art family history pragmatic historian writing

Becoming a Writer

Several of John Scalzi’s essays/blog posts in his book “Don’t Live for Your Obituary” are sticking with me such that I want to bounce off them with my own blog posts. One such post is called “Imposter Syndrome, or Not” (page 395-401 in the book, dated January 30, 2016 on his Whatever blog). Scalzi opens the post discussing how so many writers suffer from Imposter Syndrome, the feeling that they’re just not good enough at…

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design history ideas pragmatic historian time

A Thought Experiment on Flag Day

Today is Flag Day in the United States. I thought it was Father’s Day, but that’s next weekend. My days are all messed up with working from home because they just run into one another. I can see why holidays are so important for marking time. I don’t typically pay much attention to Flag Day, but as circumstance would have it, I was thinking about the U.S. flag a couple of days ago. Here was…

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action history ideas pragmatic historian

C-19 Window Symbols for COVID-19 Victims

I have seen the sentiment expressed multiple times online that the weeks we have lived in 2020 feel like years as the serious events of the year, including the pandemic, innumerable political events, and the death of George Floyd with the resulting worldwide protests, pile up on us. We barely have time to process major news related to any particular event when another hits and it’s all we can do to hang on for the…

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