To designate a hellis not, of course, to tell us anythingabout how to extract people from that hell,how to moderate hell’s flames. Still, it seems a good in itself to acknowledge,to have enlarged, one’s senseof how much sufferingcaused by human wickednessthere is in the world we share with others.Someone who is perennially surprisedthat depravity…
We attempted to discuss the topic: How Are We Free? The topic is perennially compelling. A sense of agency is what it means to be a self. To the extent that one is a self, one feels his or her own agency, — one believes that one is free. I recognize that I’ve prejudiced…
Received good news this morning around 5:30AM. Our granddaughter was born. We plan to travel to Louisville on Wednesday. She surprised all of us by coming just a bit earlier than expected. Life is nothing but surprise after surprise. Another argument for living simply, in a uncomplicated fashion. One must always be able to…
Sunday afternoon was dedicated to mowing the grass for the last time in the growing season of 2019. The cold of winter is at hand and I cannot count on Indian Summer, a warm day or two remaining in the month of November. I pushed the mower and mulched the fallen leaves. What remains…
A comment to a post of several days ago asserted that racism in some form is endemic to the human experience, without exception. The response was a bullseye, so I’ll attempt to repay the “two cents” worth of commentary with a bit of interest. In my experience this appears to be the case. To…
Spent a delightful late Thursday walking a neighborhood with grandchildren and parents. Sure it was a brisk, snowy day, unusual for late fall, — but no matter. On both sides of the street costumed kids happily approached the front door of house after house to say the customary incantation: Trick or Treat. The reward,…
Racism á la carte 1. Old fashioned racism Rejection of the Islamic or Mexican or Black or _____ (despotic, barbarian, orthodox, corrupt, oriental) other on behalf of authentic (Western, civilized, democratic, Christian) values. 2. Politically correct racism The mult-culturalist perception that the “other” is the terrain of ethnic horrors, intolerance, of primitive irrational war-passions…
Ever so often I see articles suggesting that eventually it may be possible to eliminate human death from “natural causes.” That sounds terrific from an individual point of view — who wants to die involuntarily? But reading reports LIKE further convinces me that such a development would thoroughly ruin the human race. Currently, just…
The discussion last night was spirited. A thought experiment involving observation of one’s hand was proposed. A hand has objective status, a object existing in space along with other objects. Concurrently there is no denying that my hand, with age blemished skin, and a partially healed nick from a sharp edge of a paring…
There is gray mist in the air this morning. Traffic is heavy, as usual. A Metra train pulls into the station and gaggles of commuters will come into view hustling across the road toward the the gleaming open doors. Another day in the outskirts of a big city, Chicago of course. I hear the…
