Category Archives: Uncategorized

Chico and the Man

Posted on August 23, 2020 by hessd

  A lot of attention is being paid these days to racial and ethnic slurs.  I’d be happier about that if I thought it was helping the situation, rather than just being a justification for complaining about it. But in … Continue reading →

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Boredom: A Sermon to Myself

Posted on August 18, 2020 by hessd

Since this is a sermon and since I come from a tradition where sermons are, nominally at least, based on texts, I have a text to offer.  This comes from Neal Stephenson’s Anathem and it is said to be a … Continue reading →

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Parables: The Power of What Is Not There

Posted on August 4, 2020 by hessd

If the irony weren’t too heavy, I would  say that I love reading the work of scholars because it gives me a chance to ask really simpleminded questions. I think of “scholarship” as digging ever more deeply into the technical … Continue reading →

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Turn the Other Cheek

Posted on July 15, 2020 by hessd

The controversies over this text abound, very likely because following out the literal meaning is quite often inconvenient.  But there are worse things than inconvenience to say about the literal compliance with such a text.  We might say, for instance, … Continue reading →

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Racial defensiveness

Posted on July 12, 2020 by hessd

The topic for today is “racial defensiveness.”  I’m against it.  The Russian spy (Mark Rylance)  who was captured and tried in the movie “A Bridge of Spies” had a recurring line that made me like him immediately.  In the first … Continue reading →

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A Klan of “Karens”

Posted on July 2, 2020 by hessd

You may have heard about the fuss kicked up by Amber Lynn Gilles at the Starbucks in San Diego. The short version is that she didn’t wear a mask, as store rules required her to do, and was not served. … Continue reading →

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The First Ten Years, Part II

Posted on May 25, 2020 by hessd

The first pass I made over my first ten years of blogging considered the foundational questions. Why blogging? Why the “dilettante” theme? Today I want to review what the political arc of the first decade has been. You wouldn’t think I … Continue reading →

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Rhetorical mastery

Posted on May 6, 2020 by hessd

We have gotten accustomed to the kind of rhetoric we hear from Henry V before the battle of Agincourt.  It is gorgeous!  It is so stimulating that it is hard to pay attention to just how it works, but I … Continue reading →

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The two logics

Posted on April 15, 2020 by hessd

So let’s see. There is a competitive logic. Whoever is best prepared and works the hardest wins and everybody else loses. Fair is fair. You knew that when you signed up for the race. And then there is a communitarian … Continue reading →

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Zen agency

Posted on February 28, 2020 by hessd

I’ve been thinking about agency a lot lately. A agency is fundamental to being human; the costs of giving up on it are catastrophic. By “agency,” I mean only having the sense of acting on your own behalf. In Martin … Continue reading →

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