The Measurement Problem

Is there a problem?  There is.  It concerns the relationship of the measurer to the measured, the scientist (or her measuring tools) to whatever-is-being-measured.  Philosophers tend to view it as the relationship of subject to object, noting...

Inherit the Wind

If you google “inherit the wind,” you’re overwhelmed with information about the film by that name from 1960. It is a dramatization of the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial, in which a schoolteacher is accused...

Democracy and a Prophecy

H.L.Mencken, “the sage of Baltimore,” wrote this sobering prophecy almost exactly a century ago. I found it recently posted on Facebook by a former friend (former by his decision, not mine). As democracy is...

The Perfect Post

This is on Instagram.  My experience is, admittedly, very recent and very brief.  But I absolutely love this one from the poet and writer Lavinia Greenlaw.  The photo is of a pig with her snout in the...

Site Writing

Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to write posts and tweets.  I hate it, but don’t see any way around it if you would like at least a few readers. The writing itself...

Winning and losing…what?

I’ve agreed to review this new book, Co-illusion: Dispatches from the End of Communication (MIT, 2020), for Source Magazine, a journal of contemporary photography. It’s a very short review — just 300 words —...