tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.comments2023-04-03T13:43:43.375-04:00Kubla KongUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger217125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-69936497256027231242017-11-26T09:15:41.312-05:002017-11-26T09:15:41.312-05:00A while back I was listening to an NPR broadcast i...A while back I was listening to an NPR broadcast in which a man was being interviewed about his concept of "religion for atheists." He pointed out how religions generally have a positive, uplifting message that encourages followers to be loving, forgiving, etc., and reiterates their message over and over again in a variety of ways (e.g., sermons, prayers). This continual reminder of the wisdom of any particular religion is necessary because of the way human minds (and "hearts") work; we tend to get caught up in the everday business of life--work, home, family--including all its stresses, pressures, and anxieties, so we all too easily forget all the little wisdoms we've learned along the way, the thoughts and perspectives that help us feel inspired, serene, harmonious, loving, forgiving, at one with things, etc.<br /><br />Atheists have just as much of a need for "wisdom"--which need not involve any reference to a deity--but we don't have regular exposure to it. We may have learned some great stuff in a college philosophy class we took when we were 19 (or in many other ways at many points throughout our lives), but are we going to remember it for the rest of our lives? Are we going to live by it? What would it be like it atheists had a "church" to go to once a week to hear "sermons" about the collected wisdom of humanity?<br /><br />I also read something recently about how some hospitals have begun employing atheist chaplains. Atheist patients (e.g., those who are dying or facing a difficult illness) need comfort and support and just someone to talk to just as much a religious patients do, but most hospitals don't have any kind of support available to them. Based on the article I read, atheist patients love having an atheist chaplain to talk to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-43135164312930418792012-10-28T05:21:52.282-04:002012-10-28T05:21:52.282-04:00Highly descriptive article, I loved that a lot.
W...Highly descriptive article, I loved that a lot.<br /><br />Will there be a part 2?<br /><i>My website</i> :: <b><a href="http://www.wpowerakku.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.wpowerakku.com</a></b>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-76266722642457104472012-01-25T21:07:33.603-05:002012-01-25T21:07:33.603-05:00Hello,
I have found this site today and I am very ...Hello,<br />I have found this site today and I am very impressed by your elaborate way of describing things!<br />I myself, am a girl in the beginning of my twenties but the topics you illustrate are very interesting.<br />Starting from age 18, I have always been wondering why marriage is of high importance, even for me, who comes from an asian buddhist country, this very christian thing seems to be essential for finding happiness and satisfaction in my life - at least from my familys point of view.<br />When I come to comment on this matter, when a talk naturally bends to that theme, I usually experience a lot of lack of comprehension from the others. It would be very interesting to hear from you, how you deal with such "discussions"? <br />Lots of respect~Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-60810536086784144222012-01-19T04:01:20.966-05:002012-01-19T04:01:20.966-05:00I await your opinion with interest. A greater cont...I await your opinion with interest. A greater contrast to the Gaddis/DFW/Pynchon (BTW I accept your exclusion of the latter, who is, despite his raging genius, inconsistent) axis could not be imagined. Settle back into the warm water of intellectual middle America. You are safe with Mr. Ford. Or think you are.....docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-25515732158392287452012-01-19T03:53:19.463-05:002012-01-19T03:53:19.463-05:00Trenchant and correct, as ever. What you neglected...Trenchant and correct, as ever. What you neglected to point out, however, is that the continuation of civil partnerships (as they are called in the UK) and their accompanying 'ceremonies' are in danger of destroying the myth (for myth it be) that all gay men have innate good taste. Let's just ban the be-suited hoopla that we have all had to grit our teeth through...and morning suits, tuxedos,and the like come in two colours. Black and white. No others.<br />Toodle Pip!docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-38707205088609063762012-01-15T15:26:30.399-05:002012-01-15T15:26:30.399-05:00He is now on my list, docmat. As I write this, Ama...He is now on my list, docmat. As I write this, Amazon is preparing a package for me containing Everyman's Library's omnibus of the Bascombe trilogy.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-11186651957083262432012-01-12T05:45:06.071-05:002012-01-12T05:45:06.071-05:00Please read Ford. "The Lay of the Land" ...Please read Ford. "The Lay of the Land" is - effortless. I hate his facility.<br />I got through IJ in surges of 40 pages at a time, interspersed with half-paragraphs( which in Proustian style could in fact have occupied 40+ pages) of a minute or so. It took me nigh on 14 months - which I attribute to a childlike refusal to allow the book to end. Proust took 3 years and then another year for the Kilmartin translation. I will return to DFW; Proust only for reference.I read the posthumous work with anger, awe and frustration.....knowing I would never see the riffs develop....<br />I know the editor had a tuffy on his hands, but I want A.N. Other to redo "The Pale King". Please.docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-78249307960407725362012-01-11T18:19:32.875-05:002012-01-11T18:19:32.875-05:00I looked him up--and the work in question--brillia...I looked him up--and the work in question--brilliant (by which I mean, in particular, the accompanying interview). I call this sentence "The Last of the Mohicans."Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-18611042242236013042012-01-11T18:06:18.674-05:002012-01-11T18:06:18.674-05:00Gaddis I like, and probably The Recognitions made ...Gaddis I like, and probably The Recognitions made an early draft of this list--or perhaps Carpenter's Gothic. But, then, neither is a work that has come to define me or my tastes. Ford belongs to the list of authors I wish I had read (but have yet to bother to read). I made it through Infinite Jest once, so far--given the time, I will reread Proust, the complete 1001 Nights, and then get back to sad, hilarious, brilliant DFW ... someday, I hope.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-52999113506697690452012-01-11T08:03:08.066-05:002012-01-11T08:03:08.066-05:00Your list - so you take the lumps!(I have 46 of th...Your list - so you take the lumps!(I have 46 of these titles on my shelves, so rest easy). Where is William Gaddis? And Richard Ford? Just asking.....Infinite Jest is my 'desert island book'.....and the subject of endless proseletysing( mostly fruitless) on my part.docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-69041265112601593322012-01-11T07:36:06.371-05:002012-01-11T07:36:06.371-05:00Leigh Bowery was a patient of mine during the time...Leigh Bowery was a patient of mine during the time he was posing for the portrait above. Now there was a loss....docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-54016185510866372202012-01-11T07:31:25.378-05:002012-01-11T07:31:25.378-05:00Actually, according to my learned artist friend, M...Actually, according to my learned artist friend, Michael Craig-Martin ( who apart from being an excellent artist will go down in art history as being the principal teacher and mentor of Damien Hirst - no comment)what you are depicting above is in fact an oak tree.docmathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14290983725884867019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-15966441028442034472011-12-31T12:37:54.494-05:002011-12-31T12:37:54.494-05:00Just beautiful.Just beautiful.Domhttp://dominiqueelliott.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-38311023278806722232011-12-25T05:43:15.114-05:002011-12-25T05:43:15.114-05:00KC: I have. I read Infinite Jest when it was first...KC: I have. I read Infinite Jest when it was first published, enthusiastic that somebody was still writing fiction that was self-consciously "important"--and then I devoured Wallace's previous works. Wallace knew his subject: a nation in perpetual childhood, both doltish and high-strung.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-15033922052653088282011-12-25T03:38:35.192-05:002011-12-25T03:38:35.192-05:00I am moved by your bit about how the problem isn&#...I am moved by your bit about how the problem isn't corruption in the conventional sense, but rather a corruption of our culture--a corruption of what we want and are and believe and choose as Americans. Have you heard of Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace?1https://www.blogger.com/profile/08121712697609508978noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-2515183686731457762011-11-02T18:55:08.829-04:002011-11-02T18:55:08.829-04:00What WONDERFUL writing, Joe! Imagine an 'ALRE...What WONDERFUL writing, Joe! Imagine an 'ALREADY COMPLETED' jigsaw picture puzzle, which has been very carefully turned over and has had each of its pieces numbered in sequence. Now, if it were to be broken all apart and its pieces randomly scattered about, how difficult would it be for anyone to reconstruct the puzzle? It'd be an easy task, no sweat at all...almost effortless. <br /><br /> Just like this puzzle, your clearly expressed, profound thoughts seem to fall easily - almost NATURALLY - into place, forming inspiring, thought-provoking sentences! Kudos to this "Credo"! I LOVE the nebula image at the top too. BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL stuff! :DMIKEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03271103252674452235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-30166804805937378132011-10-01T19:28:44.046-04:002011-10-01T19:28:44.046-04:00If you believe that marijuana kills more people th...If you believe that marijuana kills more people than guns, you might be a Tea Party candidate. <br /><br />If you call yourself a Christian and believe that the Bible preaches protecting the wealthy and powerful, you might be a Tea Party candidate.<br /><br />I'm beginning to feel like making fun of these people is just too easy...morelikespacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579614920085665069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-7466493534142401512011-08-13T00:51:43.909-04:002011-08-13T00:51:43.909-04:00Your comments resonate strongly, and as an Anglo-b...Your comments resonate strongly, and as an Anglo-boy in a Latin Peruvian culture, I´ll amplify a little. Just about all that you describe applies to youth here, but WORSE: because the schools, even elite and costly private schools, dispense a lamentable level of education. I´m actually an (apparently) unwashed engineer/scientist, but my secondary education included French and Latin studies. Without actually liking them, I´m now aware of how some classical values have subliminally permeated my mind. Returning then to your specific comments, firstly the appreciation of the epicurian delights of food start and stop at Macdonalds (yes, even in Peru, KFC too!), secondly history, art, music and culture start around 1990 (even pop-music!), and thirdly, their minds are closed by an ignorant yet innocent exclusion of any prior past or future pondering. No choice here, it´s just quite beyond the edge of their "flat" earth. While I am an unrepentant hedonist, this does not mean living myopically for today´s epoch only! Above all I retain (even at a somewhat advanced age!) an open minded wonderment spanning space research, AI, human sexual diversity, the advances of my gym workouts, Vico C rap music, the Wagner Ring, and the literature of Montaigne and Proust, and mastering my Android cell phone. Meanwhile my younger peers at gym are limited to feverishly and continually communicating in monosyllables in Twitter and Facebook. Although it is traditional for older generations to "complain" of the younger, here I perceive a substantial sea-change, in great part wrought by the instant commmunication and instant gratification expectations of the 24X7 online culture. Stepping back, YES, there is a NEW kind of intellectualism, but NO, there is sparse time for reflective and creative internal brain-storming and reflection. This is the surprisingly new foundation of an intellectual poverty that has fully emerged in the 21st century, after the vibrant ages of enlightenment of the 19th and 20th. As the pop song goes "Where are you now ...".