You are unique. But we are not so unique. When humans get together, we follow the same patterns. We repeat the same mistakes. We discover the same joys as our ancestors did. Isn’t She Lovely? We are stunned when a baby takes their first breath…though they’ve been doing it for at least 300,000 years. We… Continue reading You’re The One That I Want
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How I Consume Books Now That Amazon is Evil
I own a first-generation Kindle. I was a member of Audible back in their pre-Amazon days when you could only listen to their stuff on a pre-iPod mp3-player and when they had different compression rates (Level 1 sounded terrible but downloaded quickly and didn’t take up much space on your device. It was also barely… Continue reading How I Consume Books Now That Amazon is Evil
Walking On Sunshine
I listened to the Katrina and the Waves song, Walking On Sunshine the other day.I loved that song when it came out. And yet, when I listened to the lyrics this time, I laughed out loud.Here was a girl in love who said,“Now every time I go for the mailbox, gotta hold myself down/ ’Cause… Continue reading Walking On Sunshine
Who Are You?
A reintroduction I’m Julie. I am (currently) 53. I’ve lived in two nation states. I’ve studied history and am a lifelong political and social junkie. I’ve kept a journal since 1985 and I’ve been blogging since I discovered it was a thing (1996, maybe?). I write stories, and encourage others to do the same. I… Continue reading Who Are You?
Who Speaks, Next?
I was listening to Werner Herzog on the Conan O’Brien podcast, over the past week. As I listened to the calm voice of this man who were born in the middle of–and on the wrong side of–World War II, talking about environmentalism and the glorious potential of technology and Ai along with its obvious risks;… Continue reading Who Speaks, Next?
A Productive Kitchen
A photo essay from August in the kitchen (it’s mostly tomatoes…)
Say It Out Loud
This is Not Normal. This Is Not Acceptable. On Day 1 of the first Trump administration, I watched, mouth open, as his press secretary lied about something so seemingly unimportant that it boggled my mind: the size of the crowd at the inauguration. It was—we could all see with our own eyes—not the biggest crowd… Continue reading Say It Out Loud
Anti Social-Media
(not “anti-social media”) How I Use The Internet Now tl;dr: I’m going back to using RSS feeds to curate my own experience of the web and here’s why (and how) jump straight to the tools section The Ancient World (Wide Web) I got online in 1993, like a second-wave immigrant. I never used Usenet or… Continue reading Anti Social-Media
Deported for Customs Form Error?
This could have been us. 30 years ago, when K was a scientist working at Harvard, the customs guys at Boston’s airport used to ask us if we were illegally smuggling haggis in our bags, as we stepped off the plane from Scotland (especially if it was near Burns’ Night). I would l laugh and… Continue reading Deported for Customs Form Error?
You Don’t Want An Aristocracy
I’ve been thinking about meritocracy, lately. It’s extremely hard to separate out the inbuilt advantages of the financially and genetically lucky, in any society, and give everyone a level playing field. But we should at least admit that some people start half-way to the finish line, if we think a meritocracy is worth striving for.… Continue reading You Don’t Want An Aristocracy