Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, I ruminate—a lot. According to the dictionary, rumination is “deep or considered thought about something,” which sounds beneficial. However, a quick Google search reveals articles warning against it, labelling it a mental health problem. Psychologists describe rumination as the repetitive focus on negative thoughts and experiences withoutContinue reading “Ruminations on Ruminations”
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Ruminations on Social Justice, Narratives Being the Truth, and Decarbonisation
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Tomorrow, I begin teaching my decarbonisation course for the third time to postgraduate students far younger, far more sleep-deprived, and far more socially enlightened than I ever was at that age. Writing today’s blog is a last-ditch attempt to clarify the swirling mess of messages and competingContinue reading “Ruminations on Social Justice, Narratives Being the Truth, and Decarbonisation”
Ruminations on Journals, Mistakes, Corrigenda, and Electorigenda
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, Some rightly accuse me of being pompous and using fancy vocabulary. Now that I am pretending to be an academic, I have also found that to be truly impressive you must confuse people with fancy and obscure language and terminology. People may strongly suspect you are talkingContinue reading “Ruminations on Journals, Mistakes, Corrigenda, and Electorigenda”
Ruminations on empathy
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, One of my readers sent me the featured quotes. My visceral response was to demonise Musk and identify with Hannah Arendt—but then I started to ruminate, as I do. Is empathy the most essential feature of a successful society? The empathy quote is widely (but wrongly) attributedContinue reading “Ruminations on empathy”
Ruminations on Trump
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, One of my readers asked me last week what my latest views are on Trump. I am an obliging chap so here goes. Trump is a full employment scheme for journalists, sensationalists, comedians, and obscure bloggers. If we still relied on ink, we’d have a global shortage.Continue reading “Ruminations on Trump”
Is AI rotting our brains?
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, In the hollow halls of academia, a battle rages: Should students use AI? One camp cling to their quills and parchment, screaming “heresy!” The other—people like me—shrug and say, The genie’s out, deal with it. AI isn’t some passing trend; it’s a paradigm shift, and the onlyContinue reading “Is AI rotting our brains?”
Ruminations on idealism and nihilism
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, What is a Friday without some incoherent ramblings about isms? Could it be like nihilism at a birthday party—”Congrats on another meaningless trip around the sun!” But wait, what exactly is existential nihilism? It’s the worldview that life lacks inherent meaning, purpose, or values, rejects absolute truths,Continue reading “Ruminations on idealism and nihilism”
Ruminations on living outside the Overton window
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies, On Monday, Elongated Rusk graced X with this gem: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. Could have gone to some great parties. Did that instead.” That’s it. That’s how the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced the collapse of the U.S. Agency for InternationalContinue reading “Ruminations on living outside the Overton window”
Ruminations on academic freedom
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies What can you say, and what are the risks of saying it? Can I say anything I like on my blog? Theoretically, yes. But if you work in a corporation, you’re expected to speak in carefully laundered PR-approved phrases while the official spokesperson spoon-feeds the public aContinue reading “Ruminations on academic freedom”
Ruminations on hamsters, capitalism and doughnuts
Aweh, My Dearly Beloved Fellow Ruminants & Groupies As some of my more socialist colleagues have diagnosed, I am apparently an anarcho-capitalist. For the uninitiated, that’s someone who dreams of a utopia where the free market replaces governments and common sense, with private companies managing roads, courts, and probably your gran’s knitting club. Fantastic, right?Continue reading “Ruminations on hamsters, capitalism and doughnuts”
Ruminant Pink Friday 