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	<title>Quirk</title>
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	<description>It&#039;s about Emerson, fencing, painting, writing, absurdities, aikido, politics, spirit,  rock &#039;n&#039; roll, Thoreau, science fiction, beauty...  and getting down       with my bad side</description>
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		<title>AI Is Just A Machine</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2025/08/25/ai-is-just-a-machine/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Aug 2025 21:38:43 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Awareness]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[ELIZA]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=5021</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I’ve found an appropriate if simple summation of “Artificial Intelligence.” It could be a conceptual hurdle, though, for the true believers of AI: &#8220;Artificial Intelligence&#8221; is just a machine. A digital kind, but mechanical in operation. It has no more “intelligence” than a can-opener. However, it can be trained, which is a step up from [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<title>The Main Puzzlement</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2025/08/06/the-main-puzzlement/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Aug 2025 08:02:09 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Art]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Movie review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[psychology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[human beings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[imagination]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Mysterious universe]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[the movie Alpha]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wolves]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=5010</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[The main puzzlement of my life so far (I’m only 74) is: What are human beings? This came to me after watching the movie Alpha, about the first rapprochement between wolf and humankind. The movie’s title by the end resonates beyond dominance, about this first connection between species. It shows to us dull humans an [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">5010</post-id>
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		<title>A Process for Novel Revision</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2025/06/21/a-process-for-novel-revision/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 21 Jun 2025 19:59:20 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[fiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Novel]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[creativity]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[novel revision]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[novel writing]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[writing-tips]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4995</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[“… Consider for a moment what you&#8217;re doing when you &#8220;fine-tune&#8221; your prose. You&#8217;re really removing the sense of a &#8220;writer&#8221; from the work, so that the only thing of which a reader is aware is the imaginative world of the story.”– David Kaplan, in Revision: A Creative Approach I’ve finished my third novel, in [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4995</post-id>
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		<title>A New Mode of Enjoying Music</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2025/02/16/a-new-mode-of-enjoying-music/</link>
					<comments>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2025/02/16/a-new-mode-of-enjoying-music/#comments</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Feb 2025 07:44:25 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Art]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Remembering]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seventies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sixties]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[classic rock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crosby]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Crosby Stills & Nash]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jefferson Airplane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[music reaction videos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Procol Harum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Chambers Brothers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Three Dog Night]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4945</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[In my occasional wanderings on YouTube, which I go to mostly for music of interest, I’ve encountered a new way of enjoying music. At least for me. And it’s not new in other contexts of course, when friends of like mind and tastes get together to play music that means something to them. Although this [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4945</post-id>
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		<item>
		<title>Halls of Sun, Corridors of Rain &#8211; Part 2</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/halls-of-sun-corridors-of-rain-part-2/</link>
					<comments>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/halls-of-sun-corridors-of-rain-part-2/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Sep 2024 05:15:04 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Art]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Eighties]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[notebooks]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[writer as a young man]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4928</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[This is a continuation of an earlier post where I excavate among the many quotes and observations of my notebooks, and see if I can find anything odd, funny or thought provoking. I spent the great majority of my life wanting to write, rather than doing so, and I consoled myself about this procrastination by [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4928</post-id>
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		<title>Corporations As If People Mattered</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/08/18/corporations-as-if-people-mattered/</link>
					<comments>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/08/18/corporations-as-if-people-mattered/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2024 03:57:14 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Seventies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[change resistance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[corporations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E.F. Shumacher]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ed Zitron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PPT]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shareholders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Small is Beautiful]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[society]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4905</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[As a young man, I read the economist E.F. Schumacher’s book Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered with great interest. It seemed like a breath of fresh air in its exploration of “Buddhist economics” based on the idea that people need good work for proper human development. After World War II and a [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4905</post-id>
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			<media:title type="html">Small is Beautiful</media:title>
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		<title>Exploiting Writers&#8217; Yearning</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/04/29/exploiting-writers-yearning/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:47:13 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Awareness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Book Review]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[exploitation]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4800</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[All of us who write want to be read. Even those who write technical manuals and advertising copy or other completely prosaic scribing want that (or at least need it to keep a job). For those of us who struggle with words to express ourselves creatively as best we can, the thought of being read, [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4800</post-id>
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		<title>A Return to Middle Earth</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/03/16/a-return-to-middle-earth/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Mar 2024 04:04:26 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Art]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Fantasy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Movie review]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[literature]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lord of the Rings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peter Jackson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[refuge]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tolkien]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4861</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I realized the other day that it is just over 20 years ago that the last of Peter Jackson’s trilogy of the Lord of the Rings was in theatres. My wife and I went to watch each of the three as they came out one year apart. Times have changed. We don’t go to the [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4861</post-id>
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		<title>Rewarding Reads &#8211; Worthwhile Online Journals</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2024/02/17/rewarding-reads-worthwhile-online-journals/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:15:27 +0000</pubDate>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://fencer.wordpress.com/?p=4841</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Over the past couple of years, I’ve found a few online journals that provide thoughtful, interesting, well-written commentary on a number of subjects. With hope that knowledge of them might be rewarding to others, I will go through them here in no particular order. The Conversation First up is The Conversation. Subtitled on the masthead [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">4841</post-id>
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		<title>The Highly Implausible Jack Reacher</title>
		<link>https://fencer.wordpress.com/2023/11/27/the-highly-implausible-jack-reacher/</link>
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		<dc:creator><![CDATA[fencer]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 Nov 2023 01:38:35 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Book Review]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[Although I have been a life-long admirer and would-be practitioner of science-fiction stories, I also read a lot of thrillers. As a genre, thrillers have a wide range and the ones I enjoy most border on the literary. I’m thinking here of the intense emotional action and complex characters of Karin Slaughter, as one good [&#8230;]]]></description>
		
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