2013.12.8)