World historian William McNeill argued that humans had evolved for synchronous ritual: dancing, chanting, marching in time. The anthropological data seem to support this. For example, researchers recently found that Sufis engaged in the dhikr, […]
Tag: society

(Fiction) They Eat Humans, Don’t They?
From the air, the planet looked like one continuous hilly park punctuated irregularly by immense tower complexes that reached into low orbit. The surface was almost entirely covered in a continuous manicured lawn that stretched […]

(Art) My Dystopian Library – Pt. 3
It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I modified to make […]

(Art) My Dystopian Library – Pt. 2
It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I simply modified to […]

(Art) My Dystopian Library – Pt. 1
It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I simply modified to […]

On Perversion
Pervert can be noun or verb. When we pervert something, we alter it from its intended course — we distort or corrupt — while a pervert is the thing distorted or corrupted. As a noun, […]

(Curiosity) Holy Crayola!: Modern History in Crayon
World historians typically divide the previous two centuries into the “Long Nineteenth Century,” stretching from the French Revolution (1789) to the First World War/Russian Revolution (1917), and the “Short Twentieth Century,” running from the inter-war […]

(Art) The Scathing Social Satire of Daniel Garcia
The satirical illustrations of Daniel Garcia pretty much speak for themselves. No matter who you are, odds are there will be something here to offend.
Tomorrow
Prior to WWII, the US had a marginal presence overseas. We now have over 800 military bases in 70 countries around the globe — more than any nation in history — including 174 in Germany, […]

(Sunday Thought) The anti-Matrix
When authors and pundits want to highlight some incongruity in the world, they’ll often say we’re in the Matrix, referring of course to the 1999 film. But we’re not in the Matrix. We’re in its […]