Thank you for visiting. Some of the subheadings above link to content on the corresponding topics. You may be most interested in my writings, the Extensible Expression Evaluator, or a brief auto-bio. My popular math expositions may be found on the Platonic Realms web site. Below are whatever projects, observations, or ruminations have seemed worth sharing recently, most recent first. If you feel like a conversation on these or any topic, you are welcome to initiate one using the contact form.
Friday, March 09, 2012
Essay: On Homosexual Marriage
The state-by-state political battle over same-sex marriage is at its climax, with impassioned leadership on both sides. As of this writing such marriages may be performed in 10 countries, and in 6 states within the United States. These numbers appear certain to grow.
I have struggled with this issue for a long time, and my own thinking has changed quite a bit even in just the last several years. As a Catholic I assent to many propositions on faith, including the proposition that what we mean by Christian marriage is a sacrament between the sexes. I have also harbored doubts about gay couples being parents. I am inclined to find movies like The Kids Are All Right preachy and off-putting, even disturbing. With all these stipulations, I think nonetheless I have a different take on this now.
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Monday, November 21, 2011
Essay: My Philosophy of Teaching
Some memorable comments from student course questionnaires:
He is more interested in how much we learn than the letter grade we get. He teaches discipline which can be applied to all courses.
He encourages the students to grasp concepts on their own, rather than babying their way through lessons. He challenges the student to learn.
Graded work unfairly, based on what he thought was right.
In our day the operative paradigm among many of our institutional decision makers is the business model.*PBS Frontline (2002). The ‘Business Model.’ http://www.pbs.org /wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/standards/business.html This view sees our students (and society at large) as consumers of a product called education, and it evaluates success in terms of externally quantifiable outcomes, balancing measurable benefits against monetary cost. On this view, the faculty member in his or her role as an educator is simply the talent, a specialist contracted to deliver the product.
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Correspondence: A Catholic? Really?
I received a comment through this website that read in part,
My query concerns something in your bio. You wrote, ‘At that time I also converted to Catholicism, and this too has lasted.’ I would like to know what parts of Christianity you believe and why you believe. I'm intrigued because you obviously are quite intelligent and thoughtful, and this seems to me incongruous with religious belief. I'm not seeking an argument or debate; but I'm genuinely interested to know your rationale for believing the Christian doctrines.
I’m not much of a Christian apologist (as literary defenders of the faith are called) but I was moved on this occasion to attempt some sort of answer.
Dear ___________,
Thanks for writing, and for your kind comments.
When I converted to Catholicism I was at the end, or so I deem it, of my magical-thinking phase of enquiry. Starting in my early teen years I took an interest in “the occult,” then in various other new-agey topics, then in traditional and non-traditional forms of mysticism, and finally yoga. For all of this there were perhaps many impetuses, but I’m sure a standard psychological analysis would emphasize my generally absent father and a concomitant need to feel some sense of personal empowerment.
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Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Correspondence: Regarding the 911 Truth Movement
Recently in a conversation with a colleague and friend of mine, a thoughtful and very progressive person, passing reference was made to the 9-11 Truth Movement, and I expressed surprise that it was still attracting adherents. He evidently did not share my dismissive attitude, and although we immediately passed on to other matters he sent me, some days later, a DVD he had purchased just for me, of a kind with others I have seen purporting to provide evidence that the attacks of September 11th, 2001, were an “inside job,” that the World Trade Center towers were brought down by pre-planted explosives, and that the subsequent reports by FEMA, NIST, and others are part of a grand conspiracy to hide the truth of what occurred. Below is a slightly abridged and tidied-up version of the letter I sent in response.
Dear ___________,
Thanks for your letter and the DVD. I wish I could give you a positive assessment of the DVD, but I cannot. I will do my best to explain why.
For several years following the events of September 11th, 2001, I conducted a personal research program into what happened that day, because like many I was shocked and intrigued by it and skeptical of the Bush regime’s innocence. I built and maintained a collection of many dozens of files, including videos of the collapses, news reports, eye-witness testimonies, and many independent analyses. I examined closely the videos and articles produced by David Ray Griffin and Bob Jones. I read a great deal also that was written by Michael Ruppert, and bought several books including Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon. Finally, I read with care the investigative reports by FEMA and NIST, and in addition read or watched accounts in Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and other popular and technical media.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Jots and Doodles: Public Education
There is a faddish idea going around that it is somehow inappropriate for government to be involved in education. Among the popular schemes for tricking the American people out of their democracy, this suggestion that public education be phased out in favor of publicly funding only private or “free market” education is one of the most contemptible.
The usual suspects are pushing it—those who stand to profit by it, of course—and they are playing upon the anxieties and aspirations of good parents.
Let us remind them, and one another, of the reason we have public education as a vital part of our civic commons.
It is not, as many a liberal cynic would have it, in order to train productive and compliant workers. It is not, as many a conservative humbug might grumble, to indoctrinate young people with liberal ideologies, or to corrupt them with sex education and immoral literature.
It isn't even for the varsity sports.
We have public education because we are a republic, that is, a representative democracy. This form of government, which our nation's founders gifted to us, is one in which the people are not serfs, or subjects, or any other passive collection of human beings. Americans are citizens. We are not born in servitude to an owner, or in subserviance to a soveriegn, but in freedom to actively participate in—indeed to be—our own government.
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Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Correspondence: Letter to Senators Webb and Warner Regarding Pfc Manning
(updated below)
Pfc Bradley Manning, accused of leaking secret documents to the Wikileaks web site, was being held by the U.S. military under conditions that were brought to public attention by Glenn Greenwald, one of the finest independent journalists working in our time. I was moved to write this letter immediately upon reading his report. This is the letter to Senator Webb; the same letter was sent also to Senator Mark Warner. Many join in mass mailings to congress over one cause or another, but it is my experience that a personal, civil, and succinct letter to one's representative is likeliest to receive attention. Sadly, the publicity brought to bear on the military on this issue did not seem to result in those responsible doing their duty to the law and Constitution. Senator Jim Webb
248 Russell Senate Office Building
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