We’re all familiar with the “notpology” – “I am sorry you were offended.” Or perhaps, “I am sorry you feel that way.” The essence of a good apology is that:
This is something KA9Q posted back in the early 00s, I’m not sure where he got it.
I got an email from someone suggesting this, so I did it.
A year or two ago, I encountered a candidate for the job of Basement Snake.
[Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Seven Samurai, I am going to drop an important plot-point. And what’s wrong with you?]
I grew up reading about feats of derring-do, famous last stands, and martial arts philosophy. My favorite movie was, and remains, “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa – it’s an extended meditation on the different aspects of military honor, courage, despair, humor, and the fleeting moments of peace that warriors can occasionally snatch out of the mud and blood and awfulness.
Jose was awesome; he brought in the table with the room-service and explained “I added a few pieces of bread to your order.”
“Thanks! I love carbs with my carbs!*” and he laughed with me as I signed the bill and handed him some cash with it.
Watching the formation of the Trump cabinet, and how the new government beds itself down with the police state, there’s going to be a lot of passive observation to do. And, unless you’re in the train-wreck, you’re going to need some popcorn. Thus: popcorn recipes!
tl;dr: make sure you have a good supply of popcorn.
I grew up with revolutions; my father is a historian and his specialty was the evolution of absolutism under Louis XIV and the lead-up French Revolutions that culminated in the big one and the terror.
It seems to me that humans don’t assess cause and effect very well; we had to invent the scientific method as a way of teasing out which causes of a particular effect are the important ones. That’s a comforting illusion for us, but causality is not a chain of events and causes, it’s more like a lattice-work stretching backward in time to the Big Bang. In practical terms, it doesn’t make much sense for us to answer “Why did the chicken cross the road?” with “The Big Bang” even though it’s true: we search for something we can pin it on immediately.
This is an emergency public service announcement from Argument Clinic!
Is this the right room for an argument?
I see a lot of discussion on various news sources as to whether or not so-and-so is a racist, or such and such. It is poor strategy to engage in such a discussion unless you plan to win it. To explain further… [Read more…]