*Update: substitute for “pandemic” any highly charged story currently looping on news media. “People are saying….” People are saying all kinds of things as this pandemic unfolds. Of course they are, that’s what people do !! Inspiring things, horrible things,… Read More ›
Catch-All
Music, stories, games as responses to ‘uncertain times’
About our responses during uncertain times …This is not a “beware the apocalypse” doom and gloom post. Neither is it a “look on the bright side” post. Rather, last summer I read a book called Apocalyses by Eugene Weber, an Canadian historian…. Read More ›
The Real Experts.
Some people attempt to inject a little sense into the world by writing a letter to the editor, others by commenting on the comments commenting on the comments on a comment thread, and others still by preaching from a soapbox… Read More ›
New, old, permanence, and change: Heraclitus (everything is in motion) and Parmenides (nothing is in motion) in tension. A montage.
“Not everything was better in our ancestors’ days, either — our own age, too, has produced many instances of excellence and artistic merit deserving to be imitated by posterity. At all events, let us continue to promote such honourable competitiveness… Read More ›
‘Mom-advice’. You take a little cringe with the good.
Some parental advice is worth keeping, some not. Here’s a not. Mom used to tell me, You can’t get married until you can put your hands in hot water. By this warning she figured she could get me to wash… Read More ›
Cephalus On Ageing
Cephalus, in answer to Socrates’ question of whether life is harder towards the end, “For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from… Read More ›
Sweet Revenge.
It is very sweet to do a just action which is disagreeable to those we do not like. Victor Hugo. By Order of the King. (Or, The Man Who Laughs.) The Valjean Edition of the Novels of Victor Hugo. New… Read More ›
Ancient Rome had its parallels with internet mobbing.
“Which is the more pitiful I cannot decide — being accused because of a friendship, or accusing a friend.” Tacitus. The Annals: The Reigns of Tiberius, Claudius, and Nero. Oxford World’s Classics. Translated by J.C. Yardley. Introduction and notes by Anthony… Read More ›
Small house in a big world. The power of perspective.
I don’t know how old I was when I first heard I live in a very small house, but my windows look out on a very big world. But as one of my dad’s favourite quotes, I’ve known it as… Read More ›
The day the Russians nuked my sawmill camp. A survivor’s memoir.
Prelude: After 44 years, my memory of this late cold-war-era event is not perfect. But it left an impression that planted seeds for my future interest in social epistemology, the social dimension of knowledge. Perhaps as something like Y2K will… Read More ›
