Skip to main content

Initial post

I have considered creating a blog for quite awhile, but it has always felt (and still does, a bit) narcissistic. I mentally temper that with the thought that my narcissisum stays private unless others wish to read ... and then it isn't quite as narcissistic, eh?

I have no plans on how I will use this space, but I am pleased with the double-entendre name.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The problem with fundamentalism, part 2: Religious fundamentalism

This is the second part of a two part series where I discuss the problems I see with two prevalent forms of fundamentalism (the first discussed Constitution and fundamentalism: http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/2012/05/problem-with-fundamentalism-part-1.html ).  In this part, I will be discussing biblical fundamentalism.  I will be referring to sources more frequently here, as I cannot claim the expertise I could for the last installment. Let me start by saying that I understand this is an extremely controversial topic, especially the stance I am taking.  My goal is not to offend, but it is instead to discuss why I think a fundamentalist approach to the Bible (and, in some respects, any text) has insurmountable problems.  I think that most Fundamentalists I know are quite willing to discuss why they believe their hermeneutic approach is the correct one, so my hope is that they are equally sanguine when someone explains why that pathway seems problematic. Here is t...
2 comments
Read more

Why COVID-19 is MUCH worse than the seasonal flu

This is the second in a series of posts about the COVID-19 pandemic . This installment is discussing why COVID-19 is much, much worse than the seasonal flu. Here it is, in a nutshell : COVID-19 is more contagious, more deadly, already has more known long-term impacts, has no vaccine or truly effective treatments, and has no apparent seasonality. Contagion SARS-COV-2 is much more contagious. The median R0 (average number of people infected by each person when nobody is immune) is 5.7 , or more optimistically 2.5 . For the pandemic to go away, R0 would need to effectively be less than 1.  The estimate of the 1918 novel flu was between 1.2 and 2.4 .  (An R0 of 5.7 means we need over 80% of the population to be immune to reach effective herd immunity .) Beyond that, the incubation period is long, and the number of transmissions before symptoms begin hovers near half those infected . And the duration of being contagious is longer, up to 10 days after the first symptoms. That means ...
3 comments
Read more

The problem with fundamentalism, part 1: Constitutional fundamentalism

In this two-part series, I plan on discussing the major issues I see with two prevalent types of fundamentalism: constitutional and biblical.  Though the two need not be related, it appears to me that one often leads to the other. This first installment is on a fundamentalist interpretation of the Constitution.  I have some expertise here, given that I have my JD and an undergraduate in English, so I will rarely be referring to other sources (outside the Constitution itself).  In this discussion, I am defining constitutional fundamentalism as a combination of "originalism" -- look at what the words meant when they were originally written -- and "strict constructionism" -- go strictly by the words on the page, with no reference to anything external, avoiding inferences. Original intent Ethical considerations Before I get into a more textual discussion, first I would like to point out that the founders were extremely flawed, and the document they made was, to mo...
Post a Comment
Read more