Author Archives: hessd

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About hessd

Here is all you need to know to follow this blog. I am an old man and I love to think about why we say the things we do. I've taught at the elementary, secondary, collegiate, and doctoral levels. I don't think one is easier than another. They are hard in different ways. I have taught political science for a long time and have practiced politics in and around the Oregon Legislature. I don't think one is easier than another. They are hard in different ways. You'll be seeing a lot about my favorite topics here. There will be religious reflections (I'm a Christian) and political reflections (I'm a Democrat) and a good deal of whimsy. I'm a dilettante.

Chik-fil-A

Posted on August 8, 2012 by hessd

So here’s an interesting question: “Do we really want our political lives and our commercial lives to be so wholly intermeshed?”  It turns out that some do and some don’t.  Here’s an answer that is closer to what it looks … Continue reading →

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Guns and Politics

Posted on July 25, 2012 by hessd

A gunman stood up at a Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado and killed 12 people and injured 58 others–as many people as he could with the time he had and the arsenal he brought into the theater with him.  David Brooks’s … Continue reading →

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Public Porn

Posted on July 23, 2012 by hessd

The two most common responses I have heard to protests against pornography are these: a) it doesn’t hurt anybody and b) what they (the consumers of pornography) do in the privacy of their homes is nobody’s business. The New York … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics, sociability | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Dangerous Architectural Innovations

Posted on July 12, 2012 by hessd

Here’s what I learned today: “In architecture, the apse (Greek αψις (apsis), then Latin absis: “arch, vault”; sometimes written apsis; plural apses) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome.”  That’s from Wikipedia.  Here’s what one of them … Continue reading →

Posted in Words | Leave a comment

Boy-friendly Schools?

Posted on July 11, 2012 by hessd

So let’s talk about accountability and cooperativeness.  They’re good, right?  So if you built a set of institutions to teach little boys and little girls to be accountable and cooperative, that would be a step in the right direction. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Building Abscission Layers

Posted on July 6, 2012 by hessd

For the last twenty years or so, I’ve been thinking about abscission layers.  I have read meticulous accounts of those layers and the processes that reliably produce them in biology texts where, after several readings, I thought I got the … Continue reading →

Posted in Getting Old, Living My Life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Supreme Court Agrees that Congress Has the Power to Tax

Posted on June 28, 2012 by hessd

All of the opinions, concurring and dissenting, run to 193 pages.  That’s a lot of pages.  But you have to read only as far as page 20 to get this from Chief Justice Roberts: “Every day individuals do not do … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Groundhog Day

Posted on June 25, 2012 by hessd

Phil Connors has this problem.  Every year, as Groundhog Day draws near, he feels the bile piling up in his stomach.  Every year, it is the same. You go to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and watch a bunch of bozos haul an … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies, Paying Attention | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Robots are better than anything

Posted on June 22, 2012 by hessd

Not, as in the earlier post, “better than nothing.”  Let me say up front that this whole “social robot” thing scares me.  It’s creepy, but the path to there from here is lit up like a strip with landing lights. … Continue reading →

Posted in Living My Life, Love and Marriage, Paying Attention, ways of knowing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

My Father’s Magic and How He Worked It

Posted on June 17, 2012 by hessd

When I was in my 20’s, I had the rare privilege of watching my father teach an adult Sunday School class, using abysmally bad materials.  The classes were a lot better than the materials.  That puzzled me. I got the … Continue reading →

Posted in Getting Old, Living My Life, ways of knowing | Tagged | 2 Comments