Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Easter Eggs (21 of 21): La Dolce Vita

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Preface to all 21 parts: This is a special holiday weekend, because not only does it contain Good Friday and Easter, but it also begins the Slope of Hope's 20th year in continuous operation! Through the weekend, I will be sharing some of my favorite posts from the past, plucked from among the literally 30,000 posts I've created over the years. Here is one of them:

While thumbing through the paper (which has become a munificent source for anecdotes lately), I saw this advertisement. The image is a bit odd because this is a scan of a newspaper, so you can see some of the very exciting specials from the Willows Market advertisement on the other side of the same page. Still, you can make it out pretty clearly:

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Easter Eggs (20 of 21): Harmony at Gunpoint

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Preface to all 21 parts: This is a special holiday weekend, because not only does it contain Good Friday and Easter, but it also begins the Slope of Hope's 20th year in continuous operation! Through the weekend, I will be sharing some of my favorite posts from the past, plucked from among the literally 30,000 posts I've created over the years. Here is one of them:

Over just two days, I read the newly-published book We Have Been Harmonized cover to cover. For anyone interested in China, global economics, or high-tech surveillance, I heartily recommend it. The book is superbly written, well-researched, and comes from an author who is an expert in the field. In this post, I would like to explore some of the topics covered in the book.

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Easter Eggs (19 of 21): B.A. in English

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Preface to all 21 parts: This is a special holiday weekend, because not only does it contain Good Friday and Easter, but it also begins the Slope of Hope's 20th year in continuous operation! Through the weekend, I will be sharing some of my favorite posts from the past, plucked from among the literally 30,000 posts I've created over the years. Here is one of them:

Earlier this week, after I dropped my wife and one of our children off at the airport, I decided to make a small detour on the way home. The airport was only about a mile away from the college I attended, so I thought I’d swing by the townhouse where my roommates and I used to live, just for old time’s sake.

As I made the turn off the freeway down The Alameda, the memories came back swiftly. I pulled up close to the townhouse complex where we lived, but I had forgotten there was a gate leading into the parking lot, so I couldn’t fulfill my desire to stroll around the place and think about old times. So I just parked in front of it, gazing up at the balcony where we used to throw water balloons at the unsuspecting traffic (Puerile, I know, but one of the better memories of my misspent youth).

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