I am become more convinced that the best and possibly only truly good philosophy of right action is this one: Do No Harm. As the title of the post proposes, we can likely only approach…
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Occupy Wall Street: A Sit-in Defining Being Against the Doing
Two bits, more than a shave and haircut, on the “unrest” that appears to be morphing nicely into actual thought. Both of these from the web magazine The New Significance: “A web magazine exploring revolutionary…
Sunday Sermon: (Nobel) Prizing Doing
What are people for? This is the title of a book of essays by Wendell Berry (and one of the essays within). I’d say people are not generally for anything. But that is probably not…
On Education (Redux)
I’ve been pondering what it is schools do and what it is I can imagine they might do instead. So you might gather from that statement that I do not agree with our current educational…
Minecraft, Or The Play’s the (Latest and Last) Thing
UPDATE: A Literary Addendum I know a boy who plays Minecraft somewhat as if it were his quest to reach the nirvana state that comes of internalizing the Jesus Prayer. I suppose he substitutes “Steve”…
Human Science…But a Passing Fable
In some particulars, perhaps, the most imposing physiognomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This aspect is sublime. In thought a fine human brow…
Ignorance and Charity: One Man’s Garbage…
Correction in text–12/1, 12:38 This Foreign Policy blog post was put on the Facebooks today by a friend (h/t Kelly), “Haiti doesn’t need your old t-shirt.” True, too true. Here’s the gist, and it’s a…
Radiating from Our Senses, Pedagogically Yours
The poet May Swenson, in her preface to a selection of Tomas Transtromer poems she had translated into English, offers what might be the perfect vision for public education: Signals and responses radiating from our…
Tyranny at Home, Death Abroad: The Real Legacy of 9/11
What’s hard about yesterday, about honoring tragic events, is that it must necessarily be conducted only on a symbolic level. These are memorials. As such they are at best expressions of real, local grief and…
Now You Know What A Horse Is: Views On Education in the 19th Century
Schools are scenes of extreme manipulation and coercion. Our national and state interest in them is less than benign, or as the soft-hearted among us might say, less than caring. Let us, residents of our…