A few days remain before Christmas. At this juncture in life, I am able to call to memory past Christmas seasons. Christmas is the high point of a year, is it not? A season of ending, as well as a season of anticipation. Something is about to begin. The ending and the beginning are…
I was drawn to this Dec. 9, Washington Post article by Annie Gowin. Here are several paragraphs: MITCHELL, S.D. — A cold wind whipped through the prairie as they laid Buck Timmins to rest. Timmins, a longtime coach and referee, was not the first person in Mitchell, S.D., pop. 15,600, to die of the coronavirus….
What is outdated is not asking what is true and what is just, but viewing science…relegating it to the status of unlegitimated learning, half knowledge… The question, “What is your argument worth, what is your proof worth?” is so much a part of the pragmatics of scientific knowledge that is what assures the transformation…
Posting more holiday themed photographs will have to wait. I feel compelled to say something about our philosophy discussion of a few hours ago. There were eight of us joining a Zoom video chat based upon a New Yorker article entitled Why Facts Do Not Change Our Minds. That title speaks for itself. The…
The difficulty with rape, is getting past the emotional wave of horror and revulsion, to ask “how are such acts possible in this or any civilized society?” The #Me Too movement is not new. Women have lived under the threat, and some have suffered from this manner of violence for 2000 years and longer….
Another grey winter-like day. More similar days are to come. Much in life must be accepted. In the state of Georgia the scrum intensifies leading up to the January runoff between a pair of Republican and a pair of Democratic candidates. The outcome will determine which party controls the Senate. What if any difference…
And we, who have always thought of happiness as rising, would feel the emotion that almost overwhelms us whenever a happy thing falls. — Rainer Maria Rilke, The Tenth Elegy I suppose that my first few months of life were happy. That is speculation. I am not certain that I have at any time…
Thanksgiving at last! Thanksgiving day is the least commercialized of all our national celebrations. The day of “feasting” goes back to the mythic founding of the nation. The Pilgrims arrived and founded Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. A deal was made with the Wampanoag tribe of indigenous people. Indians indigenous to America had lived here…
We discussed ideas from an essay which treated the sensation that comes when one is aware of an object in Nature, experienced as overwhelming, awe inspiring. German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto in his influential 1917 German book The Idea of the Holy, coined the term Mysterium Tremendum. We are fascinated, attracted and paradoxically…
I met with a friend yesterday afternoon. To meet with someone across a table is an extraordinary privilege in these days of the spread of covid-19. Typically exchanges of any kind that are conducted indoors take place on video screens. Extreme caution is justified as the virus often is debilitating and there is always…
