nathanalbright151
A Random, Forgotten Tumblr Page
To be updated whenever I feel like it.
9734 posts
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Last Seen Blogs
wingslcst
Fallen From Grace
tearfulzorua
Tearful Zorua
melocoton21
Hi hi ^^
galilea89
YELLOW SUBMARINE
Text
Book Review: Forever Free
Forever Free: The Story Of Emancipation And Reconstruction, by Eric Foner and Joshua Brown
What is it that makes this book so superior, in general, to Foner’s other works on the subject of Reconstruction? It is obvious, for example, in those few occasions in this book where the author talks about the contemporary implications of the Reconstruction that his political worldview is as little to be…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Album Review: Little Bit Of Sky
Little Bit Of Sky, by Semisonic
Somehow in 2023 Semisonic released an album that I never heard of, and so as soon as I found out it existed I had to go and listen to it, given that I am a fan of their entire body of work. Given that their previous EP had been a moderate success, even if the band hadn’t released an album since All About Chemistry, how does the album work out? Is it the sort of…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: The Second Founding
The Second Founding: How The Civil War And Reconstruction Remade The Constitution, by Eric Foner
This book is a classic example of why someone cannot trust the reputation of contemporary historians when they seek to write history with an eye towards politics in the present-day. Indeed, the author, perhaps unintentionally, points out why the Reconstruction was such a problem. In seeking justice…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: The Address Book
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, by Deirdre Mask
The author of this book appears to be torn between wishing to celebrate the way that street addresses can help people–assuming that those street addresses are not ones that are automatic signs of a bad neighborhood, leading to entrenched poverty–as well as recognizing the way that they were…
View On WordPress
1 note
·
View note
Text
Book Review: The Call Of The Primes
The Call Of The Primes: Surprising Patterns, Peculiar Puzzles, And Other Marvels Of Mathematics, by Owen O’Shea
This book happens to sit in an unhappy place as far as books about mathematics go. On the one hand, this book is written with an obvious love of mathematics and a desire to share that love with others. The author delights in patterns and puzzles, as he says. And if that was all there…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
How Should We Think And Feel About The Passover Lamb?
[Note: The following is the prepared text for a sermonette given to the Portland, Oregon congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, April 20, 2024.]
Good afternoon; I hope you are having a happy Sabbath as we approach the period of the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Instead of beginning with a story, I would like to begin with a passage of the Bible that relates to this…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Confession--The Sacrament Of Penance And Reconciliation
Confession–The Sacrament Of Penance And Reconciliation, by Chuck Elms
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Reedsy Discovery in exchange for an honest review.]
It should be noted and freely admitted at the outset that I come to this book with somewhat of an outsider perspective, given that this work is written from a sincere lay Catholic perspective on the sacrament of Penance and its…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Mathematics Minus Fear
Mathematics Minus Fear: How to Make Math Fun And Beneficial To Your Everyday Life, by Lawrence Potter
It is well known and well-understood that people tend to struggle mightily with mathematics and that a great many people fear and hate math to such a degree that it may harm their lives by leading them to be unlikely to take opportunities that require them to know mathematics. Given that…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Implausible Deniability
From time to time it is important to remember that denial is not only a river that runs through Egypt, but a river that potentially runs through every human heart and mind. Such is the case, it would appear, with the seemingly inevitable retaliatory air strike that Israel made against Iran after Iran threw more than 300 missiles and drones ineffectually at Israel a few days ago. By all accounts,…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Wanderers, Kings, Merchants
Wanderers, Kings, Merchants: The Story Of India Through Its Languages, by Peggy Mohan
This book provides a textbook example of how a book can be almost great. Its subject matter is quite interesting to me and quite relevant to the fate of many languages throughout the world, as the importance of learning prestige languages has greatly diminished the health of many local languages in the…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: American Colonies
American Colonies, by Alan Taylor
This book, the first volume in a series called the Penguin history of the United States, in which noted historian Eric Foner (noted for his writings on slavery and Reconstruction in particular) serves as the series editor, does not have an enviable position. There are a host of complications in writing about colonial history, including the complications of…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Prisoner Of Tehran
Prisoner Of Tehran: A Memoir, by Marina Nemat
As a high school student who had been somewhat deeply concerned about the failures of education with regards to textbooks and supplies during the course of my own time in high school, this book provided me with a bit of a chill. The inciting incident of this book was the author having protested about education shortcomings at her high school in the…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: All Strangers Are Kin
All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures In Arabic And The Arab World, by Zora O’Neill
My generally positive review of this book that I give is dependent on my reading of the author’s self-presentation as being deliberately critical. To the extent that the author wished herself to be seen by readers as appealing or relatable or someone to model themselves after, this book does not succeed, except in…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Ages Of Discord
Ages Of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis Of American History, by Peter Turchin
In reading this book, I was struck by the fact that there are really two types of books by this author, and both of them are great kinds of books. One sort of book is where the author lets his inner nerd take over and explore the periodicity of cycles through elegant mathematics, demonstrating the rigorous…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Escalatory Retaliation, Or How History Feels When It Is Being Written
I happened to glance at my phone as I was getting ready to leave services and go to dinner, and found that on both Skype and Telegram, a dear friend of mine (who happens to live near the center of Tehran) was frantically trying to get in touch with me, wondering whether I was awake. This is a surprisingly a propos question, given my recent problems with sleep apnea, but as I happened to be awake…
View On WordPress
1 note
·
View note
Text
Book Review: A Short Philosophy Of Birds
A Short Philosophy Of Birds, by Philippe J. DuBois and Elise Rousseau
This book is at its best when it is describing the life of birds, and at its worst when it is philosophizing from the behavior of birds. While it can be an enjoyable thing to see how animals behave–part of the joy of animals is the way that they live differently from people and from each other, and express diverse aspects of…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
Book Review: Scatter, Adapt, And Remember
Scatter, Adapt, And Remember: how Humans Will Survive A Mass Extinction, by Annalee Newitz
Most of my way through this book, I was (wrongly) convinced that this book would be better than the usual fare of pessimistic, apocalyptic rants about the destruction of the world in which we live that serves as the standard fare for popular scientific works about our day and age as it relates to the state…
View On WordPress
0 notes