Time Capsule - Record Heat

Record 100+ temperature recorded in several states...wildfires blaze in Colorado...wild storms knock out power to millions in the midwest and mid-atlantic states...Northern Florida is dealing with the aftermath of storms that dropped 20+ inches of rain...

John Roberts - Mystery Man

Well - it looks like John Roberts has recently made a name for himself writing the majority (5-4) decision in the case upholding President Obama's healthcare law (the "Affordable Care Act" I think is its official name). I'm trying to find out more about this youthful Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The only book I know of that contains some brief biographical tidbits, is called The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Based on the title alone, and from what I've read, there's bound to be some hidden drama and intrigue surrounding this guy. Let's hope...

Paul Simon - Songwriter

What is America's favorite Paul Simon song? Any nominations? So much to choose from: "Sounds of Silence," "I am a Rock," "Kathy's Song," "Richard Cory," "April She Will Come," "Leaves that are Green,"  "A Most Peculiar Man," "Somewhere They Can't Find Me," "Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall," "The Dangling Conversation," "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her," "Patterns,  "A Poem Written on the Underground Wall," "The 59th Street Bridge Song," "Homeward Bound," "America," "Old Friends," "Fakin' It," "Mrs. Robinson," "Hazy Shade of Winter," "At the Zoo," "The Boxer," "Baby Driver," "The Only Living Boy in New York," "Keep the Customer Satisfied,"  "Mother and Child Reunion," "Loves Me Like a Rock," "Kodachrome," "My Little Town," "Hearts and Bones," "The Boy in the Bubble," "Graceland," "Born at the Right Time," "The Obvious Child," "The Afterlife" - The hits just keep on coming...

Alice Munro - On Stories

“A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.” ― Alice Munro

Chagall's Circus Horse Rider

Kierkegaard on "Infinite Absolute Negativity"

In Part Two of The Concept of Irony,  Kierkegaard begins by addressing Socratic irony once again, as if to underscore how this strange half-playful, half-serious attitude, so emblematic of the individual and his subjective awareness, is crucial to Socrates' spiritual mission. It is a curious, questioning tendency that exists out of respect for the daimon, a meticulous search for a Truth that lies beyond the whatever public opinion or historical actuality is able to express. Because it is so reluctant to affirm and to eager to expose inadequacies in speeches and logoi, Socratic irony, for some represents a destructive, nay-saying, atheistical force that mocks sacred, settled opinions; for others it heralds the beginning of a negative theology of sorts that is constantly testing the tradition, smashing idols as it goes, while making room for a divine logos able to embraces and explain the full complexity of the human predicament...

...irony [is] the infinite absolute negativity. It is negativity, because it only negates; it is infinite, because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. The irony established nothing, because that which is to be established lies behind it.... Irony is a qualification of subjectivity. In irony, the subject is negatively free, since the actuality that is supposed to give the subject content is not there. He is free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject, but he is negatively free and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him. But this very freedom, this suspension, gives the ironist a certain enthusiasm, because he becomes intoxicated, so to speak, in the infinity of possibilities .... But if irony is a qualification of subjectivity, then it must manifest itself the first time subjectivity makes its appearance in world history. Irony is, namely, the first and most abstract qualification of subjectivity. This points to the historical turning point where subjectivity made its appearance for the first time, and with this we have come to Socrates.... For him, the whole given actuality had entirely lost its validity; he had become alien to the actuality of the whole substantial world. This is one side of irony, but on the other hand he used irony as he destroyed Greek culture. His conduct toward it was at all times ironic; he was ignorant and knew nothing but was continually seeking information from others; yet as he let the existing go on existing, it foundered. He kept on using this tactic until the very last, as was especially evident when he was accused. But his fervor in this service consumed him, and in the end irony overwhelmed; he became dizzy, and everything lost its reality (p. 262ff.).

Higher than the Animals, Lower than the Angels, Yet Unhappier than Both...