<br /><br />Antonicus,<br />from the land of Paddington Bear,<br />Deepest, Darkest Peru !Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-69119827500060511442011-07-22T08:03:54.071-04:002011-07-22T08:03:54.071-04:00I admire him because he's one of few twentieth...I admire him because he's one of few twentieth-century artists who paid attention to human beings. And I've always been drawn to the portrait more than any other genre.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-72228942899911059612011-07-22T07:58:08.431-04:002011-07-22T07:58:08.431-04:00Such great talent.Such great talent.domhttp://dominiqueelliott.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-40766439983449281122011-06-15T13:27:29.249-04:002011-06-15T13:27:29.249-04:00Hello! 1st-time visitor to your excellent blog. It...Hello! 1st-time visitor to your excellent blog. It appears we were both writing about Harold Camping about the same time --see Trainride Of The Enigmas, "Universal Holography And The Gates Of Ishtar". Harold got pretty ill this week, maybe triggered by all the hullabaloo --which he's never had before when his calculations have failed. He's doubtless more saddened by the irresponsible followers you mention than the merely disappointed ones. Energetic worldwide media coverage is not something he's encountered before. I note one reporter described visiting Camping's "compound". Harold lives in a regular old house over in Alameda. I guess we live in times that can't be much further exaggerated.Geo.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16221314320558128986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-7318323499113458092011-05-21T06:15:27.333-04:002011-05-21T06:15:27.333-04:00I'd comment, Joe, but I'm packing for the ...I'd comment, Joe, but I'm packing for the Rapture tonight. And I told the kids they're on their own for dinner tonight.<br /><br />MAwrestlerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-42140183730553734842011-05-14T03:20:31.891-04:002011-05-14T03:20:31.891-04:00I think that Altman, at his powerful best, is prob...I think that Altman, at his powerful best, is probably the best director of ensemble casts ever. This makes his films distinct from most others because we're not asked to identify with a single central character. <br /><br />None of which explains the uniqueness of your relationship with the film, but I think that falls into that ephemeral category of "movie magic".morelikespacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14579614920085665069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-49488529760761659002011-05-09T11:58:19.541-04:002011-05-09T11:58:19.541-04:00James Watt did not invent the steam engine. He did...James Watt did not invent the steam engine. He did, however, modify the concept so ingeniously that he now receives sole credit in our shallow high school history classes. Here is a quote from Watt's Perfect Engine: Steam and the Age of Invention by Ben Marsden (a short and interesting read) that speaks to leisure.<br /><br />Page 58:<br />It was in 1765 that Watt finally hit upon the 'separate condenser'. Strangely, we do not know exactly when. We do know that the idea was clear to him by 29 April 1765, the day he wrote to James Lind about his experiments with a new model of a ‘perfect’ engine. There is a popular story, first told by Watt’s friend John Hart, that the solution suddenly dawned as he wandered pensively across Glasgow Green one Sunday afternoon. (A boulder with an inscription now marks the very spot.) Watt himself recalled the day:<br /><br />"I was thinking upon the engine at the time and had gone as far as the Herd’s house when the idea came into my mind, that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if communication was made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get quit of the condensed steam and injection water, if I used a jet as in Newcomen’s engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First the water might be run off by a descending pipe… and any air might be extracted by a small pump; the second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air… I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."Mark Fernandezhttps://multiplicationoflabor.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7889658833051243065.post-36176042471096685032011-01-12T07:58:47.481-05:002011-01-12T07:58:47.481-05:00It may be as you say, Mary, but I haven't a te...It may be as you say, Mary, but I haven't a tenth of your knowledge and appreciation of good food--and would be lucky to have even a quarter of the knowledge of the rest of my friends. Unlike you I cannot pick out specific spices and other ingredients by taste. And it may be, as another friend said of my taste in interiors, that I have some taste but not the money to match my taste. Still my propensity to put, in general, cheap domestic beers on par with imports and handcrafted local brews and my rock-solid devotion to burgers probably will bar me from Foody Heaven when I die. That's okay, though, so long as there are McRibs and soft-serve ice cream in Hell.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03931398523674902390noreply@blogger.com