Shane Lindemoen

Beware, dear reader: spoilers ahead. In October 1929, on a Black Tuesday that marked the depth of what economist Irvine Fisher described as the “great plateau,” foreshadowing some pretty heinous irony, (or in other words, embedding what Welles would have described as an excellent plot catalyst) Orson Welles was probably examining the ideal life,...
Read More »

  (Despite my better judgment I felt the need to pull a comment from a recent email I received, which addressed my common use of the word determinism) Cite the exclamation, to whom I felt compelled to respond. “Time is movement. Nature doesn’t determine it. The only thing up for debate is the decision...
Read More »

  Writing fiction is an artistic expression, and like most artistic expressions it relies for much of its essence on a lot of common patterns that both the reader and the writer can recognize. That’s sometimes the best part of observing art: trying to understand the messages behind the expressions. With fiction, there’s a...
Read More »

  Before you start reading this, you may want to first check out Creating Mental Illness, One Student at a Time for some context. I’m a firm believer in the idea that mistakes are opportunities in disguise – I mean, as long as they don’t result in the irreversible maiming of innocents, or the inadvertent destruction...
Read More »

  UPDATE:  Mental Illness Redux – Behaviorist Mike Samsa Responds.   I was having a heated discussion today about the somewhat contrived nature of modern psychology – at least fringe psychology. You see, as I understand things (with said understandings relatively biased and, I’ll admit, somewhat limited in an overall general way, so definitely...
Read More »

  I was parsing the quality of some movies with a friend a few days ago. You know how it goes – us consumers often measure things against the standards by which all other things of equal categorization are judged – books to books, music to music, cars to cars, apples to oranges, and…...
Read More »

Here’s a bit of mildly interesting mélange of events for you. First, it goes without saying that the Citizens United decision gets smellier the longer it remains unflushed in the toilet of our legislative process. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that the largest businesses should be recognized as part of the legislative...
Read More »

I must get something off of my chest and in print before I spiral into another six month non-productive, contemplative state. It wasn’t until I recently finished the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins that I allowed myself time again to examine the state of affairs in fantasy fiction. What I found is entirely solipsistic,...
Read More »

“A little and a little, collected together, becomes a great deal; the heap in the barn consists of single grains, and drop by drop makes an inundation.” -Old Arab Proverb  “In terms of game-theory, we might say the universe is so constituted as to maximize play. The best games are not those in which...
Read More »

“There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.” -Hannah Arendt   “The First Amendment...
Read More »

“All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members.” -Morris West  “But eradicating corruption is not enough to sustain a country.” -Eduard Shevardnadze   One might mention the conspicuous way in which a Russian-born, Georgian statesman could finish West’s sentence like that, such as the state-appointed censor, the enterprising owner,...
Read More »

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt   “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to...
Read More »

1 His heart stopped – he believed it stopped. So he watched his younger brother ride away and, benumbed, he headed for home. He passed two drug-stores sold out of newspapers. Then he stopped at the third because anything left wasn’t news. It was morning. He grabbed the paper and paid the quarter, half of what...
Read More »

Then: Once alive, your heart shall come across regret, which is living by its own standard. Her sister Alice, for example, would taunt her until she took another drink. Her heart would slip on the fiery platforms for respect and admiration. Most of her would be faded, inebriated on the carpet, her throat pushing back hot...
Read More »