When thinking about the problem of evil and suffering that philosophers and theologians commonly grapple with, I think also of animals and their lot in life (so memorably described in that poem by Walt Whitman (see below*), how little they complain despite all the "injustices" they endure on this earth, their constant struggle to survive, the harsh elements they're exposed to, their soon-forgotten pains and deprivations, their subordinate position relative to us, the hostile forces that that make them expendable as creatures, their scary self-reliance, locked in (as they all are) to the vicious cycle of predator and prey, forced to kill or be killed, lacking the comforts of technology and civilization. No matter how nightmarish their environment may seem, their limited, insular, brutish mode of awareness keeps them somehow "placid" and "self-contained" - even "serene" - as Whitman might say, while we humans, by contrast, emerging from the same environment, have taught ourselves (over time) the art of unhappiness - fueled by feelings of outrage, indignation, disappointment, regret - which we see as normal because we can imagine better outcomes unconstrained by fate or necessity; we have dreams and ideals, we build,  we create, we envision - thereby leap-frogging over our fellow mammals who never expect much more beyond than what already is. Our more restless form of consciousness -  wired as it is to visions of possibility and transformation -  seems like a major anomaly, the source of greater pride, dominion, feelings of superiority, but also greater misery.  Animals in general seem more normal and well-adjusted precisely because of their complacency; by contrast, we are the sick ones possessed by expectations that can never be fully satisfied, who make demands that defy plausibility, who measure ourselves against the status and privilege of others, who crave increased levels of power and control over circumstances, who "live for" improvements sometimes to no avail - and when our demands are rejected,  this lack of "progress" infuriates us,  embitters us, renders us,  by turns, angry or distraught, headstrong or hyped-up. But are we correct to react this way? Do we have rationality and morality on our side here? Isn't there something entirely needless and gratuitous about this tendency of ours to "make a stink" whenever anything goes wrong? Unhappiness seems unnatural. Because to be human (if it means anything) calls for us to reject the way of animals and seek for something higher. But by claiming this spiritual ground beyond what Fate or evolutionary biology has ordained for us, we cannot help but stumble upon a theology* of sorts in which some God or vision of God comes to mind as the goal - i.e. the model for the type of existence we are aiming at, as well as the invisible antagonist to our immediate demands. God's transcendence helps fill the vacuum, helps account for our human rebellion against the [harshly impersonal] "way of the world." One could look at this refusal of our lower animal nature in one sense as a necessary rebellion, born out of our first burgeoning awareness of this strange malady - our unique unhappiness, our sense of what might have been if only... our feeling of being out of joint as creatures within the natural horizon.  Out of such misery, there grows a desire for healing,  a demand for justice,  an inchoate faith, a search for answers, a quest for wholeness. As faith - it is a in fact a rational striving, a yearning to bring about whatever is intangible - i.e.  "not fully present" or "not fully actualized" "not fully humanized" in response to some sacred/divine prompting to "overcome" the world. Understood in this sense, faith would appear as our most basic human tendency - a secular tendency - the underlying attitude with which we project ourselves freely, defiantly and willfully into the future so as to negate the present set of circumstances/injustices. But if faith (so defined) does indeed represent a new stage of human development, a form of consciousness that is teleological - i.e. oriented toward a higher set of goals - released from the constraints of animal life,  then it would seem that the question about God (about who or what God is) would emerge simultaneously as a form of discourse relating to this self-conscious activity. Call it religion or religious speculation, or even mere story-telling or myth-making about God or gods. Such a discourse, as evidenced by a particular mode of civilization, is necessary to help us imagine that upper echelon of divine perfection, the ideal realm, which always relates by way of contrast to our present sense of identity. [Note: If at this point, you are tempted to interject: that this higher realm comprised of God, heaven, angels, etc. is a mere product of imagination and has no physical reality - i.e. science has no evidence of such realities - is it also the case that as an upper echelon of possibility - a category forever hovering above and beyond our present state of existence - that it has no ontological status? I'm not so sure we can simply dismiss this question - despite its metaphysical overtones.]

I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.”
― Walt Whitman