[Hillary Clinton] is especially poor at the podium, where, when she wants to emphasize an applause line, her voice becomes loud, flat and harassing to the ear. She lately reminds me of the landlady yelling up the stairs that your kids left their bikes in the hall again. Literally that’s how it sounds: “And we won’t let them roll back the progress we’ve made. Your kids left their bikes in the hall.” — Peggy Noonan Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
January 15, 1559: Elizabeth Crowned Queen of England
We’re talking about Elizabeth I of course, not the current queen, Elizabeth II. The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603), now remembered as the Elizabethan Era, coincided with the flowering of the English Renaissance and is considered the golden age of England. The reign of Elizabeth II, meanwhile, has coincided with the decline of England into irrelevance and is unlikely to remembered by name in a fond way. Read more →
Another Thing I Like About Donald Trump
Embed from Getty Images Democrats don’t like him and Republicans don’t like him either. The overarching theme of American politics is Democrats vs. Republicans, Team Blue vs. Team Red. It’s a freakishly expensive clown show for which we pay trillions of dollars a year to watch the Red clowns and the Blue clowns throw pies in each other’s faces. Nobody really cares about truth, substance or common sense, only whether their team is winning. When Obama replaced Bush, Democrats didn’t care that Obama kept all the same wars going and started a few new ones, kept the torture programs going, kept Guantanamo open, ramped up drone warfare, cozied up to Wall Street, etc., etc., etc. All the things they hated when Bush was doing them were okay now because their team was winning. Elect Hillary Clinton and we’ll get four to eight years of trench warfare against Republicans. Elect a… Read more →
Angel From Montgomery
Just give me one thing, Lord That I can hold on to To believe in this livin’ Is just a hard way to go Read more →
The Savvy Clinician
It’s a little hard to read the subtitle on the book cover but — “Savvy”?! I don’t think I want to work with clinicians who consider themselves “savvy.” Being “savvy” sounds like a poor substitute for actually knowing something. Read more →
Aside
Even at this late hour, I set myself to be a better and simpler man . . .
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. — Poul Anderson
January
Again I reply to the triple winds running chromatic fifths of derision outside my window: Play louder. You will not succeed. I am bound more to my sentences the more you batter at me to follow you. And the wind, as before, fingers perfectly its derisive music. — William Carlos Williams, “January” Read more →
Happy New Year!
Time marches on!! We are all dying!!! We are coming to the end of our lives!!! Happy New Year!!! Read more →
2015: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2015, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion. Books of the Year: Hotel World by Ali Smith (fiction) and Humans of New York: Stories by Brandon Stanton (non-fiction). Honorable Mention: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Disgrace, Lament for a Maker, Nothing. My Library at LibraryThing Read more →
A Problem Like Maria
I’m an engineer. If you ask me to solve a problem like Maria, I’ll solve it. Read more →
Aside
Confess, ye miscreants, sight unseen, the truth of what I have proclaimed, or meet my vengeance in the field of battle!
Lover of Life, Singer of Songs
I know the lyrics to a lot of songs . . . not current hits so much but if we’re listening to an oldies type of radio station, which we, the Epps family, are doing in the car right now, I pretty much know every song they play. “I should be a singer,” I announce. “I would have a tremendous repertoire of songs.” “But you can’t sing,” my son says. “Hmmm . . . that’s a legitimate point that I don’t really have an answer for.” Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
Carol Dweck’s research is part of a tradition in psychology that shows the power of people’s beliefs. These may be beliefs that we’re aware of or unaware of but they strongly affect what we want and whether we succeed in getting it. This tradition also shows how changing people’s beliefs can have profound effects. Dweck’s insight into fixed mindset (bad) vs. growth mindset (good) is powerful but there’s really not enough to it to sustain a book-length exposition without a lot of repetition and illustrational anecdotes, the problem with which is 1) they tend to be overly simple tales of triumph and failure with clearly identified causes; and 2) they ignore the inevitability of regression. For example, two of the people Dweck identifies as exemplars of the growth mindset are Tiger Woods and Alex Rodriguez. Mindset was published in 2006, after which Woods’s career imploded in the wake of extramarital… Read more →
Kidneys for Coders
Cognitive Dissonance on Muslims
How are these two ideas about Islam and Muslims, seemingly held simultaneously by a lot of people, not completely incompatible with each other: Islam is a religion of peace and Muslims are peaceful folks (e.g., Hillary Clinton: “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”) We must be careful not to offend Muslims because if we do, they will kill us (e.g., Hillary Clinton: “They are going out to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”) What am I missing? Read more →
Huckleberry Finn Banned Again
A Pennsylvania high school has removed Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from its 11th-grade curriculum after complaints from students who said they were made “uncomfortable” by the novel. The school’s principal defended the decision to remove the book from the curriculum. “I do not believe that we’re censoring,” he said. “I really do believe that this is an opportunity for the school to step forward and listen to the students.” He went on to add, “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” Because if suppression of material you deem objectionable is not censoring, what is? As Kurt Vonnegut used to say, “Have somebody read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution out loud to you, you God damned fool!” Read more →
Those Performance Reviews Were Supposed to be Anonymous
A Coupon for a Nonexistent Product
There’s a guy in the Personal Care department at Target handing out coupons for women’s hair brushes . . . One woman takes the coupon and comes back a minute later to ask where that particular type of hair brush is located. “We’re out of them,” the guy says matter-of-factly. “Why don’t you just go home then?” she asks as she hands the coupon back to him and walks away. “I can’t. But we’ll have more in later this week,” he calls after her. “It’s not like the coupon is worthless.” Read more →
Parsnip Puree
I hope there’s a special place in Hell for anyone who serves an unlabeled bowl of parsnip puree at a buffet. Parsnip puree, which I’d never heard of before today’s lunch buffet, is indistinguishable from mashed potatoes, until you dish up a big spoonful, take a bite and say “What the hell is wrong with these potatoes?” Read more →