http://www.process.org/discept conversation and contention, for your attention Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:58:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en With the film's website reporting widespread blog coverage - dubious as any of their data must be considered - and given the fact that that I've already written about it on this site - another entry regarding Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed might seem redundant and tiresome, if not ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/04/27/unintelligence-expelled-reviewed/ In vampire lore it has been said that a vampire cannot enter your house unless they are invited. This is useful to remember because the world is indeed full of vampires. They come in all shapes and sizes and walk among us every day. Now, I am not speaking about ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/04/07/compassion/ As an amateur prestidigitator, I have always had the utmost respect for well-performed stage magic. In the Art of Magic, effect is of course everything. Sleight-of-hand is a practiced and elite skill, but I am equally impressed by the genius that has devised methods of producing illusions that are ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/03/24/the-empty-safe/ I didn't recognise her voice, nor did I recognise the number on my caller ID, but she said my name with such enthusiastic familiarity that I felt compelled to match her tone. Some of my friends have proven easily insulted by my occasional failures of immediate voice recognition, and ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/02/25/expulsion/ I am one of those people who rarely remembers my dreams but jet lag has thrown me the keys to Pandora's flat for the time being. The other night I dreamt that I died. It wasn't anything dramatic, no fiery plane crash, no end of the world scenario. It just ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/02/15/fear/ "Innocence" is often merely a euphemism for gullibility, and it's this quality that typically endears children to adults. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Jesus all entered our tender, nascent minds without troublesome critical inquiries, so often the demon enemy of adult happiness. Liquor is often needed to ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/02/05/school-for-rodents/ William is packing for, and in transit to, Italy this week where he'll be doing a couple months of work on The American Memory Project with Justin Bennett. So, you'll have just Doug and myself this cycle. Many known belief systems in the world feature the idea of a 'soul' ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/01/30/of-souls-and-state-machines/ The events of that debauched evening haunted my memory like some irrepressible Zapruder loop.   I felt that I had to come clean.  I composed an e-mail to avant industrial artist Otto Von Schirach, an innocent man who had fallen victim to the spiraling dysfunctional buffoonery of both The Drunken Murphy ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/01/25/fluids-of-strangers/ This discusses only some of the more common concepts of an afterlife; if you do not have a personal belief in the afterlife, or you do but it doesn't feature your eternal continuation in a different realm, hanging out with friends and relatives, then you can safely read this article ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/01/22/4-reasons-that-the-afterlife-is-for-chumps/ The small, thin, hard-bound edition is said to adorn the book shelves of such august luminaries as former president Jimmy Carter and C. Everett Koop. Reviewers gushed: "The probity of the author is unquestionable. The words ring from the pages with the bold, sonorous clarity of Truth. ... http://www.process.org/discept/2008/01/21/mothers-day/