In the Appendixes to The Lord of the Rings, we learn that the Rohanians came from the north at a critical point to assist Gondor in one of its wars. Out of gratitude, Gondor gave them a stretch of its territory […]
Culture
Another Way of Bypassing the Restrictions on Criminal Law
I have written about the increasing use of civil law to bypass the limitations and ‘rights’ attached to criminal law. But yet another tactic has recently been discovered, and maybe not all that recently. The law and concept of rape has […]
More on Manners and Customs
Some more issues on the issue of Manners and Customs. The issue of enforcement. Disobedience to Manners is enforced, let it be said, by discrimination and exclusion. Sometimes the person is explicitly told why he is excluded; sometimes he is […]
Manners, Customs, and Languages: The Spontaneous, A-Rational Kingdom
This particular kingdom is also not one of the three that evangelicals regularly talk about, but in the training of missionaries and evangelists, we pay a lot of attention to it! ‘Missiology’ includes endless classes on culture, and how we […]
Unease about Self-Driving Cars
Just recently, Arizona [a more progressive state than California, in the non-political sense] experienced its first pedestrian death at the hands [pardon the expression] of a driverless car. My unease was thereby justified. Computers and machines, for all their […]
Keep Health Workers in Line
Here is an article about the misbehavior of employees at a residential-care facility. The elderly residents are not the problem. The sort of people who work there, however, seem to be not well-behaved. The residents should work with the company […]
The Tastes of our Southern Neighbors, and our Housing Issues
Instead of Berbers, ‘Arabs’, Turks, and other Muslim groups, we have to our south Mexico. Maybe we could consider ourselves relatively fortunate because of this. The best book in English on Mexican culture in recent times that I know of […]
Why Didn’t Harvey Weinstein Get His Face Slapped?
My wife’s grandmother, who grew up around the turn of the last century, would tell my wife, “Never be afraid to slap ‘em and walk home” in reference to predatory young men. And evidently such men have existed for a […]
Why There Are So Many Single Occupant Bathrooms Nowadays
A California law went into effect saying that single occupant bathrooms need to be mixed gender. Now in my office we have two of those upstairs and two multi-occupant bathrooms [with showers] downstairs. Changing the downstairs bathrooms to mixed […]
On Feeling Guilty for Ordering Stuff Online
I like ordering things online and not having to hunt for them in stores. And sometimes the alternative is being eliminated. Just like paying cash or taking public transit, live stores, especially bookstores, are disappearing. There is only one major […]