Are Hillbillies Good People?

"But I'm basically a good person."  It's a common line, used to excuse flaws and look past foibles.  It expresses some vague concept of what a human being should be and suggests that the subject mostly aligns with that undefined concept.  It tends to mean, "I am not a horrible person, so I must be okay."

Maybe I Can Write a Novel

There are two reasons I cannot write a novel: 1) I have trouble creating a plot that both lasts that long and resolves well; and 2) I have trouble with the details needed to make it seem real.

It turns out that the second one might not be a problem -- Futility Closet recently noted that Walter Scott and Fyodor Dostoyevsky had troubles with their sunsets.

Seven Baby Takes

1. I originally wrote this short story to say that the little one does not yet have a blog name.  Then I realized what it should be.  The newest member of our household is, of course, the Princess.  The Captain will disagree, as he swears she will never hear the word “princess” and only have nun dolls.

Doing Things Differently

Remember how I mentioned parenthetically yesterday that right now I eat lots of calories since there is a little person on me for food?  Well, because of said tiny person, not only am I technically exempt from today's fast, but also, it would be a bad idea for me to keep a fast right now.  

Why I Should Go to Mars

In the debate over women in the military, the question of physical ability is often raised as a sort of trump card—no matter my philosophical reasons, what if men are just more physically capable of performing the job?

What We Hold Sacred

This article from The Economist on swear words caught my fancy.  At first it seems to be merely a catalog of acceptable and unacceptable words that change through history and culture.  The writer focuses on religiously charged words and then sexually charged words that have historically been taboo swear words. 

On Susan Pevensie

Die-hard fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, like myself, don’t talk much about Susan Pevensie.  For those who have not read all the books enough time to have at least three committed to memory, she is one of the four children in C.S. Lewis’s first novel about Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Four children slip through a wardrobe into the enchanted world of Narnia, where, with the help of the lion Aslan, they break the kingdom free of from the world of the evil White Witch.