From the Notebooks Russia came to Christianity late, in 988, but it came to philosophy even later, not producing its own original philosopher until the eighteenth century: Gregory Skovoroda (1722-1794). At the age of 43, Skovoroda, the self-proclaimed “Russian Socrates,” became a strannik, a wanderer, who spent the

The Stranger is a description of the last days of the narrator, a man named Mersault. Mersault is the mature Holden Caulfield. He goes through his life with little thought of others; primarily because he gives little thought to himself. He just goes about and lets the events of life

Miscellaneous Rambling PSA: Keep hydrated. For about nine days, I was suffering from severe dizziness, lightheadedness, mild nausea, and headaches. I was afraid I might be having a stroke. I finally saw the doctor, who told me (kindly, but with a hint of disgust), "You're dehydrated. Start

> Kids are going to grow up thinking: "I guess the Nazis were annoying. Apparently they wanted less immigration and some tariffs." > — Tom Woods (@ThomasEWoods) June 23, 2018 [https://twitter.com/ThomasEWoods/status/1010547044753334272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Miscellaneous Rambling In ten years of gardening, this has to be the worst weather ever. Late winter storm, followed by lots of heat, followed by rain and rain and rain. We got a little respite, then more Noah action, then beastly hot weather, then another flood the last two days.

Brews You Can Use Wow, I'd never heard or thought of this before: Pass a law that increases the price of booze so poor people can't afford it [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-44520991]. It's a new law in Wales and

This beautiful Twitter site relentlessly adds to the pain of watching Europe throw away its heritage: > The wealth of Roman architecture makes Pula (ancient Polensium) a standout in #Croatia [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Croatia?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] where you'll find a well-preserved

Midweek Rambling Kinda interesting: Inside Amazon's $3.5 Million Competition to Make Alexa Chat Like a Human [https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17453994/amazon-alexa-prize-2018-competition-conversational-ai-chatbots] . If you don't want to wait for the results, you can use the

Miscellaneous Rambling The heat has been unbearable. Rain permitting, I hope to make it out to the produce site to see if the lettuce is bolting. I hope not. We're hoping for our first mega-harvest of the year. I was pleasantly surprised by the current performance by

Miscellaneous Rambling Amen to that Nassim Taleb quote a posted yesterday. "[A]ny argument (such as the one now used for illegal immigration) that is supported by pictures/narratives of children is called PEDOPHRASTY. Actually, use of children should weaken an argument." I strongly agree. I'm