I really have made a good-faith effort to exercise my brain by reading Plato’s Republic this week. I’ve picked it up, carried it around, even gotten through the first half of Book VII. But it is sloooooow going. I don’t know if it’s the drowse-inducing weather, the demands of kids and dog and household, the stress of coping with an out-of-town spouse, or just that it requires so much concentration […]
A dear friend from my college days at Texas A&M University majored in agronomy. When people asked what that meant she would reply, “Soils.” Only in Lez’s East Texas accent it came out, “Souls.” I was reminded of that after reading about Norman Borlaug. Norman Borlaug saved a billion lives. That is not a typo. He saved a thousand million human beings. How is that possible? Dr. Borlaug was a […]
In the morning before I get up I like to read the daily prayer/information of the day from Universalis. This is an on-line publishing group that puts the Liturgy of the Hours, mass readings, and other Catholic information out into the ether for public viewing. I get it on my cell phone. When it’s a saint’s day there’s usually some straightforward explanation of what the person did to earn sainthood. […]
It has come to my attention that the Big M does not like being drawn as Homer Simpson. Therefore, I have re-cast in his role the fetchingly handsome and charming Jimmy Stewart. True, the Big M does not weigh 160 pounds or stammer when he gets angry, but otherwise I think it’s a good fit. He regularly talks people down from ledges (in a metaphorical preventing a run on the […]
I crammed in as many lectures on the History of Science as I could yesterday before the DVDs were due back to the library. “Nerd!” the Big M would shout in his best Homer Simpson voice when he’d bust me watching these. And yes, the good doctor of philosophy on TV was sporting a classically nerdy v-necked sweater over chambray shirt and red tie combo, plus glasses and mustache while […]
Back to St. Monica and her son, St. Augustine of Hippo. As long as we’re talking Confessions, I will confess something shameful: the first time I ever heard of St. Augustine (outside of the lovely turf grass) was on The Simpsons. Ned Flanders is about to baptize the Simpson children when Homer intervenes and the water hits him instead: Bart: Wow, Dad, you took a baptismal for me. How do […]
Si quieres paz, lucha por justicia. That was a bumper sticker I saw in my church parking lot this morning. If you want peace, fight for justice. What is justice? Plato wrote his Republic in an attempt to answer that question. He wrote in dialogues – conversations that read sort of like a play. Socrates, the lead character of the Republic, is asked to explain the meaning of justice. It […]
I once worked with a woman who believed the lyrics to Sheryl Crow’s song went, “All I want to do is Hooked on Phonics until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.” Listen to the song. It really does sound like that. I’ve sung Hooked on Phonics ever since, in homage to Jennifer. Besides having a street in L.A. named after her, St. Monica is famous for being the […]
Flabby Brain 