Copyright notice
All text and original images in this blog © 1990-2010 by William P. Coleman. Some rights reserved. You may reuse only as specified in the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License or by written permission.About me
If you'd like to know more about me, please see the About page. My qualifications for the scientific entries are in my CV.
I see no reason to segregate scientific and technical posts from humanistic ones. In my life, scientific concerns mix with ethical ones, and they shade into a philosophical interest in the nature of cognition and the nature of people. Doing science is as creative as writing fiction, and I get inspiration for both from the same gods.
You will find little here on current politics. I'm an activist, but not in symptoms. Experience in martial arts shows me that the sure way to lose is reactivity; but if you stay cool and remember your training and what you're there for then you achieve goals and, when conflict is unavoidable, you fight and win. The idea of the liberal arts I was brought up in is that broad understanding of cultures and ideas gives you deeper, better goals -- making success more likely and more satisfying. Negatively, the hysteria since 9/11 shows how a country frightened and reactive can destroy itself more than an enemy can. I'm trying to contribute by changing the terms of discourse. . . . As Allen Ginsberg wrote, "America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel."
One fact shouldn't require special mention, but it sometimes does: namely that I'm gay. This blog is not primarily about being gay, but the topic sometimes comes up. I'm proud of being gay and do not hide. Muse
Category Archives: Literature
Jane Austen: Free indirect discourse
A post in the ongoing series Poetry in the Arts. Jane Austen In an earlier entry, on Emily Dickinson, I tried to focus on the way poetry arises by metaphor: the author introduces a beginning that demands an certain ending, … Continue reading
Pieter Brueghel and W.H. Auden
This post begins a new series, Story Structure. Pieter Brueghel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus You know what “they,” the screenwriting gurus and the Hollywood suits, tell us: “Icarus is your main character. Keep focus on him. Make sure … Continue reading
The warning that Jacob Marley’s ghost gave to Scrooge
A lonely boy was reading by a feeble fire For those of you who celebrate the other holiday, on December 25 — and for those of you who don’t — and for me. This entry repeats Charles Dickens’s warning, in … Continue reading
Giving advice to the young — according to Thoreau and to Emerson
Henry David Thoreau, in one of his famously crusty moods, gave some famously negative advice in Walden about accepting advice from those who are older: Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young. I’m sure he … Continue reading
The battle of the statues in Wyman Park
A post in the ongoing series Poetry in the Arts. Wyman Park is in Baltimore, just in front of the Baltimore Museum of Art and near the Homewood Campus of the Johns Hopkins University. It has two statues, not far … Continue reading
D. H. Lawrence’s “Snake”
Snake by D. H. Lawrence A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there. In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree I came down the … Continue reading
Allen Ginsberg’s “America”
Note: this post is an extension of my About page. Allen Ginsberg in 1960 by Mario Jorrin/Getty Images YouTube: Photomontage of Ginsberg and his “america” music by Tom Waits. Incredibly moving. America by Allen Ginsberg America I’ve given you all … Continue reading
Thoreau: a “self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms”
Note: this post is an extension of my About page. from Walden by Henry David Thoreau If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my … Continue reading
