Consider these two conversations: the first was one I had around a year ago at a Verizon Wireless […]
technology
I used to be really good at demanding an appropriate level of separation between my work and personal […]
I drive a 1963 Ford Falcon Futura. It isn’t a hot rod, or some tricked out sleeper. It’s […]
An 18-year-old woman was flying down the highway in the central valley of California when she lost control […]
Jack Donovan in his book Becoming a Barbarian has a chapter titled “The Empire of Nothing.” In it he offers a compelling critique of our current political and cultural milieu. In fact, he argues that it isn’t so much a culture that is being forwarded but an anticulture where there is no “Emperor, no center and no people.” Instead, the Empire of Nothing is a collection of businesses and institutions that have aligned against identity in some vague hope of “progress.”
God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make a choice. Our civilization […]
Heinrich Faust had sought to learn everything that can be known under heaven. He studied the great sciences, […]
We have all seen them. Perhaps you are one of them, one of those peculiar individuals we see driving down the road in their own car all by themselves wearing a facemask to combat the Coronavirus. Of course, we know the benefits of wearing a face mask in public. In some places it is not only suggested but required, not only for employees of essential businesses but those who choose to use those businesses as well. But alone in the car seems to be a bizarre and unreflective take on things.
They said it was for our best interest. They said that it was how we demonstrated love for our neighbor, especially those weaker than us. Not to mention, it was the law of the land, it was what was expected, it ought to be obeyed for the general welfare of all. So with a particular American piety and sense of righteousness, the 18th Amendment banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors. It brought to this great country the long-forgotten era known as prohibition.
There are very few better than Michael Crichton when it comes to warning about the numerous ways that […]
By Joel A. Hess – A week ago I had the pleasure of enjoying a drink or two […]
By Tim Winterstein –
I’m not proud of it, but Alfred Hitchcock is one of the gaps in my film self-education. It’s sort of like those classic books of the Western canon I always tell myself I’ll get around to. I’ve got good intentions to read more Dostoevsky or Greek dramas or Moby Dick or Les Misérables… well, they look good on my shelf, at least. So I finally watched Vertigo last year, and now Rear Window. Rope and North by Northwest are next. (I know, I know. By the way, have you all seen these great new shows, Breaking Bad and Justified?)
By Graham Glover –
I’ve been thinking about it for almost 22 years. Sometimes it’s simply a fleeting thought. Other times it preoccupies an inordinate amount of my day. Making this jump – taking this plunge, is something I’ve considered my entire adult life. And now I’m ready. After a long journey of vacillating, I’m really going to do it. I’ve spent countless hours researching every conceivable reason why I should and even more why I shouldn’t. I’ve analyzed copious amounts of data, including primary and secondary sources, as well as scathing critiques of them all. I’ve carefully deliberated what my decision will mean, both immediately and in the long term. But it’s not just my decision. It’s a family decision, because my decision will affect them all. It’s no wonder then that my wife has been instrumental in leading me to this point. You might even say she is the one who pushed me over the top – the one who gave me the final bit of encouragement I needed.
By Paul Koch –
Last taco Tuesday, I sat next to my buddy Tim at our usual spot. Televisions surrounded us above the bar and throughout the whole cantina. Almost all of them had some sort of sports on display from the LA Dodgers to the beginning of NFL training camps to just about anything you might find amusement in (even the terrible game of soccer). But every once and a while, a particular TV will stream the daily news that exists outside of the sports world as a sort of reprieve from the rest of the familiar storylines.
By Paul Koch –
An 18-year-old woman was flying down the highway in the central valley of California when she lost control of her vehicle and rolled the car, killing her 14-year-old sister, who was thrown out the back window. As far as tragedies go, this one was pretty run of the mill. Tragic, to be sure. Avoidable, absolutely. But it was not unusual on the highways of California. To be sure, such a moment would hardly make the nightly news these days, except for one bizarre twist. The whole event, from the reckless driving to the death of her sister, was streamed live on Instagram.
By Tim Winterstein –
Warning: Spoilers! If you haven’t seen the film and plan to, you may want to postpone reading this until afterward.
In light of last week’s post, I hesitate to make too much out of my movie of the week, War for the Planet of the Apes. That is to say, you need find nothing particularly meaningful in the movie to enjoy it. Not only is it a great conclusion to Rise and Dawn, War is certainly the best of the three films. The story is complex and well-paced. In the few scenes where the story slows and feels like it might get bogged down, it is saved by raw emotion or humor (such as Steve Zahn’s Bad Ape). The CGI on the apes is astoundingly good, particularly with Caesar and Maurice. There’s nothing mechanical or unrealistic about them.
By Scott Keith –
I recently finished reading The Revenge of the Analog – Real Things and Why They Matter by David Sax. All in all, it was not a bad book. Sax is not so much making an argument in his book as he is acting as a reporter laying out the facts of what is happening and perhaps why.
By Paul Koch –
Our world is full of an insane amount of noise—not just the sounds of the freeway or the airplanes overhead. There is the contestant hum of electronic interference that comes into our lives as visual noise and mental noise. We live distracted and fragmented lives. While sitting with our families, we check Facebook and text people disconnected from our daily lives. We watch YouTube videos in our private theaters while we go to the bathroom. And at night, we fall asleep to the warm glow of the TV waiting for it all to start again.
By Graham Glover –
For the last several weeks I’ve been living in the backwoods of the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. Training alongside my Soldiers, I was “disconnected” from the rest of the world during this time, with no access to my phone or personal laptop. That meant: no calls, texts, email, Facebook, or Twitter, no ESPN, Fox News, Huffington Post, or GatorSports.com. I had virtually no idea what news stories were breaking, which sports teams were winning, and perhaps most importantly, no ability to engage you, the readers of The Jagged Word!
By Scott Keith –
*This blog is by a previous employee and friend, Matt Lawler. He has contributed to The Jagged Word in the past, and the other day he surprised me with a couple of submissions. I love to give aspiring writers a shot at a wider audience, so I’ll be running Matt’s piece in place of mine today. Enjoy Matt’s article.
I tend to spend a decent chunk of my time on the web, getting lost on Wikipedia and reading the most random things imaginable. In the midst of one of these binges, I learned an interesting factoid. During World War II, the United States set up various military bases on islands in the South Pacific to more effectively combat the threat of Imperial Japan. After the war, some anthropologists studying the natives of these islands found something incredible. The islanders, never having been exposed to such incredible technology, had developed an entire religion centered around what they had seen. This religion was labeled by the anthropologists as a “cargo cult.” It consisted of idols in the form of replica airplanes, watchtowers, guns, and crates made out of twigs and leaves by the islanders. They believed that these objects were gifts from the gods, or gods themselves, and worshiped them as such. As a matter of fact, several of these cargo cults persist to this very day.