FEATURED

Is Aid to Latin American A Total Waste?

April 09, 2020 by Greg Weeks
If you are at all interested in U.S.-Latin American relations, go listen to Adam Isacson interview Lars Schoultz about his most recent book In Their Own Best Interest (which I reviewed here). The point of the book is to ask why the "altruists" in the U.S. keep on doing what they're doing to "uplift" Latin America when it is clearly not working and might even be harmful.

What it means is a lively critique of WOLA itself, and indeed any other altruists (USAID, you name it). Lars...

Review of Stephen King's The Stand

April 09, 2020 by Greg Weeks
I read The Stand when I was a teenager, a time when I think I read his first ten books by about age 15. That's a long time ago, so I didn't remember the details of the story, but I remembered how much it grabbed me and I've considered rereading it numerous times, demurring because it's so long. Ironically, a virus gave me more time and made it seem quite timely. It's a great book, even the second time roughly 35 years later.

The onset of the deadly superflu bears no resemblance to what...
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HUMANITIES

In the Words of Two Charlotte Poets

April 02, 2020 by Mark West

Charlotte’s community of readers and writers is reeling as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.  We have seen the recent cancelations or postponements of Sensoria, the Center City Literary Festival, many library events, and a number of book signings and readings by local writers.  However, the coronavirus cannot stop the National Poetry Month, which takes place each April (https://poets.org/national-poetry-month).  It is fitting, therefore,...

Restoring the Lost Gospel Scholars Call Q

March 28, 2020 by James Tabor
Most of us who work in what we academics call “Christian Origins” hold to the “Two Source” theory of Synoptic Gospel origins. That is, Mark was the earliest narrative gospels, Matthew and Luke both used Mark as their core source, but they had access to another source that we call Q (which is from the [...]...
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NATURAL SCIENCES

Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Part 14

April 07, 2020 by skullsinthestars

Okay, time for a round of Old School Dungeons & Dragons, taken from my twitter posts! Things are moving a little slower due to the craziness of the world distracting me, but let’s look at a few classic items!

Cardmaster Adventure Design Deck (1993), by Rich Borg. One of the most fascinating categories of items in the pre-internet days is game aids, designed to help DMs run and organize adventures.  The Cardmaster Deck is one that I hadn’t heard of until I saw it...

Forgotten Milestones in the History of Optics: video!

March 29, 2020 by skullsinthestars

Okay, here’s one more classic video from my regular seminar series: Forgotten Milestones in the History of Optics! This was one of the earliest semi-popular seminars I put together.

More videos and posts to come!

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