The Artistry of the Machine in the Empire of Desire

“Art imitates nature.” Many take this concept, which goes at least as far back as Aristotle’s Poetics, to mean that artists represent what they find in the natural world like a landscape painter…

Government by Bot

During the period known as “the Enlightenment,” many Europeans entertained a feverish enthusiasm for overturning existing canons of political thought for theories and methods rooted in the axioms of human reason. In…

Devotional Objects of the Neoliberal Regime

From Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld, by Byung-Chul Han, 23-25: “It is not we who use the smartphone; the smartphone uses us. The real actor is the smartphone. We are at the…

The Cost of Bureaucratic Incompetence: How Managerial Mumbo Jumbo Became the New Sophistry

In a December evening in 2008, Harry Markopolos told his wife Faith to go into battle drill. They had rehearsed it many times. If someone entered their premises, he would go down…

Human Trafficking and the Truth About QAnon

Having been involved with rescuers and victims of child trafficking in the Spokane area (see here and here), it has been difficult for me to watch the cultural zeitgeist shift to the…

Struggle is an Opportunity for Growth!

One of the themes I explored in my book, Gratitude in Life’s Trenches, is how we can reframe life’s struggles as opportunities and grow stronger as a result. In chapter 7 I…

The Machine and the Human

The Summer 2023 issue of Salvo Magazine is now on its way to the mailboxes of subscribers (if you do not subscribe, you can fix that by going here). The Summer 2023…

Independence Day and the Meaning of Freedom

Here are some thoughts on the 4th of July that I emailed to my team at work earlier today. This fourth of July is poignant for me, as I celebrate America’s cherished…

Ancient Faith Podcast, Symbolic World Article, and other Recent Offerings

I recently had the opportunity to do some work for “Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy” on the meaning of “nous” and why it’s so hard to translate this tricky little Greek word. This grew…

Gratitude is Not Escapist

From, “Interview About “Gratitude in Life’s Trenches”: Even in saying that we can have gratitude for our suffering, there is a potential for this to be taken in various wrong directions. One…

Digital Catacombs, Information Literacy, and my Recent Hiking Adventure

Last week I returned from a week in Denver and the surrounding mountains, where I had my own personal hiking guide, cook, and camping coordinator as a result of speaking about AI…

Life, Longing, and Ladders in the Land of Shadows

“I am half sick of shadows,’ said     The Lady of Shalott.” —Tennyson A couple days ago I re-read George MacDonald’s fairy tale The Golden Key, as part of a George MacDonald…



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