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- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Anne Frank and Margo Frank in a Purim Holiday Photo with Other Jewish Children, February, 1934, and an Image from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Where Anne and Margo Died
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- Negative Capability Defined: Walking in Mysteries---and the Shoes of Others---with Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman---and Barack Obama!
- In Evolution We Trust?: England Puts Charles Darwin on the Back of Its Ten Pound Bank Note
- Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Image from the Concentration Camp at Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria, 1945
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
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Recent Posts
Monthly Archives: July 2009
Mental Health Break
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1970s, hippies, life, mental health break, mountains, psychology, steve miller
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John Keats on the 1781 Discovery of Uranus
In a Slate.com review of Richard Holmes’s new book on Romanticism and science, the reviewer notes a reference to astronomer William Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus in one of John Keats’s sonnets: In Keats’ sonnet “On First Looking Into … Continue reading
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Tagged astronomy, John Keats, literature, poetry, romanticism, science, william Herschel
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Irony, Eros, Thanatos, and Dionysus
Against this bucolic depiction, Dionysus, circa 70 CE, would soon be interrupting idyllic Pompeii with the volcanic eruption of Mt. Visuvius:
Jeff Locker, Eros, and Thanatos: What Motivated the Stabbed Motivational Speaker?
An old, old story? Forbidden eros once again translates into thanatos (death)? According to the AP, stabbed to death motivational speaker, Jeff Locker, may have been deceiving his wife about his own, er, motivations for being out so late: [Locker] told his wife that … Continue reading
wii drums?
What would Marshall McLuhan say about this extension of the human hand?
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Tagged drums, marshall mcluhan, music, technique, technology, wii, wii drums
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Quote for a Sunday
Patrick Appel today at Andrew Sullivan’s blog: I’ve absolutely no problem with [Daniel] Dennett stating his opinions or arguing forcefully for what he believes. But telling fellow non-believers they ought to be less courteous to the faithful strikes me as … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, agnostics, atheist, atheists, Daniel Dennett, doubt, faith, fundamentalism, God, religion, skepticism
1 Comment
Irony Watch
James Dean cautions against unsafe driving: Until watching this video, I hadn’t registered how closely Brad Pitt channels James Dean.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged brad pitt, cars, death at a young age, driving, hollywood, irony, james dean, safety
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Cosmic Groovy
Appearing to have stepped out of a 1970s time machine, Paul Davies gives a stimulating talk on the cosmic mysteries. Intellectual wavy gravy: And Part 2:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1970s, God, groovy, hippies, meaning, paul davies, philosophy, physics, science, the brady bunch, time machine
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Does That Mean They’re Not Loonies?
Daniel Dennett’s recent article on skepticism (in the Guardian) was accompanied by what I thought was an amusing editor’s correction: This article was amended on Thursday 16 July 2009. Moon-landing sceptics were referred to as “loonies”, contrary to the Guardian … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnostic, atheist, Daniel Dennett, free speech, Michael Shermer, moon, moon-landing skeptics, name-calling, religion, skepticism
4 Comments
We Can Fly, We Can Fly, We Can Fly!
At least in our dreams. At Slate today, Mason Currey recounts a “lucid dream” (a dream in which you are conscious of dreaming, and act on that consciousness) that he had: I’m walking up a path into the lobby of an … Continue reading
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Tagged creative writing, dream, dreams, fleetwood mac, flight, Freud, lucid dreaming, night, peter pan, sex
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Striking a Balance?
Philosopher Julian Baggini today: If you are stuck on a mountaintop, the belief that you will get down if you try hard enough is too important to seriously doubt. In contrast, the belief that you will survive no matter what … Continue reading
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Tagged adults, atheist, children, Christianity, free speech, ireland, Islam, julian baggini, philosophy, religion, Voltaire
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Holy, Holy, Holy: The Three Sacred Mysteries of Existence
I see three sacred mysteries: God, matter, and mind By ‘God’ I mean whatever it was that prompted what might have been nothing to actually be something. As an agnostic, if I’m going to talk about ‘God’ the best I … Continue reading
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Tagged Allen Ginsberg, body, God, holiness, holy, life, matter, mind, philosophy, poetry
2 Comments
My Favorite Agnostic Joke
I don’t remember Woody Allen’s exact words, but in one of his films he’s having one of his characteristic existential crises and asks his elderly father whether or not he believes in the existence of God, and whether the universe has any … Continue reading
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Tagged agnostic, apologetics, atheist, doubt, epistemology, existentialism, humor, nihilism, philosophy, religion, woody allen
1 Comment
40 Years Ago, on July 20, 1969, Human Beings Stepped onto the Moon
And here’s what the front page of the New York Times looked like on July 21, 1969: I can’t help but hear, in the headline, an echo of the ancient Roman Imperium: We came, we saw, we conquered. And here’s … Continue reading
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Tagged anniversary, history, life, lunar, lunar surface, moon, moonwalk, NASA, neil armstrong, progress, science, space
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Mental Health Break
Samson’s lament:
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Tagged 1960s, Bible, delilah and samson, Hebrew Bible, mental health break, music, religion, samson and delilah, tom jones
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The Caveman Didn’t Make Me Do It?
Evolutionary psychology, as a discipline, seems to be coming under fire. See Newsweek on it here.
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Tagged biology, Darwin, evolution, evolutionary psychology, stephen gould, steven pinker
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