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Mar142019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Climate Change, SETI, And Dr. Fermi

"Life" Issues, activism, Astronomy, autonomy, awareness, Big Bang, Challenge, citizenship, civics, Climate Change, community, conflict, conservatism, Cosmology, Creation, critical judgment, culture, curiosity, Current Events, Discernment, doubt, Education, Environment, Evidence, Evolution, faithfulness, Fundamentalism, Human Condition, Hurricanes, Ideology, Milky Way Galaxy, Paleontology, Politics, Rationality, Science, Secularity, SETI, The Big Blue Marble, Thinking, Uncategorized, Universe, Weather and Climate, Wildfires, Windstorm

The recent report on the findings of climatic research into the causes and probable evolution of climate change – a more accurate term than “global warming” – prompted me to consider a possible answer to Enrico Fermi’s classic question “Where is everybody?” Multiple generations of science fiction writers have projected a future in which the Milky Way Galaxy fairly teems with life, rather like Times Square on New Year’s Eve or the tavern in the first Star Wars movie – so much so that the late Prof. Stephen Hawking has publicly counseled SETI investigators to – not literally STFU – but certainly to exercise due caution in broadcasting the existence of intelligent life on earth to every corner of the Galaxy. (Not that we have a choice by now: earth’s electromagnetic emissions by now com

Feb142019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Romanticism And Regimentation

"Life" Issues, autonomy, awareness, Bernie Sanders, betrayal, bible, bigotry, Boutique Progressivism, Challenge, citizenship, civics, community, Compassion, conflict, critical judgment, culture, Discernment, faithfulness, Fascism, history, Ideology, Literature, Oswald Mosley, Philosophy, Poetry, Presidency, progressive politics, Secularity, Uncategorized

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” – Matthew 5:48 (KJV) Anyone who has read any of my “Skeptic’s” columns, especially those published after the last disastrous presidential election, will know that one of my favorite targets is a group I refer to variously as “boutique progressives” or “liberal purists”, the latter term borrowed from Bill Maher, who has the same grievance against progressives. What (Bill and) I mean by that are liberals, left-wingers, progressives who insist that a political candidate, in order to be worthy of our support, absolutely must conform to every principle, every jot and tittle, of progressive ideology, without exception. They must, in other words, be ideologically perfect, i.e., the kind of perfection demanded of Chri

Jan312019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Jumping The Brexit Shark

"Life" Issues, activism, autonomy, awareness, betrayal, bigotry, Brexit, Change, citizenship, civics, community, conflict, conservatism, critical judgment, culture, Current Events, Economy, Equality, EU, Fear, hate, history, Ideology, inclusive, Islam, movement, multiculturalism, Muslims, political rhetoric, polyvocality, postmodernism, racism, Religion, Secularity, social justice, Tolerance, Uncategorized, Welcoming the other

For the last several weeks, I have been following the news out of the UK about the Parliament’s vote on PM Theresa May’s foredoomed plan for Brexit, including one installment of “Prime Minister’s questions,” which, for obvious reasons, centered on the still-falling debris from the May government’s unprecedented 230-vote blow-up of Mrs. May's Brexit deal. It had all the tragic dignity of, say, Sophocles’ Oedipus trilogy: you know what is going to happen, but for that very reason, you simply cannot bring yourself to avert your gaze. I was all the more horrified because, knowing the Parliament vote was imminent and that it would be followed by the 29 March deadline imposed by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, I had begun some weeks before to read about the European Union (EU), Brexit, and