Author: Rufus F.

Sophists have gotten a bad rap, largely due to Plato. Dedicated to teaching arête or excellence to young men, their emphasis on rhetoric and persuasion might not have really been indifferent to truth or...

Speaking of public decorum and the surveillance culture (two recent subjects), over at Feministe they’re telling us about the ihollaback iPhone application, which allows the user to photograph street harassers (à la hollabacknyc) and...

Fine, I’ll go on record about whether San Francisco government workers should have their pop taken away, in case I ever have to testify about this before a Congressional committee. Nope. I don’t think...

As I get older, I find myself, really against my will, struck much more often by how far standards of decorum have fallen into desuetude. My usual evening walk will include at least a...

Okay, just so we’re all clear on this: Once upon a time, I proposed that we read the book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” by Chris Hedges...

I just wanted to do a quick test and see if I can post something here without infecting the site. Seriously, I don’t know what the deal was with my last post. I think...

When we occupy ourselves with countering other people’s ideas, are we defining our own ideas in a roundabout way or just killing time? The Western style of argumentation includes a strong oppositional facet that...

A screaming came across the sky. The pine needled hush of cottage country was briefly, but violently, punctured by the deafening whoosh of low-flying fighter jets this weekend. Passing directly over our family cabin,...

It is a strange irony that the French, for all their criticisms of America, tend so often to discover and celebrate great American artists long before their compatriots. Such is the case with Sam...

We can’t completely condemn Medea: after all, she was seduced and manipulated by the Corinthian warrior Jason, tricked into using her magic to win the golden fleece for his people, betraying her family and...

Continuing with our detour into the Buddhist scriptures- ‘wandering on the way’ as it were- I am struck by how little the western tradition has readied me to read them. In Christianity, for example,...

Today, June 19th, is “Juneteenth”: the date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. It was June 19th, 1865, that Union General Gordon Granger, having arrived with troops the day before, read...

The death of Socrates brings us, in a strange way, to the life of the Buddha. Socrates came to the conclusion that mental/spiritual enlightenment requires us to renounce bodily craving and our need to...

With blogging, I sometimes wonder if I’ve really accomplished anything by linking to another text and saying, “Hey, look at this bizarre thing some dude wrote!” I might just be jawboning and gossiping here...

At Feministe, Jill writes about a heartsickening story of a 13 year old’s self-induced abortion after being impregnated by a 30 year old: “… And her community and her culture — the people who are...

First off: Welcome to Austin Bramwell and Lisa Kramer! The more the merrier around here. Okay, the Meno dialogue deals with some of the same themes as the later Phaedo dialogue, particularly the idea...

Socrates brings up Aristophanes’s play The Clouds during his trial in order to respond to its unflattering portrayal of him, which was both well received and unfair. Apparently, it was too well received since...

How will they get all that oil out of the Gulf of Mexico? Paul Stamets suggests mycoremediation: using mushrooms to break down and consume the oil. It apparently works on land. Not to mention...

Stepping into the way-back machine, Pam’s House Blend brings to light a CBS report on homosexuality, circa 1967: “With all of the bitter battles for each step of progress, when you watch something like this it...

Stepping from the Crito to the Phaedo dialogue, Plato moves onto more solid ground by switching the discussion to the soul; here, we might not agree with Socrates’s ideas about existence beyond death, but...