Month: March 2020

• Bad Samaritans?

  I suspect this is an incredibly naïve, not to mention unpopular, opinion, but I suppose in these times of plague, I should be grateful we have borders -fences that keep them out, walls that keep us safe. But I’m not. I’ve always mistrusted borders: I’ve always been suspicious of boundaries that artificialize the denizens of…

  gozzter

  March 25, 2020

  Uncategorized

  borders, boundaries, Charles Crawford, Corona virus, countries, Covid 19, Kahlil Gibran, migrants, Nationalism, nations, pandemic, Peace of Westphalia, refugees, sovereignty, Sykes-Pico agreement, territorial integrity, Thirty Years War, walls, WHO, Xenophobia

• Mind Trips

  Does your mind ever behave as if you weren’t getting enough fibre in your diet? Does it ever seem to plug up with loge -or whatever the noun form of logy is? Mine does that whenever it doesn’t get sufficient exercise, I find -not enough thinking perhaps. On the other hand, even when I think…

  gozzter

  March 18, 2020

  Uncategorized

  coding, concentration, Jamie Kreiner, medieval monks, memory, mens intentus, Python, University of Georgia

• When beggars die there are no comets seen

  When I was growing up, Death was a word I rarely had to use. I suppose that’s the thing about nuclear families: they sometimes privilege the unit at the expense of others in the kin. Occasionally, a distant relative I had never met succumbed, or there would be a report on the news of casualties…

  gozzter

  March 11, 2020

  Uncategorized

  Andy Owen, closure, Death, Frank Kermode, lives are stories, Pauline Boss, stories, The Sense of an Ending

• A rarer spirit never did steer humanity

  Okay, here’s a seemingly obvious and probably self-evident question: What constitutes personhood? I mean I assume that, until recently, it was something only bestowed on us -humans, that is- but what, exactly, is a person? And does the reason we were its exclusive possessors have anything to do with the fact that we are the…

  gozzter

  March 4, 2020

  Uncategorized

  boundaries, etymology, legal definitions, masks, Maya, metaphors, naming, OED, Online Etymology Dictionary, personhood, persons, Sarah Jackson, University of Cincinnati