I spent a busy weekend copying posts from my previous blog (hundreds of posts, currently archived on another server awaiting my resolution) onto my hard drive. I plan to resurrect some of these posts – maybe with a bit of updating or editing – in a WordPress archive site here
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Scripturient: Blog & Commentary: Looking back on 2103
It’s been quite a year, both personally and politically. The best of times, the worst of times, to paraphrase Dickens. Looking back on 2103, it was a busy, eventful, successful, and yet often challenging year. I accomplished many things on different levels – personal and professional – and, I believe, overcame
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Dictionaries: Concise, Compact, and dacoit
Dacoit: noun; one of a class of criminals in India and Burma who rob and murder in roving gangs. A member of a band of armed robbers in India or Burma. A bandit. Origin: Hindi and Urdu. I love dictionaries. I like opening them up to a random page and
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: New studies show babies have basically decent impulses and are strongly driven by moral imperatives
More research shows once again that compassion, empathy and mutual aid, and an instinct toward cooperation, are innate in human beings, confirming what the great Russian biologist and anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin had already amply demonstrated over a hundred years ago, in his monumental work, Mutual Aid. My but our
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: My conversation with Robert Chazz Chute
I’d encourage you all to check out the Cool People Podcast this week, in which the host (and fellow London, ON author) Robert Chazz Chute, and I discuss the singularity, technology, and monkey brains! (And yes, this means I’m officially … Continue reading →
Continue readingmark a rayner | scribblings, squibs & sundry monkey joys: You’re invited to Indie Author Night
I’d like to invite anyone who is the region of London, Ontario (or all you readers with some cash or frequent flyer points to burn), to come to a reading and discussion of the indie publishing at the London (ON) … Continue reading →
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Circuitous Path from Bulge to Budget
If tinkers may have leave to live, And bear the sow-skin budget, Then my account I well may, give, And in the stocks avouch it. Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Sc. III, Shakespeare These lines got me thinking about the town’s finances. Sow-skin budget? What does that mean? And
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Survival of the Fittest
Charles Darwin has long been associated with the phrase, “survival of the fittest.” For a century and a half people have used it to refer to their understanding of his explanation of how species evolved. But it wasn’t his. And it has obscured the understanding of Darwin’s own theory. It
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: We are Stardust… and Viral Genes
In her classic song, Woodstock, Joni Mitchell ended with the chorus: We are stardust Billion-year-old carbon We are golden Caught in the devil’s bargain And we’ve got to get ourselves Back to the garden Which most people assume is merely poetic licence. Well, Joni wasn’t wrong: we – and every
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Something so basic, yet so different stands between us
You’d think it should be this easy: just take a bread machine, throw in all the ingredients listed in the recipe, push a button, wait, remove loaf and eat. Yum. Nah, of course not. Never is. And there are reasons for this, I’ve been learning. I have an old bread
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: 1927, a Year to Remember
1927. It was the year America sent troops to Nicaragua, forcing a US-supervised election. The year Alfred Hitchcock released his first movie. And the year when Fritz Lang released his masterpiece, Metropolis. Buster Keaton released The General that year, although it bombed at the box office. Clara Bow starred in
Continue readingThings Are Good: Literary Fiction Enhances Empathy in Readers
Literary fiction, not popular fiction, can make people better understand one another according to a new study. Because literary fiction (i.e. books not for sale at airports) focuses on the psychology and inner life of the characters it gives people a window into the thoughts of others that aren’t covered
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Eyes Have It
This summer my mother was diagnosed with macular degeneration. There is no cure. It is irreversible. It simply progresses. Science has some hope for future cures, and has some treatments to slow the progress, but a cure likely won’t come soon enough for her. At 93, one expects that the
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Unknown Monk Meme
This pseudo-poem popped up on Facebook today. It’s been around the Net for a few years, without any source attributed to the quote, but it seems to be making its comeback in the way these falsely-attributed things do: When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Reflections on tumblr, facebook and social media
Going from specifics to depth and breadth, and from particularities to universals, here are some thoughts for your consideration, for anyone who may be interested. I’ve come to love the social networking / blogging community / window onto the web which is called tumblr. That being said, tumblr is largely
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The Moral Compass
I have a laminated card beside me, wallet-sized so it can be carried around easily. I made it at my shop a few years ago; just a simple, two-sided business card with some text. It’s part of my personal moral compass. We all benefit from some guidance, at times, something to
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The Key of Keys
Egoless divine pride: the most glorious concept I have ever heard – from Tibetan Buddhism. The Uttara Tantra elaborates: There once was a prince, who lost his memory and forgot who he was. Lost in forgetfulness and confusion, he wandered aimlessly, and became a homeless beggar. Years later, a minister
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Of Type and Typography
Humans have remarkable ability that is shared by – as far as we know – no other animal. We can turn abstract images and symbols into meaning. Words are, of course, the prime example, as old as our history. We can turn a word like dog, tree, table or vacation
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Empire of Illusion and the End of Literacy
I don’t know whether to feel vindicated, delighted, frightened or depressed as I read through Chris Hedges’s book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Much of what he says reflects many of my own observations and opinions. I started reading this book in part
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Hell 2.3
Before I carry on with my exploration of Miriam Van Scott’s Encyclopedia of Hell, I wanted to note that I just got my copy of her other book – the Encyclopedia of Heaven, from Abebooks. It’s dated 1999, so it’s a year later than her book on Hell. Yet it
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