This is the ruinous contradiction underlying present-day American “conservatism.” For the present economy to thrive or even survive, it is necessary for the great majority of the people to have exorbitant or inordinate wants, to expect to get what they want, and to feel that they have a “right” to get it. But to…
Yesterday I was a guest for a tenth birthday celebration. The party was a glorious event. The family affair was held in honor of Myles’s tenth birthday. Josh and Cassie were host to a house full of family and close friends. The feasting, story telling, the presents, the cake, everything was perfect to say…
In his essay on “How to Raise a Boy” Michael Kimmel offers these answers to the question: “What does it mean to be a good man?” This list of attributes were offered by several thousand young men around the world to Kimmel’s question. Integrity Honor Being Responsible Being a good provider, protector Doing the…
If you are like me, you despair of finding a reliable source for “news.” In the old days, there was one source for everyone, the newspaper. The newspaper published daily, was delivered by a neighborhood kid, and you’d find your copy lying at the end of the driveway. Television news was a informative summary,…
Visited a neighborhood bar last night in Chicago. The Duke of Perth is on Clark Street in the Lakeview neighborhood. I had never tasted Scotch until several weeks ago. A friend knowledgeable about the libation brought a bottle of his favorite malt to open an evening of philosophy discussion with a Scotch tasting. I…
“Everything flows” said old Heraclitus. Heraclitus of Ephesus, otherwise known as Heraclitus the Obscure lived about 500 BC. Heraclitus famous saying is pronounced, “panta rhea, ouden manei.” The literal meaning is: everything changes and nothing remains. Given this brief snippet of information, the most essential knowledge about this world and our life has been…
Just finished reading Ed O’Keefe’s Washington Post story on the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda honoring Billy Graham. The only statement in the report to be understood with simplicity, as a young child would think —that Graham died on February 21 at his home in Montreat North Carolina. The rest is surface for layers…
It is gray and raining today, with perhaps a visitation of wet snow later in the morning. Weather extremes herald the approach of spring. The tilt of the earth provides incremental warming to us in the northern hemisphere–the slide begins to the awaited growing season. Natures rhythm is beneficent, a solace that we depend…
Wednesday morning. It is the morning after another interesting, passionately discussed topic: panpsychism. Sounds esoteric, and implausible on its face: that mind might be a component of all of reality, from the sand flea, no, lets start even more basic, with the electron. How about reciprocity of rudimentary awareness between a single electron and…
The visit to my home town has concluded. Three days were allocated to spend time with my disabled sister, and to visit with my brother. Those three days are also filled with memories of the person that I was when I was a child in Durham. There are also the years in my mid-twenties…
