Thinking-Too-Loud

Today marks the end of the Obama presidency, and in some ways, it seems to mark the end of an era - or perhaps more pessimistically, the respite from the decline of an era that effectively ended with the events of September 11th, 2001. Perhaps we’d been to unwilling to admit it over the last 8 years, but since 2001, the United States of America turned from being a leader for the multicultural, involve-everyone-everywhere sentiment to the navel-gazing self-interested country that its enemies had always accused it of being; where George W. Bush led the country into misadventures and tipping the delicate balance that had held for the 90s in the Middle East into the dumpster-fire, basket-case of a region it seems right now. ...

Since Time is Money - money representing a token of value for the time you spend doing something - in theory you should be able to substitute either one for the other, right? Like, if you had all the time in the world, you could in theory make the thing you’re buying instead of paying someone else to have made it. We can apply that to thinking about housing prices. After all, the price of a house should be proportional to how much it costs to build, right? ...

Patrick Rothfuss writes on Terry Pratchett’s passing - and interestingly, he’s writing as a fan, not a “fellow writer”: Odds are, if you know much anything about me, you know I’ve been a fan of Pratchett for years. If you follow me on goodreads you’ve seen me write reviews so gushy that they border on the inarticulate. I didn’t know him. Honestly, I didn’t even know too much about him. I saw him speak once at a convention in Madison, and got to meet him very briefly. I wrote about it on the blog. ...

Walking into work yesterday, I decide to open Twitter to check for news before I get in, and I see a line I never wanted to see - Robin Williams, RIP. No, no, no, no, no, no, this has to be a hoax, surely? But I get to my desk and check, there’s multiple sources confirming, and it can’t be denied. Immediately I think of Dead Poets Society, of how that was the first movie I was conscious of crying in. I watched it in a dark room for English class, attempting to study the movie, but it was far too easy to get caught up in the content, mirroring the real world, an English teacher leading his class of boys to greater understanding. Our teacher knew well enough the impact, and was more than happy to watch it again to actually look at the content. ...

On the 95th anniversary of the Armistice of “The Great War”, words composed early on in that grand folly are recalled: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them The resonance in these words is powerful, and though we continue to go to war, it is an increasingly civilian world that marks this anniversary for the sake of recalling those lost in war. ...