THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

In 1982, Elton John released "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)," a song eulogizing the late John Lennon. When I first heard about the untimely death of Larry Cummings, my colleague at NCMC and a professor there for over 50 years, for some reason my mind jumped to "Empty Garden," but with lyrics only slightly tailored to Larry, as the general narrative fit almost perfectly. In 1997, Elton modified "Candle In The Wind" with new lyrics that eulogized the late Princess Diana, so that's what I did here. If I ever had a singing voice to do Larry justice, and the ability to get through the song without crying, here's what I would offer up. What happened here  As the Harbor sunset disappeared  I found an empty garden among the flagstones there  Who lived here  He must have been a gardener that cared a lot  Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop  And now it all looks strange  It's funny how one virus can damage so much grain  And what...

When the first edition of David Nutt's book Drugs Without The Hot Air came out in 2012, I absolutely loved it. Informative without being dry, the book offered up evidence-based policy critiques and recommendations in nearly every chapter, while also elaborating upon the many different factors -- biological, psychological, sociocultural, economic, etc. -- that contribute to usage and addiction. Nutt (who currently works at www.drugscience.org.uk ) has recently released a revised and updated second edition, which you can purchase here: Drugs Without The Hot Air (2e) If you'd like a free sample before you take the purchase plunge -- and how druggy is that, to offer you a taste of that sweet sweet knowledge? -- you can read an excerpt here: Chapter 14 Book Excerpt Out of a bounty of information, the last chapter (Chapter 20) specially addresses young people and drugs. Since many of you might be around young people with idle time at this particular moment, why n...

One of the more interesting (and CRUSHINGLY DEPRESSING ) parts of cognitive psychology is the examination into the many forms of cognitive bias that human beings predictably express. One of my favorites (perhaps due to the availability heuristic fueled by the keynote lecture I saw David Dunning deliver at a psychology conference I attended in January) is the Dunning-Kruger Effect , which is explained here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/dunning-kruger-effect Here's another explanation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, but in video form: Here's David Dunning, currently a professor at the University of Michigan , talking about some real-life examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action: Here is a post from Psychology Today outlining 12 common biases, including the Dunning-Kruger Effect: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thoughts-thinking/201809/12-common-biases-affect-how-we-make-everyday-decisions After some deliberation, I posted all this conte...

So this flier greeted me as I walked into NCMC this morning. After calming down a bit, and then calming down some more, I sent the following message to the President of the College, as well as other members of the Administration. Hi there. I'm writing to voice my robust displeasure with the upcoming "Stump The Pro-Lifers" presentation on 17 March in the NCMC Library. I don't believe that the promotion of a religious perspective that is largely bereft of scientific validity and reliability is the path the College should follow by allowing this presentation to happen on the grounds of the College.  While the people at Gaslight Media -- an apt name were there ever one -- are portraying this presentation to be a spirited "Q&A" where all beliefs are welcome, both presenters have such clear belief systems that any evidence-based discussion will quickly grind to a halt. Here's an example of one of the speakers expressing her belief system in action a...

Andy Gill died today. I'm sure you don't know who he is, but here's a brief obit . And here's some stuff I wrote about his band Gang Of Four -- a band I was lucky enough to see in 2005 when the original members reunited for Coachella , back when that was a thing -- for my History of Rock & Roll class. One of the things I love (and miss) about the F2F version of the History of Rock & Roll class is breaking down a song or album in more detail, and there are more than a few fertile pockets in rock and roll history -- such as U.K. post-punk from 1978 to 1982 -- that I loved using class time to unpack in greater detail. I wanted to focus on one particular album from that epoch in detail, an album that is one of the best start-to-finish debut albums of all time. That album is 1979's Entertainment! by Gang Of Four , and you can listen to the whole thing here: There have been plenty of think pieces about the importance of Entertainment! as a post-punk docume...

In the past two weeks, I finished Doctor Sleep (the Stephen King book) and the director's cut of Doctor Sleep (the film written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who also did SK's  Gerald's Game for Netflix in 2017). While I was interested in both just for entertainment value -- anything to distract from the rank shitshow of everyday life, right? -- I was also prepping for a section of Film & Literature at NCMC that was entirely focused on Stephen King. Sadly, there weren't enough students for the course to run, but I'm still thinking of how I was going to deliver the course. In general, Stephen King seems to hit some form of six major themes in his work. And while looking at just those themes in his stories would be interesting enough, the extra dimension is to see how they get translated to film, what is kept and what is jettisoned as King on the page makes it to the stage. Aside from the darkly comic coked-out phantasmagoria of 1986's Maximum Overdrive ...

I can't remember the first time I made a list of something. Maybe it was when I was a kid, when the Sears Christmas catalog would arrive and I would dissect it for hours, writing down the catalog numbers of the items I wanted but knew we could never afford. Thankfully, I have more coin now than then, so if I want an album, I will buy that motherfucker immediately. What follows is a list of albums (well, physical CD's) that I bought this year. The singles of note, however, are all digital. I do miss the physical product of singles -- some of my most played and treasured CD's are singles, from Nitzer Ebb to Dr. Dre -- but if the only way to get the song is to point and click, that's what I'll do. This list is not ranked per se, but it's sorted into a few domains of "quality" (in my case, the ones I played the most). I even have some links, in case you'd like to listen and/or buy something from the artists. The Diamond Dogs Control Top – Covert ...