Book Review/Rebuttal: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

November 13, 2024 by Joe Gray in Book Review, Fiction, Philosophy

It's not that I don't recommend this book or that it doesn't offer a philosophical perspective that warrants review. It is worth reading but it fails to persuade as it offers only a simplified and narrow perspective of human behavior. It requires a wholesale acceptance of its premises and provides little in the way of relevant counterarguments. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is written well and is narrated masterfully by Anthony Heald in the Audible version I listened to. When engaging with this book I recommend being aware of its rhetorical tactics and remaining skeptical of its biased perspective.

Gun Rights: The First Argument that Matters

February 05, 2023 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings, Dialogues, Philosophy, Rants, Thoughts, Freedom, Guns, Gun Rights

Anyone who wants to take guns out of the hands of free people is creating an environment for tyranny to propagate.

Book Review: 1984 by George Orwell

December 20, 2020 by Joe Gray in Book Review

I wonder how many reviews there are of this book? Probably thousands. So what could I possibly write or express that would be worth repeating? I can't expect to come up with something new to say about it. I'm certain people talk endlessly about the historical references to communistic countries like Russia and China during the first half of the 20th century. Places where millions of people were murdered by their governments. Where the media was manipulated to show the virtue of the system and the evil of the enemy. Where their leaders were venerated as living gods. Where anyone that was inconvenient to the regime was imprisoned, tortured, and eventually killed or left so broken that they couldn't recognize themself in a mirror.

A Pleasant Haunting

September 04, 2019 by Joe Gray in Memoirs, Religion, Music

I have a complicated relationship with "The Church".

There are two types of churches that I attended growing up. One was the mainstream small-town Christian Church. It had youth groups, Sunday school, basketball hoops, and a few hundred people would show up each Sunday. I was in a youth group that was a religious version of the Boy Scouts called Awanas. We memorized Bible verses, had sack-races and I'm sure there was some kind of music involved. It was not an unpleasant experience and I was pretty good at memorizing lines from the Bible. Later I would despise the idea of rote memorization and to this day do not put much effort into memorizing things. The idea of memorizing information that someone else thinks is important is offensive.

Some Thoughts on Writing

January 26, 2019 by Joe Gray in Psychology, Thoughts

Writing about one's experiences allows one to relive experiences and allows others to relive the experience when they read it. Writing expresses thoughts that would have otherwise been memorized. When we have a persistent thought pattern and do not write it down the mind continues to go over those thoughts in an effort to not lose them but when you write them down you no longer need to go over those ideas. The writing acts like an external memory extending our capacities for thinking.

Photo Journal 11/5/2018

November 05, 2018 by Joe Gray in Photo Journal

Lone Fir Cemetery

Portland, Or

Shot w/ Canon 80D w/ 70-200 & 14-24