Iowa Man Found With Scruples; Wife “Unconcerned”

Davenport
An Iowa man has been found with Scruples, a dangerous meme known to infect whole communities. Estes Meridian, the unidentified man’s wife, expressed her support while he deals with the implications of his new meme.
“I had the Scruples too when I was young,” Aunt E. (as she is known locally) reflected. “In a word, I’m truly unconcerned.”
Local officials have agreed [...]

Greek Paideia and the Bible

From Werner Jaeger’s Early Christianity and Greek Paideia
As the Greek paideia consisted of the entire corpus of Greek literature, so the Christian paideia is the Bible. Literature is paideia, in so far as it contains the highest norms of human life, which in it have taken on their lasting and most impressive form. It is [...]

Postmodern Metaphysics and Evolution

Christos Yannaras is a fascinating Greek philosopher of whom I know too little to say anything more than that what I have read has been mind-expanding, explanatory, and beyond my grasp.
In his book Postmodern Metaphysics, he includes what he calls two “parentheses,” the first on “the logical place of chance” and the second on “the [...]

Classical Education in Corinth (I)

The Corinthian church of the first century has rather a bad reputation, but I wonder if people thought about her the same way back then.
Don’t get me wrong; they were a mess. In fact, the first Christian text we have from the Christian era that is not included in the Bible is a letter from Clement, the [...]

What do you know?

For some time I have been saying that all teaching and all knowledge begins with the senses. Now I don’t know why I ever said that because I realize I don’t and never really did believe it.
I think I simply didn’t realize what I was saying.
This notion is probably rationally absurd and certainly not Biblical.
For [...]

Music and Toxins

Very thoughtful post about responding to the cultural effluence that we call music. It’s called Toxic Shock, dated 7/30/9 and you can get there through this link.
He quotes a brain researcher who points out that after 25 years of work he still can’t affect a mind the way one simple song can. You need to [...]

Cato reviews health care

You can’t get a detailed discussion through the media, but if you are taking this health care debate seriously (and God help America if you aren’t), this ABC news bit does a nice job of framing some of the key points. I found 2:35-3:16 particularly important.

As one who is gravely concerned [...]

Memory and Transfiguration

Our memory is not logical or journalistic or rational. Lewis compared it, in his book on 16th century English literature, to the difference between going on a train and growing as a crop.
Ride a train and you reach a station, which you then leave behind for the next, and then again you leave the next behind for the [...]

What is a totalitarian state?

In general I don’t like to comment on political developments because there is so much smoke and so much heat generated by so much media that it is counterproductive to add to it and because it is too hard to figure out what is actually going on.
Politics is political so almost everything everybody says or [...]

Chocolate and Natural Affection

So I walk out of the bank at the corner of Union and Cabarrus and I cross the street heading down-slope toward my office, when I pass the Chocolatier and I have to stop right here.
The first thing you need to know about the Chocolatier is that they make the finest chocolate I have found [...]