Something for Sunday Morning
"[T]he soul moves in the opposite direction, lightly and swiftly moving upwards
once it is released from sensuous and earthly attachments, soaring from the
world below up towards the heavens." Gregory of Nyssa
Eric Scheske
Outage
We had planned to resume regular blogging, but were thwarted by the Norse gods
of the Internet. We're not sure what happened yesterday evening, but the TDE
site and many others on the web were down for hours.
Who Needs Beer . . .
when you have pi to avert ennui?
> Akira Haraguchi, 59, managed to recite the number's first 83,431 decimal places,
almost doubling the previous record held by another Japanese.
> He had to stop three hours into his recital after losing his place, and had to
start
We're Back
The raid on Somalia was a success. Eric Scheske made it back home with seven
treasures.
Truth be known, Eric wasn't in Somalia (shocker, shocker). He was in Houghton
Lake, Michigan, a tourist resort area in central/northern Michigan (lower
peninsula). The "seven treasures" refer to
Absalom
Absalom has one of the oddest deaths in the Encyclopedia Britannica. During a
battle in the forest, he got his flowing hair caught in the branches of an oak
tree, which allowed his enemy, Joab, to catch him and slay him.
We'd never heard this story during all
Culture and Barbarism
The primary difference between the cultured man and the barbarian is a
difference in permanence. The cultured man values things that are long lasting,
that provide on-going value, that make a difference in the long run. He will
accordingly make short-term sacrifices in order to obtain the long-
Louis XIV
> An Italian chemist came to Louis XIV with plans for the first bacteriological
weapon. Louis XIV refused. He never developed the weapon, never used it against
other European nations. But even more impressive, he paid the chemist an annual
salary to keep the bioweapon a secret from the world.
Lenin is Rolling Over in Grave (Yet Again)
LOTR fans are staging battle scenes around Moscow:
> In the summer, woods around Moscow, as well as Moscow's biggest parks often teem
with people who look like they've just walked off the set of “Lord of the
Rings” – swords, armor, the works. The parks and
Ugly Is As Ugly Does
A man who rejects truth and goodness tends to hold the ugly in high esteem. If
there are enough men like that walking around, we become a culture that holds
the ugly in high esteem. As we become a culture that holds the ugly in high
esteem, we become a
Kierkegaard
> Kierkegaard was haunted by the fact that his Dad--when he was a struggling
tenant farmer--stood on a hill and solemnly cursed God, an act that Kierkegaard
believed doomed the entire family.
Source: The Know-It-All.
We're a bit skeptical about K's reaction