From the category archives:

The Republic

What Is This Website About?: You Help Decide

March 15, 2010
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I need help people.  I’ve read loads of advice on “getting read.”  I’m asking for submissions, ideas, suggestions, clues on what works best on ModernSophist.com.   I’d really like to take this website to a new level but I’m having a difficult time with a key issue that will affect my future marketing: What’s It [...]

Movies That Scared You Growing Up: And Still Do

March 11, 2010
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This is about the movies that scared us. As a kid there were certain movies, certain scenes, that made a huge, scary impression, an impression that didn’t quite leave.  Take Jaws, for example:  How many people avoid swimming in any large body of water, even as adults, for fear that lurking beneath is something large, menacing, and very [...]

Domestic Disturbance or “Reality on Pine Street”

February 24, 2010
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My neighbors are fighting.  It’s 2:38pm when I check the time, but I can’t be certain how long they’ve been yelling.  This is what goes through my mind, noting the time, picturing myself in front of police officers, on the stand, in news reports: “Area Man Notes Domestic Dispute in Blog: Predicts Murder.”  Put a [...]

Turtle:Upside-Down as Limo:Bottom-Out

February 17, 2010
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In nature, all kinds of animals get stuck: the turtle on its back, the whale on the beach.  We don’t get enough of this hilarity in the City.  That is, unless, you happen to be driving by the 24.8% percent grade of Jones between California and Pine.  I live just by there, and paused, mid [...]

“Party Genealogy”: How We Fix Everything in Politics

February 15, 2010
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What if your party affiliation, Democrat, Republican, whatever, were treated like your personal ancestry?  This is my plan for how to fix everything partisan.  Just change the language.  I want it to be like you’re asking somebody where their family comes from.  It’s a perfect model, because coming from somewhere else is a very American trait.

How Twitter is Making Me Famous

February 3, 2010
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I have been tweeted by Diora Baird.  Now, fame is not my ultimate goal though, to be clear, I have no well-defined, ultimate goal.  Instead, my goal is to be read (“fame” being a natural, though unlikely inevitability).  I started ModernSophist.com because I have lots of interesting little ideas that want to be written out [...]

Is Obama Being Unreasonable?

January 29, 2010
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Is it possible that Obama is full of shit?  I wouldn’t go that far.  But I do wonder if it’s possible that some of his policies and agendas might not be the best way forward.  What I really wonder is if a lot of really reasonable people are blind to perfectly good arguments against his [...]

Salinger Is Dead: At Last

January 28, 2010
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J.D. Salinger has died at 91.  I, for one, am relieved.  My relationship (if you can call it that) with the infamous recluse has been one of abandonment:  I’ve wanted more.  I’ve waited for a sign.  Picture the kid who doesn’t know if his father is alive or dead.  His life goes on, sure, but there’s always [...]

You’re Not Depressed: Your Parents Are Immigrants

January 26, 2010
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Are you depressed? You’re not the only one.  Maybe it’s not depression.  Maybe it’s Chronic Immigrant’s Plight.  I just coined that, but I’m pretty sure it’s real.  One or both of your parents are immigrants, and it’s gettin’ you down.

What’s That Song in Your Head?

January 25, 2010
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Do random songs ever pop into your head?  I’m not talking about how some catchy tune was being played on the radio recently, or when a buddy is singing something and, like musical cooties, you pick up the melody.  I’m talking about some song just droning on, inside your head with no discernable origin.  This [...]

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