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Monthly Archives: June 2011
The Problem of Pure Consciousness
. Sunlight rivers through the shimmering Sycamore tree, pools on the ground, Makes of shadow a living shoreline. I vibrate there. The juggler’s balls are Frightfully high in the rarified air. Eight Sheriff’s deputies in four cars came, but They did … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, consciousness, enlightenment, life, literature, love, poems, poetry, Santi Tafarella, the ontological mystery, yoga
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At Last, an Honest Budget: Why I’m Glad Jerry Brown is Governor of California
When Jerry Brown ran for governor last year, I voted for him. One reason I did so was because I believed that he would be likely to keep everything above-board, budget-wise. He has delivered in spades. After recently vetoing a budget … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged America, budget balancing, budget cutting, California, college, deficit, education, jerry brown, Politics, silicon valley, taxes
1 Comment
Advice for Dying Fathers (Contra Dylan Thomas)
_____ Leaves cling, do not go gently, but go just The same. The signal is yellow; the alive Are always downcast before being cast down. Look! The green team winning all summer Is starting to lose badly, going bald in The stunning … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aging, autumn, creative writing, death, Dylan Thomas, English, fathers, life, literature, poems, poetry, Santi Tafarella
3 Comments
Are Science and Poetry Compatable? Do We Want Them To Be?
It’s sometimes suggested that science and poetry are two ways of looking at the world that really don’t have many points of contact. But, curiously, below is one of the world’s greatest living literary critics, Helen Vendler of Harvard, explaining how her early training … Continue reading
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Tagged Daniel Dennett, deepities, helen vendler, poetry, religion, Richard Dawkins, science, the ontological mystery, william carlos williams
1 Comment
Which Germany would you like to live in? Luther’s, Hitler’s, or Habermas’s?
In thinking about what worldviews are broadly contending for the human future, it occurs to me that Germany, over the past 500 years, has basically passed through the three key ones: The religious civilizational vision. This is embodied today by contemporary fundamentalists … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Germany, history, Hitler, jurgen habermas, Martin Luther, philosophy, Politics, the Enlightenment, the future
16 Comments
Catnip for Poetry Readers: T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” Gets an iPad App That Breaks New Ground
The iPad app for T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is $13.95, which is a bit pricey as apps go, but what a bargain for poetry lovers! I downloaded it yesterday and started to play with it. The app really represents the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apps, books, iPad, literature, poems, poetry, T. S. Eliot, the waste land
3 Comments
Dear Photograph: A Fascinating New Website
Contributers to the new site called “Dear Photograph” align old photographs with their points of origin, then retake the images. The achieved result is the display of people ghost-haunting, as it were, places in which they are no longer present (either because they have … Continue reading
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Tagged art, beauty, family, life, love, memory, photography, poetry, sadness, time
3 Comments
Not a Flash Mob, but a Flash Rob
Demonstrating the double-edged sword that technology so frequently represents, and the human propensity to make use of it for both good and evil, this new form of theft—shown in the below video—is, apparently, coordinated using cell phones.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cell phones, crime, Dionysus, evil, flash mob, flash rob, robbery, social psychology, technology, theft
12 Comments
Right Ring: Perry-Bachmann 2012?
The Herderian religious conservative governor of Texas, Rick Perry, at the recent Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, appears to have wowed the Christian fundamentalist dominated crowd. This is from NBC News: Of all the speakers of the three-day confab, Perry was … Continue reading
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Tagged 2012, America, feminism, fundamentalism, gay rights, michelle bachmann, Republicans, rick perry, right wing, rush limbaugh
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The Evolutionary Universe 1, Genesis Literalism 0
Question: Five days after the creation of the universe, were there whales? Answer: Obviously not. Why? Because the earth was not here five days after the universe began. And, for that matter, it was not here a billion years after the universe began. The earth … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, astronomy, atheism, atheist, Charles Darwin, creation, evolution, Genesis, jerry coyne, John Macarthur, Richard Dawkins, theology
2 Comments
Eugenics Revival Watch: What’s Richard Dawkins’s Position on Eugenics?
He wants an open discussion concerning the subject. Below is the full text of what he wrote as a contribution to the book, What is Your Dangerous Idea? (Simon & Schuster 2006). Richard Dawkins’s statement also appeared in the The Herald of Scotland in November … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, breeding, eugenics, God, horses, Jesus, Nietzsche, philosophy, Richard Dawkins, the future
21 Comments
The Evangelical (and Republican) Cult Explosion
Karl Giberson is an evangelical, a biologist, and an intellectual. And he’s fighting the “good fight” against that (larger) cultic part of evangelical subculture that is epistemically closed to secular scholarship. By calling the mass of evangelicalism cultic, I mean that it has created … Continue reading
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Tagged agnosticism, America, apologetics, atheism, atheist, decline, doubt, God, Jesus, John Macarthur, psychology, social psychology
6 Comments
Toy Helicopter with Camara Buzzes Venice
The beach. The one in California.
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Tagged beach, beauty, California, flight, helicopter, life, mental health break, summer, Venice
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The United States vs. China: Who Will Win the 21st Century’s Outer and Inner Space Races?
The writing is on the wall, Nebuchadnezzar. This little tidbit was in the Washington Times late last year: The median age of NASA’s manned space engineers is now over 55. Over a quarter are past retirement age. Meanwhile, China’s average … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, China, eugenics, genome, science, space, space exploration, the moon, United States
6 Comments
Prometheus Unbound 