This is why it is not true that culture can be, even temporarily, suspended in order to make way for a new culture. Man’s unbroken testimony as to his suffering and his nobility cannot be suspended; the act of breathing cannot be suspended. There i...
In ordinary perception, the senses send an overwhelming flood of information to the brain, which the brain then filters down to a trickle it can manage for the purpose of survival in a highly competitive world. Man has become so rational, so utilitar...
At the very moment that humans discovered the scale of the universe and found that their most unconstrained fancies were in fact dwarfed by the true dimensions of even the Milky Way Galaxy, they took steps that ensured that their descendants would be...
What the poet has to say to the torso of the supposed Apollo, however, is more than a note on an excursion to the antiquities collection. The author's point is not that the thing depicts an extinct god who might be of interest to the humanistically e...
We agreed that at least to some extent the whole punk movement is based on the Buddha's 1st noble truth of suffering & the dissatisfactory nature of the material world. The punks see through the lies of society & the oppressive dictates of modern con...
We all love a good story. We all love a tantalizing mystery. We all love the underdog pressing onward against seemingly insurmountable odds. We all, in one form or another, are trying to make sense of the world around us. And all of these elements li...
Unfortunately for him he looked more like an innocent man on America’s terror watch-list rather than a gallant Viking possessing all the benefits of modernity. More like a villain in a Western fairy tale with his slicked-bouffant obsidian hair rath...
On present-day Earth we have the most Christ-like nation in human history, a civilization built on loving kindness and demilitarization. They are being wiped off the face of their homeland. Well, at least the Chinese government isn’t blaming Christ...
It’s time to step back and reexamine our hatred and let wrath subside. Are we striking out against the real problems: ignorance, fear, want, greed, and political disenfranchisement or just trying to find the most immediate scapegoat on which to lay...
As I left his office he continued his telephone conversation, and as Amanda had declared, she was in fact waiting for me. “So, Amanda, what is it now? Who is it you want to fix me up with today?” “Well actually, I don’t have any new candidate...
Modernity has abandoned the household gods, not because we have rejected the idolatry as all Christians must, but because we have rejected the very idea of the household. We no longer worship Vesta, but have only turned away from her because our home...
For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call t...
An interesting contrast between the geology of the present day and that of half a century ago, is presented by the complete emancipation of the modern geologist from the controlling and perverting influence of theology, all-powerful at the earlier da...
I consider Anarchism the most beautiful and practical philosophy that has yet been thought of in its application to individual expression and the relation it establishes between the individual and society. Moreover, I am certain that Anarchism is too...
This framing accents the importance of building a tidier system, one that incorporates the array of existing child care centers, then pushes to make their classrooms more uniform, with a socialization agenda "aligned" with the curricular content that...
Speaking generally, however, when you interact with someone else, you are doing outer work (physical time, play time, connecting time) ... as many sociologists have pointed out, this area of life used to dominate everyday existence, at a time when fa...
Primary Epic is great, but not with the greatness of the later kind. In Homer, its greatness lies in the human and personal tragedy built up against this background of meaningless flux. It is all the more tragic because there hangs over the heroic wo...
These are tough times for state governments. Huge deficits loom almost everywhere, from California to New York, from New Jersey to Texas. Wait—Texas? Wasn't Texas supposed to be thriving even as the rest of America suffered? Didn't its governor dec...
Ancient philosophy was framed by prodigies, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. And even though their thoughts were deemed the aristocratic voice, they also had a thing for little boys. Katherine the Great so it's been said, needed large animals to be ful...
Crazed Video Customer: What I'm in the mood for is sort of a Katherine-Hepburny, Cary-Granty kinda thing. Nothing heavy; I couldn't take heavy. Something zany! I'm looking for something zany... or something modern would be fine, too, like a Goldy-Haw...
In older myths, the dark road leads downward into the Underworld, where Persephone is carried off by Hades, much against her will, while Ishtar descends of her own accord to beat at the gates of Hell. This road of darkness lies to the West, according...