The Art of Tetman Callis

Noodles

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“The rebel wounded (sixty-eight) were carried to a house near by, all surgical operations necessary were performed by our surgeons, and then these wounded men were left in care of an officer and four men of the rebel prisoners, with a scanty supply of food, which was the best we could do for them.  In […]

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The Vicissitudes of the Seasons

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“A.D. 1137. This year went the King Stephen over sea to Normandy, and there was received; for that they concluded that he should be all such as the uncle was; and because he had got his treasure: but he dealed it out, and scattered it foolishly. Much had King Henry gathered, gold and silver, but […]

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Descartes’s Dreams

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“The natural temptation in the nervous atmosphere of America is to listen to the voice of the mob and to proceed at once to lynch Euclid and every one who stands for that for which the ‘Elements’ has stood these two thousand years.  This is what some who wish to be considered as educators tend […]

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The Lion Sleeps Tonight “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” – Solomon Linda wrote the original of this nearly a century ago, and George David Weiss added the English-language lyrics a generation after that.

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“After supper I sat on a chair astride, with my back to a good fire, musing, and became conscious that an old negro, with a tallow-candle in his hand, was scanning my face closely.  I inquired, ‘What do you want, old man?’  He answered, ‘Dey say you is Massa Sherman.’  I answered that such was […]

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Music for Malaria

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“The skill and success of our men in collecting forage was one of the features of this march.  Each brigade commander had authority to detail a company of foragers, usually about fifty men, with one or two commissioned officers selected for their boldness and enterprise.  This party would be dispatched before daylight with a knowledge […]

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Nuts and Bubbles

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“HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF TENNESSEE, IN THE FIELD, October 12, 1864 – To the Officer commanding the United States forces at Resaca, Georgia.  SIR: I demand the immediate and unconditional surrender of the post and garrison under your command, and, should this be acceded to, all white officers and soldiers will be parolled in a few […]

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Do-It Do-It

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“AROUND ALLATOONA, October 5, 1864. – Commanding Officer, United States Forces, Allatoona: I have placed the forces under my command in such positions that you are surrounded, and to avoid a needless effusion of blood I call on you to surrender your forces at once, and unconditionally.  Five minutes will be allowed you to decide.  […]

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Motherless Child

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“The king and the head men loved much, and overmuch, covetousness in gold and in silver; and recked not how sinfully it was got, provided it came to them. The king let his land at as high a rate as he possibly could; then came some other person, and bade more than the former one […]

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A Thousand Times No

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“I peremptorily required that all the citizens and families resident in Atlanta should go away, giving to each the option to go south or north, as their interests or feelings dictated.  I was resolved to make Atlanta a pure military garrison or depot, with no civil population to influence military measures.  I had seen Memphis, […]

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Male Human Sexuality

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“In a certain technoutopian view of the future, we are headed toward a post-property world. The shift from ownership to access is supposed to liberate us, enable greater sharing of resources, fuel human creativity, create more prosperity, and lead to greater equality. What we so often forget to ask, however, is who controls access? Who […]

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In the late 1990s I produced a series of experimental sound recordings in Studio C at KUNM radio in Albuquerque.  I called this series Descartes’s Dreams, from the title of the vocal portion of its longest track. These recordings were stashed away in a plastic bag for over a dozen years before I decided to […]

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“When the time comes that knowledge will not be sought for its own sake, and men will not press forward simply in a desire of achievement, without hope of gain, to extend the limits of human knowledge and information, then, indeed, will the race enter upon its decadence.” — Charles Evans Hughes (quoted by David […]

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“In the present utilitarian age one frequently hears the question asked, ‘What is the use of it all?’ as if every noble deed was not its own justification.  As if every action which makes for self-denial, for hardihood, and for endurance was not in itself a most precious lesson to mankind.  That people can be […]

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“One of the essential properties of intelligence is flexibility.  What does it mean to be an expert at something?  What makes someone an expert is her ability to respond to a completely novel situation—to solve original problems, for example.  Expertise does not only involve having command of a huge amount of factual knowledge—it does not […]

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“I see people who do not read: they are so limited in their lives, even in the good things. They do not see beyond their immediate surroundings; they are incapable of changing anything because they neither know what there is to change, nor how to go about it. They don’t understand other people, not even […]

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“Gödel’s incompleteness theorem is one of the great intellectual accomplishments of the twentieth century.  Its implications are so far reaching that it is difficult to overestimate them.  Gödel’s result puts intrinsic limitations on the reach of deductive systems; that is, it shows that given any (sufficiently complex) deductive system, there are results that are beyond […]

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