poetics.info

I like the sound of that! I was telling a friend of mine the other day that I had a namesake on The Simpsons—Allison Taylor is Lisa’s rival at Springfield Elementary.
But, he just sent me this link that says Allison Taylor will be the new President on 24 next season! That definitely trumps my [...]

Al Gore has a new book out–Assault on Reason–which, unfortunately, isn’t a confessionary tale about his own assault on reason. I haven’t read the book, but I share the viewpoint of the two American Thinker reviewers, who criticize Gore’s analysis of U.S. “democracy.”
This idea of “democracy” in the U.S. is a bromide that needs to [...]

I was going to blog on Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret, a few weeks back but forgot about it. Then, my friend, Brian, sent me this hilarious review at Reason.com…which got me thinking about it again…The somewhat fictionized story that follows tells my experience with the secret…
I first heard about the book The Secret one [...]

Imagine you are female, five years old, and your grandmother decides it is time for you to be “purified.” She invites strangers into your house to conduct this anticipated ritual. After circumcising your brother, they grab you and hold you down. Without any anesthesia, they cut out your genitals with scissors and sew your [...]

Psychology is a relatively young science, if you consider it remained the province of philosophers until the late nineteenth century. Even today, despite a handful of notable exceptions, it lacks clear, unifying principles. Thankfully, we survived Freud’s subversion of the conscious mind, Skinner’s behaviorism and the social theorists to emerge in the era of the [...]

I can’t recommend the book Blink enough. (I should mention that my friend, Brian Schwartz, recommended it to me.) I actually listened to it on CD, and I highly recommend that experience, as well.
Blink is about–well, Mr. Gladwell, says it best:

It’s a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a [...]