What if a butterfly thinks it is ugly? I participated in a Socrates’ Cafe discussion last night that entertained this question. The discussion was wide ranging, stimulating, satisfying. There were seven of us in attendance using Go-To-Meeting for the video mediated discussion. The question asks the reader to imagine oneself a butterfly. That alone…
After a session of wrestling with ideas, words, with the recalcitrant “world”, — my spirit seems to seize, overcome with the weary business of it all. Perhaps this is the hazard of a love of philosophy? David Hume once said. Since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose,…
As usual I received the weekend update on my iphone news feed from the New York Times. I attempted to read over my bowl of cheerios. Interesting and concise as always, but I felt repulsed. My mind resisted following the cascade of deepening “troubles.” Another Black man is shot while fleeing police; demonstrations against…
The weeks have been long. There is a exhaustion felt due to quarantine, mandated isolation from communal activities, and then the spate of murders of innocent black men, in Georgia and then in Minnesota. The riots over the past few nights in our cities are a natural release of rage, of exasperation over the…
The rioting continues, despite the efforts of governors to use police and national guard to protect property, and to minimize the use of force against those who are protesting systemic racism, and particularly the disproportionate killing of black people by police. At the national level, the President rages like a mad emperor. Subsequent to…
It is Sunday morning. Two and a half months ago, late winter when the quarantine was announced, I drove to Geneva on a Sunday morning. That was not unusual since Geneva is 10 minutes away from Batavia. Until the covid-19 quarantine the Starbucks on 3rd Street was my preferred venue for beginning each day…
Friday, the last day of the work week is greeted with the gratitude of a homecoming, the “ending” of a period of work, of aspiration. It is not as if the work can be finished, brought to a ultimate terminus. To be alive is to be immersed in change; there’s always work to be…
These photos were taken in the backyard over the last 48 hours. Spring is at the epitome of glory, flowering trees, wild flowers at the edge of the woods, and the rabbit that makes a home by our creek. We have named the rabbit Percival. At this juncture in the season Percival finds plenty…
