Yearly Archives: 2025

Six rules for responding to bad ideas

This entry was posted in Writing on by

SciManDan has put up a video which everyone trying to debunk bad ideas should watch. Nominally he’s talking about Flat Earthers. A lot of his videos are on that subject; a friend of mine likes to watch them, so I watch them too. Really, though, the six rules he offers don’t apply just to answering people who think the world is flat. They apply to any bad ideas you’re trying to knock down: socialism, Trumpism, “greedflation” theory, Moon landing hoax claims, whatever.

Watch the video, but I’ll quote his six rules here, substituting “[bad idea]” for “flat earth” to show the generality.
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A little ICE breaking

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged ICE liberty New Hampshire on by

There’s no safety from ICE anywhere in the US. La Carreta is a Mexican restaurant in Portsmouth, NH. On July 1, ICE abducted four of their employees on their way to work. This has increased fears not only for the people at the restaurant but for everyone in the city.

That’s not far from where I live, and the restaurant looked interesting and reasonably priced, so I decided to eat there on Sunday. They had outdoor seating and it was a very nice day, so I got a table outside.
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Commentary on Aaron Ross Powell’s essay

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged censorship ethics on by

The essay “Surround Yourself With Those Who Are Admirable, and Distance Yourself From Those Who Aren’t,” by Aaron Ross Powell, has me feeling ambivalent. Each time he links to it on Bluesky (and he’s linked to it a lot), I want to say something, but I couldn’t put my concern in a few words. It isn’t obviously wrong, but its focus could encourage readers to cut themselves off from all who disagree with them. In general, I should add, his newsletter is definitely worth reading, and even this piece helped me to clarify my thinking.
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Evaluating Charles Chaplin

This entry was posted in History and tagged history liberty movies on by

Charles Chaplin was a complicated person, formerly accused for being a Communist. (I use “Charles” rather than “Charlie” because this article focuses on the man rather than his movie persona.) These accusations had no merit, but the Wikipedia article on Chaplin echoes some of the charges against him. It claims that “he feared that capitalism and machinery in the workplace would increase unemployment levels” and that this view influenced his film Modern Times. It asserts that his late film Monsieur Verdoux presented views “criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction.” (Wikipedia articles regularly change, so you might see something different at a future date.)
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Coming to Plaistow July 22: The General

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged history music silent movies on by

It’s just two weeks till my next live silent movie show at the Plaistow Library: The General, made by and starring Buster Keaton. I know most of you aren’t local, but if you can spread the word among silent movie fans, it will help. This is the first time I’ll be presenting an evening show, and getting eight sign-ups so early is encouraging.
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Yearning to Breathe Free

This entry was posted in History Music and tagged history immigration music YouTube on by

In my latest YouTube video, Yearning to Breathe Free, I try something new. Rather than accompanying an existing silent film, I’ve created a ten-minute history of immigration to the US in still images and added my improvised accompaniment. It’s been a learning experience in a lot of ways. First was the selection of images to combine into a coherent story. It consists of several sequences, each covering a different historical period from 1607 to the present. The first version didn’t make the structure nearly clear enough. Thanks to Virginia Taylor for catching this problem. I thought about inserting a summary before each segment and adding captions and ended up doing both. Then there was the timing. Before adding the music, the pacing felt slow, yet some images hold a lot of text, and test viewers didn’t always spot the important parts in time. I lengthened the time for some images and drew visual attention to the important text in one image.
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The rise of explicit censorship

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One of the clearest signs of emerging tyranny is censorship. The Trump administration is using a combination of harassment in the civil courts and threats of prosecution to censor speech. Paramount has caved in to Donald Trump’s legal harassment, handing over $16 million in extorted money. There was little chance they’d lose the lawsuit, but the government can hurt it financially in many ways. CBS News, the subsidiary of Paramount which was the focus of Trump’s actions, is now less deserving of trust than ever.
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When bookstores refuse to sell books

This entry was posted in Commentary News and tagged books bookstores censorship Rowling on by

A San Francisco bookstore called the Booksmith (I think it’s unrelated to the old Paperback Booksmith chain) has stopped selling J. K. Rowling’s books because of the causes she supports. It’s unclear whether they’ll decline orders for the books or have just stopped stocking them. It won’t surprise anyone that the controversy has gotten ugly.
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